“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.” –

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

Inspirational Quotes

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All is seen in the brilliance of sunlight.

Darkness hides the obvious.

In the darkness, there is only whatever guiding light comes from within.

I know a woman whom I’ll call Marilyn who has lived through more trials and tribulations than anyone should have to endure. Her inner light was nearly snuffed out more than once…

Marilyn’s Story

She came from a broken home, and what she did not know until she was a woman grown is that her father beat her mother, and so her mother left everything while pregnant with Marilyn to make a new life for her child and herself. Marilyn’s mother always worked hard, always scraped by week to week.

Marilyn lived in an environment of noise, violence, and strife of many kinds. She never did very well in school, and who couldn’t understand why, given her home life?

She hooked up with a boy in high school and became a statistic…

As so often happens, she became the next generation of abused women. Only she felt ashamed, so she never told anyone about it, and her mother still had  not talked to her about her father. The horrible pattern of abuse played itself out once again into another woman’s life.

She lived with regular beatings and demoralizing words that numbered as the stars for years as she became a wife and a mother of 3 girls.

One day, her youngest daughter of 6 years old looked straight into her eyes and said…

“Never let anybody make you feel bad. You’re a child of God!”

Marilyn melted to the floor and burst into tears, because she had said those very words to her daughters countless times. “You’re right…you’re right,” she said between sobs. She needed to give herself and her children a life transformation makeover and get herself out of this  horrible situation.

that same night, the 3 girls sat their mother down and told her “This is how it is…we gotta get out of here.” Marilyn discovered that all 3 of her beautiful daughters had begun to find their power, and they were about to help her find hers!

The eldest, her teenaged daughter, had been squirreling away almost all her money from her first job for almost a year in order to help them make a new start..Her middle daughter had researched and found a safe house, and even her littlest girl had saved any money she got for the family.

Marilyn and her girls made their escape, but their troubles were far from over.

They had to flee to a different state because the husband had, against all odds, found the safehouse and threatened them. The good thing was this action put him in prison.

They made it to a safehouse in a little town and Marilyn began rebuilding their lives. She participated in a program that taught her self confidence and self esteem, and she discovered a power in her that she never knew she had. She could instill in children a sense of value and purpose that for years she never saw in herself.

Through the self sufficiency program, she also discovered that her talent for making pies and cakes was about to bring about her transformation makeover.

The owner of a local bakery, whom I’ll call Lois, was finding it more and more difficult to work because of severe arthritis. She also wanted to find a protégé to whom she could “pass the baton,” so to speak, when it was time to retire, yet nobody had sufficient drive and skill to take her place.

Marilyn began working as a baker, and she was great about making the customers feel welcome. If something needed done, such as the floor swept or the flour refilled, she took the initiative to get it done without having to be told.

Lois saw this and began mentoring her, and after a few weeks, it was clear she had found her protege. They began hiring other women from the shelter, and while they baked, they found themselves developing confidence. They rebuilt their lives while assembling cakes. They cut out a new life for themselves as they cut out cookies.

When Lois suffered a stroke, Marilyn stepped in and made sure everything ran smoothly. Ultimately, Marilyn took over the shop and hired only women from the shelter.

Marilyn’s Transformation

At first, Marilyn’s inner light was squashed, but part of her knew there was more to life than her circumstances…because she taught her daughters what she herself could not initially find the strength to do

Once she awoke to her own power, with a little help from her children and the self sufficiency program, she developed her inner strength, skills and confidence and found the makings of a leader.

In short, she found her power, and it came from the depths of all the pain she had endured

Through the bleakest experiences, her inner light never did quite snuff out, and once she got out on her own, she became like that stained glass window in the dark from the quote. The world saw her beauty, and she kindled the light in other women who had suffered similar circumstances.

Finding the Power in Your Own Pain

No matter what you’ve endured, there is power in it.

Think of all the people you admire. Did they have effortless life’s of ease?…or did they endure great suffering, trials and tribulations?

I know your answer…they overcame hardships.

As a human being, you are hard-wired to feel one particular story, which demonstrates this phenomenon in action.

Joseph Campbell called it the “Hero’s Journey”, and it is a pattern known to every race, every culture, every group of people on the planet—even those that had no contact with outside civilizations.

Understanding the Hero’s Journey

I have broken the Hero’s Journey into 3 easy-to-understand steps, which you’ll see on the Storytelling Templates page.

First, the person is dissatisfied with life and goes on a quest for the solution.

Then, the emerging hero goes through numerous trials and tribulations. at times, they consider giving up, and “the bad guys” almost win, but in the end…

The hero finally achieves the object of the quest and emerges victorious.

Every person is a hero in POTENTIAL.

When Marilyn put up with the abuse, she was NOT the emerging hero. Finally, one of her children was the herald of change for her that spurred her into action.

Once she decided to make a change, she had to suffer poverty, fear, and more as she fled to a new state and started her life anew.

Her road of trials lasted several years before she finally broke the pattern of abuse for herself and her children forever by finding her power and teaching other women and children to find theirs.

Finding the Power in the Road of Trials

The emerging hero goes through a “road of trials”, just like any person who has overcome obstacles to achieve a goal or live a dream. These tests develop character and bring out heretofore hidden abilities.

Here’s the quick version of your story of pain into power…

1. You finally went for something big.
2. You hit a pile of obstacles.
3. Assuming you stuck with it – you gained more than your dream.

You can find the power in your own pain by looking back over your difficulties and asking yourself what you have learned as a result…or what you have gained that you otherwise might not have had.

Marilyn would never have known she had it in her to run a bakery, let alone to overcome her own situation, had she not been through all those things.

Much as you may SAY you wish things could be easy, you don’t develop your abilities through comfort. There’s no impetus to change if everything’s moving along smoothly. Besides, humans are designed to strive!

You, too, can become much stronger through your difficulties than you ever will by having things handed to you.

Resource

If you would like to accelerate the process of learning from your troubles, the Find the Message in Your mess .Package is for you! I’ll show you how to make sense of your own road of trials by revealing my own so you truly see how everything you may have interpreted as “bad” or “hard” actually helped you grow.

You’ll begin to see a pattern that is fundamental to humanity but that few people comprehend.

Here’s what one woman said after hearing me share this teaching at a live event:

“It allowed me to relive an experience that empowered me and also empowered my company…and it also gave me a greater sense of who I am…The way Ronda was able to break things down, it showed me a cycle that I had never paid much attention to, but everything she said made so much sense.”
–Muriel Moton

Understanding this pattern and applying the teaching to your life will make a huge difference. You’ll receive an audio teaching along with various tools so that you discover things like…

The typical “characters” you’re going to meet along the way (both the helpful and seemingly not so helpful ones). This means you can understand that naggy neighbor and that apparent dream-stealer for what roles they are playing to HELP you along your way.

Example: The “gate-keeper” who seems to be stopping you from moving forward, is actually making sure you’re ready for the trials ahead…even though you feel like they’re just being a pain in the seat!

The in-depth teaching about the hero’s journey and how it applies to YOU. This will put a whole new spin on your troubles. You’ll find that by understanding this pattern and how it works, you will find hidden sources of power working for your good.

Find the Message in Your mess Now.

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“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only…