What makes us who we are?

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Permalink Reply by Dawn L. Billings on September 16, 2008 at 1:33am

Dear Kimberly, I recommend that when you think "What the F?" The F words you are thinking about are Faith, Fortitude, Fitness, Family, Friends, Focus and FORWARD. I learned these awesome F words from my brilliant son Tony Billings II. He was talking about people "F-ing Up their lives" in a GREAT way. It is time to change the way we look at things. Maybe it is time you really began to F-up yours? Think forward, don't look back, you already know what's back there. Control is an illusion, we have to think about what it is we dream of and the difference that is in our hearts to make, then move with wild passion in that direction. The better we understand what moves us, what excites us, what wows us, the more we understand how to use our time, talents and energies to get us there. This is your TIME, your time to move in the direction that lights you up. Leave the past behind and discover the F words that will really transform your life in to the life you dream. I hope these wise words of my amazing young son help. Sweet blessings, Dawn Billings

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Permalink Reply by Debbie Ducic on September 16, 2008 at 11:26am

Oh Dawn!
I LOVE that perception you paint with your son's wisdom! How true it is because everything is perception based on where our head is at.

Kimberly, sometimes things happen in our lives that seem to knock us way off the course we had planned for ourselves, following the best practices the world tells us we should and we shake our heads in disbelief and wonder what the "F"...just like you said. I call it the "Cosmic 2'x4'" and it has smacked me HARD a few times.

Ya know what I learned? That the universe (God) knows WAY better than I do what will fulfill my purpose and my passion! Now I have internalized all of those F's above exactly because of those 2'x4' experiences (which, by the way could easily have incapacitated me.)

I'll give you an example:

My husband and kids lived in Vail, Colorado for many years. He was a ski instructor and I managed a high end ski shop. Neither of us made enough money to buy our own home in Vail, so we rented small "condos" (employee housing type) as did everybody else we knew at outrageous amounts year after year, hoping some day we would be able to buy through some miracle!

Well, through several miracles, actually, a local architect, who had built a mansion for himself down valley, was stuck not being able to sell his home in Vail because of some foundational and structural issues. His wife worked at ski school and heard that we had to move out of our condo and were looking for another place to live. She invited us to come look at her home to buy.

Although we felt it was an exercise in futility, we went to see it, LOVED it and explained the challenges we would have buying it and yet 2 months later she and I had negotiated a lease option deal between us and we moved our 2 kids and 2 dogs into a 2800 sq. ft., 3 level duplex with the most INCREDIBLE views overlooking the Vail Valley! We were SO BLESSED!

Well, 18 months later, we were able to exercise the option and now it was OUR HOME! AMAZING!

Thinking we were going to live there the rest of our lives, on January 15th, midnight, one of the coldest nights of the year, after snowing 12 feet in the previous month, an 8 inch water main on the street above our home, (it was built at the bottom of a steep mountain) busted! Over 2 million gallons of water pounded on, in and around our home for close to three hours before they shut the water off.

Long story short, we fought 3 insurance companies, moved 5 times and were threatened with bankruptcy for a year before we got a fair settlement. Disgusted with our experience, we looked around at what else we could buy with the money we received and it was a drop in the bucket compared to the prices in the valley, so we left the valley and bought a WONDERFUL place in the foothills of the Wet Mountains only 30 miles from my home town of Pueblo (where we live today).

Now get this...for many years I had dreamed about having a bright, sunny home with a river on the property and a bedroom surrounded by windows or glass doors that allowed me to feel I was sleeping in nature (I guess you've figured out I'm a nature nut:). God knew my dream for years and so the universe directed us to what we nicknamed "Heaven on Earth" at a time when we were needed by my sick Elders, so we were given 5 of the most beautiful acres with an ancient canyon and mountain stream in our back yard.

It had 4300 sq. ft. of living area that we could share with my grandmother and Dad who need care as they were both in wheel chairs. My husband is also an amazing carpenter and contractor, so he built me my dream bedroom that overlooked the canyon and the majestic Greenhorn Mountain.

I could hear the water streaming and the birds singing every morning before opening my eyes and when I did open my eyes the sunrises and the green or golden leaves would greet me. I could walk into my jucuzzi or my deck from my bedroom and every once in a while, talk to the deer in my yard and snap a million incredible photo's (I LOVE nature photography).

Now, if I had tried to PLAN how this all would work out, if it was up to me or my husband to make it happen the way it did to experience this incredible period in our lives...HAH! I wouldn't suggest that anybody have to go through the pain we did to realize a dream, but sometimes it is what we are supposed to experience to achieve the "big picture" God plans for us.

That is why FAITH, FORTITUDE, FAMILY, FRIENDS, FOCUS and FORWARD means so much to me! Thank you Dawn and Tony for such FABULOUS insight!

Thank you Kimberly for bringing up the subject and reminding me, for we truly are one in spirit and OUR time is NOW!

LOVE
Deb

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Permalink Reply by Kimberly on September 16, 2008 at 5:06pm

Fabulous, is my word and I use it all day long. I love the comments and inspiration I receive and give everyday. Thanks!

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Permalink Reply by Kathy Peterson on November 20, 2008 at 5:07pm

Lovely Dawn, just lovely. Hope you don't mind if I quote you on that - very often!!

Dawn L. Billings said:

Dear Kimberly, I recommend that when you think "What the F?" The F words you are thinking about are Faith, Fortitude, Fitness, Family, Friends, Focus and FORWARD. I learned these awesome F words from my brilliant son Tony Billings II. He was talking about people "F-ing Up their lives" in a GREAT way. It is time to change the way we look at things. Maybe it is time you really began to F-up yours? Think forward, don't look back, you already know what's back there. Control is an illusion, we have to think about what it is we dream of and the difference that is in our hearts to make, then move with wild passion in that direction. The better we understand what moves us, what excites us, what wows us, the more we understand how to use our time, talents and energies to get us there. This is your TIME, your time to move in the direction that lights you up. Leave the past behind and discover the F words that will really transform your life in to the life you dream. I hope these wise words of my amazing young son help. Sweet blessings, Dawn Billings

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