Posts tagged with “joy”
The Path of Heart: Live a Passionate Life Full of Love and Joy
“Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye.” ~H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
In my late thirties, I attended a workshop that was led by a group of coaches. One of the exercises we did was called the “future self-exercise,” a visualization that took me twenty years into my future.
During the meditation, I was greeted by my future self: a gorgeous, happy, free older me dressed in purple, one of my favorite colors. Her hair was long, flowing, and brown. (So I guess the future me dyed her hair!)
She was walking on the beach in Maui …
Discover Your True Joy: 5 Ways To Find What You’re Really Chasing
“Above all, be true to yourself, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it.” ~Unknown
When my last relationship ended, I found myself suddenly questioning what my goals honestly meant to me. I had focused my past five years steadily chasing a very specific dream with this woman (creating joy, art, and a community in NYC, adopting some dogs, and eventually moving back to California to start a family together).
At least that’s what we thought we were chasing.
When we realized that our lives together had become static, that we lacked engaging …
7 Ways to be Happy from the Inside Out
“All appears to change when we change.” ~Henri-Frédéric Amiel
We often start from the outside to try to make change on the inside. Scratch that. We pretty much always start from the outside, thinking it will make changes on the inside.
I am the retired queen of looking externally for internal satisfaction. I spent my most high-stress decade driven by a tantalizing dream. I wanted to be a magazine editor-in-chief, with an all-white office complete with a leather sofa, my name on a parking spot, and legions of underlings at my beckon call.
Pretty deep, hey?
And when I was …
How to Be Happy Now (Because Future Happiness Never Comes)
“Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.” ~Dalai Lama
I used to think I was falling behind. Not on my rent or my taxes, but in life.
One moment, things were progressing fine. I had friends. Good teeth. A boyfriend. I even had my own did-I-really-do-all-that-study-to-be-doing-this first job.
But then it all went away. I became ill. And as the years went by, I watched from my bed as my friends led a version of the life I’d expected for myself.
It was as if everyone had gotten on the …
After Tragedy: 3 Reasons And 21 Ways to Find Joy Again
“Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.” ~Bernice Johnson Reagon
My brother died suddenly, at just thirty-nine years old. One moment he was in the midst of a regular working day. Half an hour later he was gone. Twenty-four hours later he was buried.
With things happening so fast, I found myself alternating between paralysis and intense waves of pain, anger, guilt, sorrow, and devastation. I guess we all felt this way. Only it didn’t quite look like we all did/
In between waves of sadness and silence, my brother’s …
5 Lessons from Death to Help You Create Joy, Passion, and Meaning
“One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it’s worth watching.” ~Unknown.
Death is something many of us fear. Perhaps not so much our own death, but the mere thought of losing a loved one can be heartbreaking.
On Sunday May 5th, my grandma had a large stroke. She’d baked her last cake, shared her final story, and within the blink of an eye, she was gone. Six days later her life ended, in a hospital bed, surrounded by her loved ones.
She was not only my grandmother, but also the grandmother to five others, …
How Simple Little Happy Habits Can Make a Huge Difference
“Happiness quite unshared can scarcely be called happiness.” ~Charlotte Brontë
Habits are a double-edged human habitual practice—they can be healthy and unhealthy, and can bring us happiness and unhappiness.
We’ve all read about the importance of healthy and successful habits, and how to choose and practice them. But I’ve also recently read about how healthy and successful habits alone don’t necessarily lead to good health or real success. There’s more to it.
What I’m reading now shows that happiness appears to be just as important to well-being and success as lifestyle choices, that happiness alone may actually lead to the …
Slow Down: Join the Stillness Revolution for More Peace and Joy
“There is more to life than increasing its speed.” ~Mahatma Gandhi
I recently treated myself to a retreat in the mountains, with the intention of pulling out of the busyness of every day life so that I could spend time healing and in reflective writing.
Setting off, I anticipated an easy drive as traffic looked light, but when I reached the mountain pass, I experienced something I had never experienced before:
I was completely blind to my surroundings.
In fact, I realized I had driven into the clouds themselves, engulfed by a pure white energy.
Not fog. Not mist. Just
Make Sure You’ll Smile When You Look Back on Your Life
“The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination.” ~Carl Rogers
I had just gotten settled into my hospital bed after two hours of preparation. I had 32 electrodes taped to my bandage-wrapped skull, plugged into a machine that monitored my brainwaves, with just enough room to go from the bed to the bathroom.
After two ambulance rides and multiple seizures, I needed to find out what was going on with my brain.
The full diagnosis of my disease was still unknown then. The doctors told me it could be serious …
10 Ways to Deal with Negative or Difficult People
“Dwelling on the negative simply contributes to its power.” ~Shirley MacLaine
I love her to death, but it’s draining to talk to her.
