Wednesday, January 13, 2010

The Diary of Sacred Stories of Stacy Duplease of Stories by Stacy

THE RAMBLINGS OF A STAY-HOME WIFE, WRITER, COFFEE LOVER, AND AVID READER
This is a New Year. More importantly, it’s the start of a new decade.

I’ve always thought of the New Year as a new beginning. It’s a clean slate I get to choose how to color and fill. Therefore, I’m usually excited about the chance of a New Year. Granted, I believe that a new year and a new beginning can be any date we so choose and at any time we choose.

For some reason, this year, it’s different.

And I’m not entirely sure why.

I feel lost in some ways. Found in others.

Maybe the stress of moving to Las Vegas has finally caught up with me.

Or, it could be something else.

I can’t remember feeling this way about a New Year in… Well, forever. New Year has always been good to me. I like the concept of a new beginning.

Why is it different this year?

Again, I’m not sure.

Maybe I just need a break. Or some air. I’ve been cooped up in the house for three days now.

But, I do know this much. I’m taking a break from fiction writing. No more novels for a while. (Dear Lord, that means I need new business cards again. Hopefully my husband won’t kill me. Lol.)

I also know this. I need to return to my first love. It’s that of journaling or journal keeping, or diajouring as I call it (a combination of journaling and diary writing). When all else seems out of whack, my journal helps me to get it together—personally and professionally.

Do you ever feel all over the place? Lost? Out of sorts? Tell me about it, please. Send me an email to:

stacyduplease@storiesbystacy.com

Or, attach a comment at the end of this blog post.

Thanks! Have a good day. Talk with you tomorrow.


By Stacy Duplease
of Stories by Stacy, LLC

Diajour Exercise for the Day by Stacy Duplease of Stories by Stacy

The Diajour Exercise for the Day is:
How are you today?


How are you this New Year?

How are you this new decade?

What are you going to do with this new beginning?

How are you going to make it count?

Just some thoughts to journal, diary, blog, or diajour (my term for combining all of them).


By Stacy Duplease
of Stories by Stacy, LLC

The News and Prayers for Haiti

Part of Remembering Your Present lies in keeping up with World News.

My prayers are with the country of Haiti after the 7.0 earthquake yesterday.


It's a country of 9 million and 3 million are directly impacted by this earthquake.

God be with you, Haiti, and help you to get through this horrific tragedy.


By Stacy Duplease
of Stories by Stacy, LLC

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Remembering Your Present Book Exerpt #2 by Stacy Duplease of Stories by Stacy

NO DELAY
 I realize these are some rather deep thoughts that could take you a while to contemplate. I also realize how it can take you some time to try to figure out what you want to do about remembering the importance of the present. However, please do not delay. Do so now. Make the time immediately to do so before another moment passes you by. You don’t want it to be too late.

Life is a gift. We never want to take it for granted. We want to live life as best as we can each and every day, each and every minute.

This present moment is critical.

This present moment leaves you with the choice of living life fully or shallowly. Living fully is living with awareness, intentionality, with meaning, and with purpose. It’s taking control of the present moment and not allowing outside forces you cannot control to impact your joy. Living shallowly is just going along for the ride and being influenced by whatever life throws at you. It’s not living a life focused on what brings you meaning or purpose. Which one do you want to actively choose—the full or shallow life?

Oh, and another moment just passed. So, what about this moment? How will you choose to live it?

LEAVING A LEGACY
 Can you imagine what legacy you could leave your children and the following generations if you live this principle every day for the rest of your life of realizing the most important part of your life is the now—the present?

What gift would you have for your family and the future generations in learning about your journey and how you lived every single day, without fail, to its fullest?

How do you do this? What does that look like? What does this mean exactly? Why is this a new concept to us? Or, worse yet… Why is this a concept we realize, but rarely live by?

This book and series will help you to do so.

Let’s face it, when we are about to die, we tend to regret doing too much because we realize we allowed life to pass us by. We rarely regret taking the time for something important.

So, here’s a question for you. Do you keep a journal or a diary?

Most people cringe at just the mere thought of such a fancy. Why would anyone want to keep one? (Give me a moment. I’ll explain why you should.)

THE IMPORTANCE OF LEAVING A LEGACY:
WHY THIS IS WHAT WE SHOULD WANT TO DO?
 How many of us wish we had the journals of our parents, our grandparents, our great-grandparents, our favorite figures in history, Presidents of the USA, people who owned our houses in the past, our belated children or siblings, or our own from a situation we wished we could remember more now? Most of us could raise our hands to each of these people.

Fact: Most of us would love to hear about their lives, what they found important, what gave them meaning, how they lived their purpose (along with what their purpose was), and the lessons they learned through life.

What about your children? Don’t you think they would appreciate your journals when you died or well before then? What about your grandchildren and great-grandchildren?

Every single one of us has a story to tell. That’s without exception. We all do. Every story is valuable and is sacred. After all, we’ve lived! If we live life fully each and every day, how much more valuable and sacred are our lives? We’ve lived! Our lives matter and so do our stories.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PRESENT
 The most important part of your life today is the present.

