Wow, I am so very delighted that this blog has now received over 26,000 visitors since it all began in April 2012. Now 26,000 people, that’s a lot of people and I would like to thank you all for joining my journey and showing an interest in my articles.
The Key to a Successful Blog
I think the key to a successful blog is to truly write about things you are passionate about because I feel this shows throughout your writing. If you stick to that, then you want to and look forward to writing blog posts, you are excited about sharing your thoughts with the world. In this mode then, there is no need for the “push” effect because it’s “pull” all the way, like a magnet, a strong attraction to continue to write and share.
So if you’re thinking about starting up your own blog or wanting to stay in the “pull” effect, write about your passions, because when you write about this stuff, you will feel good and readers will also feel good reading it too.
This is just one key to building a successful blog and having people camp out in your blog for a while. Thank you and Happy Camping!!
I want to give a massive thanks to YOU for visiting this Clarabelle blog. Just over a month ago I was celebrating reaching 10,000 blog hits and yesterday I am amazed to say that I reached 12,000, this is the fastest growth ever to date. I want to give thanks to all the other bloggers, guest bloggers, facebook friends, linkedin connections, twitter followers and all other visitors who take the time to come and visit my blog and read, like and comment on my posts.
I truly LOVEdoing this blog, I choose to put a lot of love and positive energy into it because I am passionate about what I write and share with you. I don’t plan in advance what I want to write, I just write what feels right at the time……and I really do hope it adds value to your day.
Thank you for your full support, encouragement and inspiration and I really do mean that.
Wishing you a very beautiful day filled with true passion and love for what you do, love Clarabelle
Here is a wonderful challenge for you, a challenge that I feel by the end of it you will feel more amazing than ever before. I know when you complete this challenge you will feel much more stronger, abundant, grateful, healthier, richer and happier. This is a challenge for your inner soul to spread its beautiful energy into the Universe and just like a boomerang it will come back to you in abundance.
Here is your 30 day challenge:
Give out 1000 thank yous.
I want you to think about the people and things in your life that you are thankful for and I want you to tell those people and be truly mindful of these things that you are thankful for in your life.
When you are thankful towards a person it not only uplifts their mood, it will also uplift your own, believe me, you will feel so good.
There is a magical power in the power of thank you and it creates a beautiful wave of energy that spreads freely from person to person, creating a domino effect of happiness from within.
It’s up to you how you decide to record your 1000 thank yous but what is most important is that they are meaningful thank yous, please don’t just say them for the sake of it, you must feel deeply from within the gratitude you’re offering out, it must be genuine gratitude.
I will gladly do this challenge with you and below are my first ten 🙂
I am ever so grateful to you for reading this online Magazine, thank you, I love it when you visit and I love it even more when you comment and share your thoughts, wisdom and knowledge.
Thank you for my healthy body, it gives me the energy to enjoy the beauty of life.
Thank you for my grateful heart, I feel very blessed.
Thank you to my beautiful mum, for your never ending support and encouragement.
Thank you for my brother and his protective spirit towards me.
Thank you for my loving sister whom I feel I have a very special bond with, even though I don’t see her everyday I feel the strength of our love and connection for each other.
Thank you for my bestest friend in the whole wide world, Donna Marie Dick, we have been best friends for almost 36 years, she is a beautiful person inside and out.
Thank you for my other best friend Sharon Craig, she is such a good listener, supporter, fun loving, full of energy, motivated and super happy party girl.
Thank you to my beautiful nieces, Megan, Carmen and Nicole and nephew, Sean whom I love very very very much.
Thank you for my creative spirit that I am unleashing daily into this world, it gives me so much joy and happiness.
I really do hope you take on this 30 Day Challenge of 1000 Thank Yous because I really do believe you and others around you will get great benefit from doing this. When you have completed it, I would love to hear all about it. You might want to write an article about it and share it on your own online platform or on this one as Guest Writer – I would really love that.
Thank you for reading this article and thank you for participating in it, I know it will bring you great love and joy.
Please let me introduce you to this month’s very creative Guest Blogger, Douglas Robertson.
Douglas Robertson
Douglas has always been interested in art but says that he hasn’t really drawn anything recently but does love photoshopping. Douglas says, “I suppose what I do is the equivalent of what ‘pimp my ride’ is to cars as to what I do to pictures/photos. I sometimes refer to what I do as ‘digi-punk’ art. Basically I either get an idea for a picture and create it by taking different parts and pieces of other pictures to create a new one.”
The other thing Douglas likes to do is turn a photograph into a ‘painting’ by using various effects and layers and many ‘paintings’ can have as many as 20 layers.
When I, (Clarabelle) went on holiday this year to Ibiza I took a photo of my footprints in the sand, Douglas then added his own creative art to the photo and used one of my original poems to add a touch of uniqueness too. Douglas says, “the ‘footprints in the sand‘ picture with poem had about 8 layers and was itself the result of several ‘halfway’ pictures to get the final result.”
Douglas also takes his own photographs with the view to photoshopping them when he gets home – a good example of that is: Photo 1 and the original photograph: Photo 2
Douglas’ Next Steps
My next step would be to actually turn my creations into real paintings by actually getting the brushes out and painting versions of them. Below is Douglas’ own caracature creation of himself. 🙂
Douglas Robertson Caracature
I am sure you will all agree, Douglas is a very talented creative individual and if you would like to see more of Douglas’ work, then please feel free to head over to his facebook page, Wiggly Beezers Arts you will also find there another creative picture of me, Clarabelle with the “City Lights” poem added to it.
I would like to give a special thank you to Douglas for sharing his creatives talents on this Clarabelle blog, it’s been an absolutely pleasure.