Every time I call this friend of mine, I know what I’m in for: a half-hour rant about everything that’s difficult, miserable, or unfair.
Sometimes she focuses on the people she feels have wronged her, and other times she explores the general hopelessness of life. She never calls to see how I’m doing, and she rarely listens to what’s going on in my life for more than a minute before shifting the focus back to herself.
I …
8 Easy Ways To Spread Happiness Around You
“All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today.” ~Proverb
For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to contribute to the world somehow. I’ve always dreamed of starting a charity organization. I bet that, just like me, you walk around with some sort of wish in your heart to change the world in some way, but you might not do anything about it. How come?
My excuses were time, money, fears, and not knowing how to go about it. I’m guessing you have similar hindrances.
Until recently I held on to the limiting belief…
10 Happiness Tips for People Who Have Been Hurt
“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” ~Unknown
Maybe someone hurt you physically or emotionally. Maybe you’ve survived something else traumatic—a natural disaster, a fire, an armed robbery. Or maybe you’ve just come out of a trying situation, and though you know you’ll eventually recover, you still feel pain that seems unbearable.
Whatever the case may be, you’ve been scarred and you carry it with you through many of your days.
Most of us can relate on some level to that feeling. Even people who excel at taking personal responsibility have at least one story of having been hurt. Though some …
Getting to the Root of Pain to Work Through It and Be Happy
“The secret of joy is the mastery of pain” ~Anais Nin
I come from a family of runners. They run from pain, emotions, and uncomfortable feelings.
My mom was 17 when she moved to Texas to get away from her overbearing mother. She couldn’t deal with the pain of never being enough for her parents or herself. She left her parents, extended family, and friends behind in Mississippi without a second glance.
A recovering anorexic, she was looking for something, anything that would ease the pain and prove she was okay.
My father arrived in Texas in his …
How to Stop Betting Against Yourself: 7 Keys for Personal Freedom
“Nothing reduces the odds against you like ignoring them.” ~Robert Brault
Do you ever wake up feeling like you’re battling yourself?
What’s worse is waking up in that battle and feeling like you’ve already lost before you’ve even started the day.
But think about that for a second: isn’t living this way crazy? We think it’s normal to be fighting ourselves. We’re taught we need to grind it out and make something of ourselves to be successful. We’re taught we need to become something.
And the underlying message is this: who we are right now isn’t good enough.
We’re starving …
Why Enthusiasm Trumps Worrying When It Comes to Reaching Goals
“Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow. It only saps today of its joy.” ~Leo Buscaglia
They say the greatest joy in life is to be able to live your passion every day, and I only had to look to my teens to remember that what I had always enjoyed doing most—working out. That’s where I wanted to go in life.
Held hostage by worries about the future, status, and money, I decided to head on a different path. I did well in college, graduating with a business degree and a double major in finance and accounting.
A few years …
Finding Peace and Joy When Dealing with Pain and Loss
“Every problem has a gift for you in its hands.” ~Richard Bach
There are times when nothing seems to move in the right direction. We either feel stuck or lost in chaos and confusion. Days follow nights as pages on the calendar turn into months, but you remain at the same place.
A few years back I suffered a miscarriage in the eighth month of pregnancy. I lost my baby and my dreams of motherhood. In the deep void I experienced both physical pain and mental agony.
At such times despite your efforts, the situation turns from bad to …
Determine What Will Make You Happy by Identifying Your Values
“Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values.” ~Ayn Rand
For too many years, I played the part of the perfect little southern girl: I kept my mouth shut and my opinions to myself. I dressed properly, including panty hose, slips, and girdles. I didn’t laugh too loudly in public. I did what I was told.
You see, I learned at an early age that I had to do this in order to always be seen as a “good little girl” (and avoid getting punished). I continued the same behavior after I got …
You Are Worthy of Receiving: 10 Things to Let into Your Life
“Happiness is really a deep inner satisfaction and approval” ~Francis Wiltshire
At the start of the year many of us make resolutions about what we want to give up, what we need to let go—from quitting smoking (did that 20+ years ago), to cutting back on alcohol (a work in progress), to cutting back on not-so-healthy foods (also in progress), to letting go of past “demons.”
There’s a lot to be gained by letting go of past pain, by breaking bad habits. But what if we thought more in terms of what we might welcome into our lives—what we …
How to Find Happiness Through Gratitude When Life Gets Hard
“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” ~Brother David Steindl-Rast
In the summer of 1993, my father was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor.
He was only fifty-eight. Still just a kid.
This was a devastating development, to say the least. Things had already been challenging for my family for several years before this blow.
Dad had lost his corporate banking job in Boston—quite unjustly, in our view—kicking off a nearly three-year-long bout of unemployment.
This was not an easy time for our family, but we …
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