The second most important part of your life today is living fully for the present.

The third most important part of your life today is remembering the present.

It’s never too late to document your life. Start today. Leave a legacy. Leave your mark on the world. Leave your trace for your family’s sake. Share your life’s lessons with the world.

It doesn’t matter if you have children or not. You live. You have a story. Share it. Your present is something that another individual can learn from and can have a better life because they hear your story.

TO UNFORGET: TO REMEMBER, RECALL, AND RECOLLECT IN THE FUTURE
 Don’t forget.

One of the tragedies about life is we tend to forget. We don’t remember every facet in our lives that have shaped us to be who we are today. This is a sad reality of life. However, what’s the saddest part of all is we can all remember, but for whatever reason, we choose not to do so… It’s really because of different reasons. However, we will regret it later—particularly forgetting the good stuff in our life and the lessons learned. We will want to remember these moments later.

Also, wouldn’t it be nice when going through a hard time to read about our other hard times and how we made it through somehow? It could be a motivating factor to help us through this present one. Or, what about reading how your grandmother, who you adore and love deeply, endured a similar situation and the lessons she learned through it and how her life was shaped by it?

Or, what about when you hear of a family member or a friend say, “I don’t think anyone knows what this is like,” when you know darn good and well what it was like you’ve been there too? Wouldn’t it be nice to pull out your life’s record and share it with them so they could learn from you what to do and what not to do?

Why would we not want to live fully in the present moment?

Why would we not want to capture it for ourselves—later in life—and for current and future generations?

What’s the key to living life in the present as fully as possible? It’s through remembering it. When you remember it, you want to be able to say you lived fully and the best you could. You want to enjoy life. The key is to always be fully present (and aware) in the present moment and when you force yourself to record it, you will do so. You have no choice.

The biggest regrets we often have are because we forget something—whether we remember it or not. It’s in our psyches and we sense it. Why not have the record so we never have to feel this way—particularly before we die?

By Stacy Duplease
of Stories by Stacy, LLC

Monday, January 11, 2010

Remembering Your Present Blog & Book by Stacy Duplease of Stories by Stacy

WELCOME
Greetings. Welcome to the first official blog posting of this blog. The others really didn't count and were just preliminary. Therefore, this is the first posting. Thank you for tuning in and seeing what this blog diary is about and I hope you'll find it quite interesting.

BLOG AND BOOK
I am writing this blog to go with my book,

"Remembering Your Present:
How to Live Fully &; Leave Your Legacy
Through Journaling, Blogging, or Keeping a Diary
Volume 1"

It will be my actual diary, exerpts of book, interaction with you, thoughts on journaling and diary keeping, etc. In essense, this blog is aobut everything to do with journaling and diary keeping, which I call, Diarjouring.

BOOK EXERPT:

INTRODUCTION

STARTING THOUGHTS:

THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF OUR LIVES
 The most important part of our lives at any given time is the present moment.

How many of us realize this reality?

And how many of us live by this principle?

CHEW ON THESE THINGS
 Please stop for a moment before you read ahead and ponder what you just read. Take some time to think deeply about those words and the meaning behind them.

If you journal, you may want to write for a while about your thoughts on those two questions mentioned above and what they mean in your life.

If you jot notes to the side, you may want to do that at this time.

If you do neither, you might want to grab a sheet of paper and give it a try.

LIVING DIFFERENTLY AND LIVING FULLY
 Our lives would be drastically different if we kept the thought that the most important part of our lives at any given time is the present moment at the forefront of our minds any given second of the day. We could never live life in a shallow manner again if we kept this in mind and at all times. Moreover, we would sure live life more fully if we did.

Every moment is sacred and this moment is no exception.

So, here are a few questions for you to ponder:

How can you live life fully, in spite of your present circumstances? How can you appreciate life more in this moment? How can you live with joy and not just with happiness (Joy is lasting and runs deeper than happiness. Joy holds up in spite of the circumstances. Happiness depends upon circumstances and can falter because of them.)?

How can you live in this moment and not forget it or take it for granted? In other words, how can you remember this moment for the rest of your life? What can others, including future generations, learn from you and how you chose to live your life?

If you aren’t living this moment as one you would want to recall for the rest of your life, why is this the case? Why are you choosing to live in a half-attempt at life? Why are you taking the gift of life for granted?

How can you live this moment as a sacred gift given you to you by God? How can you live with the knowledge that you have the choice to do anything with this present moment you choose? Also, how can you live with the knowledge you want to live as fully as you can and according to God’s purpose for you?

Have a good evening and blessings to you,

By Stacy Duplease
of Stories by Stacy, LLC

Check Out My Other Blog by Stacy Duplease of Stories by Stacy

Please check out my other blog as well at:

http://www.storiesbystacy1.blogspot.com/

By Stacy Duplease
of Stories by Stacy, LLC

Friday, January 8, 2010

COMING SOON

This blog and diary is coming soon.

By Stacy Duplease
of Stories by Stacy, LLC