Over the last year or so I have had an increasing desire to buy items that are the colour red, below is a list of some ‘red’ items I have purchased recently:
Red Sofa
Red Diary
Red Bikini
Red Coat
Red Lamp
Red Kitchen Tiles
Red Bathroom Mat
Red Bed Covers
Red Lipstick
Red Pen
Red Mini iPad Cover
Red Microwave
And the list goes on and on……………
Before that I had the desire to purchase items azure bluefor e.g.
Azure blue Car
Azure blue Running Trainers
Azure blue Running Top
Azure blue ‘Clarabelle’ Butterfly Logo
And the list goes on…….
I originally didn’t really think that any of the above had any real significance to anything but after I had a meaningful conversation with someone about it, I now realise there is a very strong connection to the colours I am attracting into my life and what this actually means.
Chakras
A couple of weeks ago I was Chairing a Board meeting and before the meeting started I shared my desire for buying red with one of the newest Board members, John, who is a Reiki Master/Teacher (www.scottishreiki.co.uk). I said to John, “I just can’t stop buy red”, as I stood there proudly wearing my redtrench coat.
John explained to me how my buying of red relates to the different colours of the Chakras and he continued to explain to me what each colour meant. John expressed that my desire for red is a good thing and to continue to do what I am doing in terms of my own personal growth. The Red Chakra relates to these positive traits:
Energetic
Courageous
Pioneering Spirit
Leadership Qualities
Strong Willed
Determined
Spontaneous
Confident
“Redrelates to self awareness. It is the area of survival and stability and your place on this earth. The colour red provides the power from the earth and gives energy on all levels. It connects us to our physical body. Everything that is to be commenced needs the life vitality of red.” Extract from www.threeheartscompany.com
I then looked up the meaning of Bluein relation to the Chakras. Blue is in relation to the Throat, the ability to verbalise and expressing truth through the power of the spoken word. “Blue is the colour of the spirit andrelates to self expression – speech, communication, the ability to communicate our needs and requirements; Spirit of truth and purpose. This is a mentally-relaxing colour. Connects us to holistic thought, and gives us wisdom and clarity enhancing communication and speech.” Extract from www.threeheartscompany.com
I totally found this a fascinating connection with me starting up of this blog, expressing myself through lots and lots of poetry and songwriting. I remember I had such strong desire for buying items of the colour blue at that time.
The significance here is that Aviral Kulshreshtha introduced my blog with a very interesting take on what he called my ‘red‘ photo. Here is an extract from that very blog post and Aviral’s introduction:
“Being a Science student, I always learned, ‘Red color has the highest wavelength’.’ The highest wavelength has the highest energy. This energy reflects from red colored pic, who inspired me at every bit of seconds and I truly feel lucky to have her on my ship of Life: Clarabelle. Clarabelle means Bright. As I said, red color is the brightest color which reflects from her poetic heart and beautiful mind.”
Clarabelle, Red Colour Photo 23.03.13
Wow, I just feel the significance of the above expressions from both John and Aviral relate so much to me attracting the colour red into my life (and blue the year before that) – I believe this is in relation to the frequency of the vibration I am on. High energy attracts high energy, thus my desire for the colour red.
I could be completely wrong here and it would be interesting to hear other thoughts on this, I am always open to new learnings.
What colour are you attracting into your life right now? What colour do you have a current desire for?
At the moment mine is vibrant ‘red‘ and I’m indeed “REaDy for Action”!!
Wishing you a colourful day today, full of many beautiful rainbow moments.
Every month I shall be posting a poem/article from a guest blogger. If you are interested in becoming a guest blogger on this blog, please note your interest on the comments section below or email me at claire@murraypeople.com
May I introduce you to a very talented inspirational writer, Aviral Kulshreshtha from India. Aviral writes with passion, enthusiasm and pure positivity, I know you will be inspired by his writings.
Aviral loves acting and it is his passion and he always trys to learn the lessons of Life. Aviral says, “I want to be an entrepreneur and would one day make an impact on the world.” You can find out more about Aviral’s professional background by going over to his About Me page on his wonderful blog cherrypositive.
Aviral Kulshreshtha
Following your passion
When we were kids, we used to enjoy every moment of our life. We were surrounded by ecstatic group, the group we were proud of and used to flaunt about with our family. We had no goal, no tensions, no work pressure apart from school homework and we never considered our life seriously. We weren’t serious about it. Those were halcyon days of our life.
Still we were passionate, energetic and full of motivation.
Where did we get the motivation from? What was the motivational factor? Who injected inspiration in us? What made us smile?
You guessed it right.
Friends!
Friends and friendship was our passion.
We developed and weaved beautiful dreams in our mind like weaving colourful sweaters.
As we grew older and got to know about life and relationships, got to know about priorities and our life got diverted from personal life to the professional life. As priorities changed, our goals changed and it changed the source of motivation.
Guess what?
Our dreams got shattered like ruptured glass and we adopted the scenario which later changed our motivation and passion. When passion and motivation fade, confidence drops and seeds of frustration burst over.
Result is crystal clear. Depression crops up and we ruin our precious life.
Follow your passion midst reaction.
We must never ever end up our passion. Passion makes us. It gives intense happiness which no one can ever provide you. Rebuild your motivational factor and prepare goal. Get inspired from leaders who changed the world. Ignite the passion within you.
If you love singing or dancing, join some institution or organization where you can strengthen and prosper your talent.
Search out what makes you happy. Scratch the factor and do what you love to do.
Rebuild your passion and make a way to achieve it. It not only blossoms you but also nurtures the society.
If you would like to check out Aviral’s blog, then please head over to cherrypositive for some more daily inspiration, you’ll be so glad you did.
Thank you Aviral for this wonderful post, Clarabelle.
Clarabelle 