Find fun everywhere you go

Know there are fun people to encounter and delight you around every corner. Stay in a general state of positive expectation. Feel good. Be excited. Say and do things to uplift people. You need not explore unhappiness in order to experience happiness. Joy is here now. Express it. Allow it to flow freely through you and notice what happens to the world around you.

Consider this: its not your job to always identify things that make you happy. The vision itself does not matter but how you feel does.  Imagine what inspires you and create uplifting feelings.  Allow yourself to feel impatient, disappointed or negative, and block light-heartedness, as well as seeing what is here.  As you choose to love where you are and have fun wherever you go, everything hits the spot.  You stop looking for what you already have.

The key to happiness

Recognize that nothing comes into your life without your attention.  Nothing stays in your life without your attention either. Pay attention to passing thoughts.  Listen to your words. Observe your behaviour. Notice your experience unfolds based on you.

When you choose to feel joy, this is evidence of success.   When you choose to talk about why you feel unhappy or why life is not going well, is it any wonder your experience reflects your words? You always get what you ask for. This also goes beyond words.

Take for example a woman who used to complain and self-criticize. She came to me and said one of her goals was to engage in a healthy, loving relationship. Unaware of the impact of her behaviours, she told me she slept in the middle of a big bed, filled her two sided closet with stuff, used one of her garages for storage and the other for a car. She also worked crazy hours with no social life. As she raised awareness, she began to see she was not being kind to herself or others and not making space for anyone to enter her life. Amazing things happen as you make space in the home and the heart. She cleaned out half her closet and started sleeping on one side of the bed. She chose to work less, was kinder to people because she could be not because she had to be. She began to see all life experience invites her to love herself more.  As she did, in thought, word and deed, the perfect partner entered her life. She discovered the key to happiness is loving yourself.

Another example is a man who sees his family moving from a rental to owning a home. He takes great pleasure from the vision.  He knows that nurturing joyful feelings is bringing a good feeling space closer in his reality.  It has to feel like the next logical step.  Grateful for the location and convenience of the rental, the whole family is also eager for what is coming. They appreciate the natural surroundings of their new suburb, visit houses, post an image of the house to buy like a vision board on the wall and look at it often. They explore furniture showrooms, discuss how to remodel parts of the new house and add solar panels. They develop a related business plan. Although a banker said they do not currently qualify for the mortgage they want, they remain optimistic. They thank the banker for his advice while sensing money comes from varied sources. They know the 'what' always comes before the 'how.' They behave as though details are in motion, give away belongings they no longer use, and do things you do as you prepare to move. They trust the universe has a plan. Life shows them the key to happiness is to be joyful where you are and focus beyond the limits of the mind.

Another example is a woman who asks me guidance in identifying her life purpose.  I remind her that she has nothing to figure out and nobody to live up to.  We are each eternal beings who create our paths and everything about our experience.  Its easy to forget that well-intentioned people train you away from your own inner guidance system.  I say to the woman as I say here you cannot make decisions that are the best for you while pleasing others.  There is no finished portrait of your mission that you can ever reach.  You move incrementally through experiences that are simply meant to make you feel good. So, you cannot get off your path. You can only live a purposeful life.  You can be deliberate about creating or not.  You are consciously in love with life and express this, receive and feel this fully or not.  For this woman, the key to happiness is to recognize events unfold based on how she feels and what she chooses to experience.

Ultimately, the key to happiness is the feeling of worthiness in all you do, knowing your value, that whatever you do you are winning, getting ahead, living the dream, that whatever anyone else is thinking or doing is irrelevant.  As you get a handle on how you feel, its like allowing yourself to be who you are.  In this state, everything comes to you.  Even to feel negative emotion is pointing to who you really are. Take this away:

1) Dwelling on 'what is', on what the mind judges is wrong or not possible prevents what could be from coming.  Ignoring 'what is' is as simple as focusing on something else.

2) Love yourself as the larger part of you does.  You only suffer if you cut yourself off from love and acceptance. You are the creator from the beginning to the end.  Know what you do and do not want. Know what feels not good and what feels better.

3) Revel in contrast.  Come into alignment with the best feeling thought you can find. Rather than saying, "It could be worse if...", say instead, "It is so great that..." or "It is fantastic that..." or "Its truly a blessing that..." or "It is so fortunate that..."

4) Be eager and solutions-oriented when apparent obstacles arise.  Remind yourself that more than one way to do things and to get places exists.  Be resourceful.

5) Be someone who chronically appreciates everything. reach out and help others because it is the right thing to do.  Be generous with no expectations.  Know you are living a good life.  Achieve the vibration consistently and watch what happens. 

6) Feel fulfilled as you are, wherever you are, and then like magic, "it" comes.

Have a happy mind

Many experiences are universal yet, must be discovered and rediscovered by each of us at our own pace.  We allow wisdom to reveal itself through us when we are ready and willing to accept it.  We each weave our own tapestry of life by making choices. How to maintain a happy mind?

1) Break free of the traps of the mind: Let go of the past, stop focusing attention on fear and the future. This releases you from ties binding you to karma/ family histories (recover the 'original self'). As identities are seen as the masks they are and shed, personal histories shrink and fade.

2) Be aware of and let go of attachment to inner possessions; judgments, thoughts, values, and ideas about right and wrong.  Notice everyone is a teacher pointing to existing contentment.

3) Break free of the traps of the body/ impermanent world. Thinking about doing anything is the hard part. Notice how the mind stalls and postpones things. Taking action itself is easy.

4) Explore the true nature of freedom & what it means to be 'liberated in life.' Notice you deny the ultimate freedom. You only step beyond parameters after you create them and grow aware.

5) Bring together the elements of a fragmented existence.  Each person who is open and receptive grows aware of an inner pilgrimmage and unique experiences with Spirit.

6) Be here in this present moment in mindfulness and kindness. 

"Renounce the self that does the renunciation." -Swami Venkatesananda

Take a lesson away

This morning, in a public place, a friend of mine lost her 22 month old toddler. This woman was frantic. It appeared to her as if everyone around her appeared unaware or simply minded their own business. A few people were helping but not panicking. As my friend raced around, looking high and low, her focus shifted from composure to fear.  I reassured her and yet she felt time was running out and so, started calling the police.

Even so, I continued to search the immediate area. Soon afterwards, I discovered the child happy as can be. This toddler had innocently wandered out of a busy library, unnoticed by a manned reception desk, by automatic doors to the street, run down a corridor, by an open toy library, passed doors to toilets and by people before entering a playgroup area. The child easily blended in and started playing with toys. This child continued acting as if all is well.  How you would respond in her mom's shoes? Feel relieved by a hug and move on?  Come what may, are you always calm as a cucumber? Or do you struggle to let go of fear?

Very often the body is here, but the mind is not.  It gets caught in the net of uncertainty.  It is not totally here.  The past is totally gone and future not yet here. Breathe mindfully to focus on the present.  The next time you are fearful, follow your breath.  You touch the miracle and insight of being alive.  Exhale tension, fear, anger, regret and guilt in the body.

It may surprise you that nobody in the area responded as if a wandering toddler is out of the ordinary.  Even the adults near their children attending playgroup did not look for a missing parent. Its not about others though, is it? Its about how each of us responds to the situations life throws our way. Every situation offers lessons. We can be grateful for guardian angels, and focus on knowing all is well, or assume the worst.  Notice visions triggered in the mind.

What causes you to shift away from peace of mind?  What do you take away from situations that scare you? Who or what prompts you to lose your cool and freak out?  How is each new focus of attention a true gift? When are you 'calm, cool and collected?'

“Happiness is not the absence of problems, it's the ability to deal with them.” -Steve Marboli

"God is happiness and available twenty four hours a day." - Andre Gide

Be happy now

If you focus attention on the external world, and link your sense of happiness to that, you also set yourself up for potential disappointment.  For instance, if you tell yourself you will be happy when your conditions change, or when you obtain something that you are convinced you do not yet have, then you are distracting yourself from the happiness of being here in this moment. Allow yourself to see through the lens of love, and love is all you see. That is, expectations, judgments or other distractions no longer come into your scope. From the moment you are open and receptive to the flow of life, and stop analyzing, only happiness exists.

"Happiness never decreases by being shared." -Buddha