Tag Archives: happy

Living Outside the Box!

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Are you happy with the way your life is playing out? Have you found your purpose in this life and are you engaging in working your purpose everyday? Are you questioning whether you have found yourself living a life which could be different and perhaps more rewarding? Are you in a box with your job, your finances, your relationships, and possibly with your life’s purpose?

To be honest, most of us would have to agree that life sometimes, or maybe more often than sometimes, feels like it is going sideways. Just to complicate this discussion, consider this statement, some people define “Crazy” as repeating the same thing (Behavior) over and over again and expecting different results. (Occasionally, you may use a repeated behavior and get a different response because the environment or people involved will allow for a slightly different reaction.) Remember, if you do not like the response you get to a certain behavior then you need to take responsibility and try something different to get a more satisfying response. YOU have a choice! And, it starts by knowing that YOU are responsible and then, to break patterns where you are blaming other people or institutions for the less than desirable reaction. Yes, try an entirely new approach.

Why are you resisting change and a new approach? We do not try new behaviors because we are AFRAID. Yes, we have FEAR of new approaches because we lack confidence and do not know how these will turn out. We prefer to have reliable failure, which is comfortable and which we are familiar with, rather than move toward a more positive, yet unknown, outcome. We even have surrounded ourselves with family and friends who like us the way we are and would have difficulty supporting us if we were more successful and confident. They like the “Old” and familiar person you have been trapped within. Maybe, it is time to find new friends who love and support you on your path to becoming ever more successful and joyful.

At the end of your life, are you going to feel good about what you have accomplished and the people you have assisted? Will you weigh your legacy by how much money or how many “toys,” you have? Can you ask yourself, and honestly answer, that you have lived a full life filled with the service which has helped move consciousness forward?

It is time to take the small steps to find a better more adventurous and rewarding life. It may even be time to take the big steps toward your new life of personal responsibility and positive change. Personally, I have learned more from my failed attempts at changing my life and from confronting the challenges of trying new behaviors that lead me down an unhappy path. Take a risk. Get positive support. Break out of the confined box that has been a comfortable but unhappy experience. You will never know until you try, how good it feels to make that stretch in your life. Enjoy the adventure! No one else can do this for you, so do not wait.

The Masters of the Journey community may help to provide some support if your quest includes spiritual development (in a non-religious way.)

Do You Want to Be “Right” or Do You Want to Be Happy?

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This discussion has been going on for a long time. Do you have the burning need to be “Right” even with the possibility that you may create difficulties? May people will choose Happiness. The desire to be Happy outways the NEED to be Right. This does not mean that you can not “get your way” or sacrifice your beliefs and deeper values. It means that you do not ALWAYS have to get the “Last Word” in a disagreement. Gently make your point but do not demand that you are the Winner. (As I write this I realize that Winner and Whiner seems similar as they roll off my tongue…) You can have your “Beliefs” without Demanding full acceptance by everyone in the room, or even the world… (Because you ain’t gonna get that anyway…)

Judgements also get in the way! Relationships with deeply held “Judgements” are not often relationships that breed longterm happiness. Judging other people, their words, their activities, their lifestyle, their beliefs, even their “Looks” can get in the way of deeper connections which can be beneficial, for perspective, if nothing else. Sitting in Judgement separates you. You may feel superior or “Right” but there is ALWAYS another point of view! Be careful when you Judge. At the very least, know when you are “Judging” another person so you can learn from your limitation. (Your limiting view of the world…)

To be Happy is to share your joy! Try to love unconditionally. Try to accept without qualification. For acceptance connects people and differing opinions in a way where there views can become tools for learning and growth. Be “Right” by finding the emotional, mental, and spiritual space to allow for differences.

This is NOT easy and requires compromise in the decision making process. BUT, being too polarized and too “Black and White” is a Judgement that will get in your way to finding deeper peace and a Happy Life.

Blessings and Namaste my Friend.

Masters of the Journey is a worldwide community which supports all people on their spiritual quest with the belief that we are all Masters with wisdom and experiences to share… Join us online or in person. Connect with our Non-religious community and share resources with our members.

“A Dash of Cinnamon for Peace”

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Excerpt from “Pink Hair & Chocolate Cookies” by Laura Lavigne (of the Center for Happiness, Anacortes, WA)

Many years ago, through the course of one of life’s strange turns of events, I met a woman who worked for an adoption agency. During while of our conversations, she unknowingly gifted me with some powerful insight regarding the importance of our attitude.

One of the cases she was managing involved the open adoption of twin baby girls. The girls were placed in two separate homes; part of the open adoption agreement stated that the agency was to provide the birth mom with regular reports about the girls.

When the girls were three years old, both sets of adoptive parents were contacted and presented with a series of questions. One of the questions concerned their appetite.

When asked about her daughter’s eating habits, the first mom expressed her distress: meals, she said, were always a struggle and created much family tension. The little girl would not eat anything, no matter how she prepared it – unless it had cinnamon in it. This made life very difficult and she could not seem to break her child out of the strange habit.

Presented with the same question, the second mom stated that her little girl was a joy to feed: mealtimes were usually pleasant as all the mom had to do was sprinkle a little bit of cinnamon on her daughter’s food in order for her to eat pretty much anything. In fact, she was now keeping a shaker of cinnamon on the table, next to the salt and pepper.
Wow.

The “bigness” of this struck me like a bolt of lightening. Within an instant, I felt as though I had possibly been handed the secret to a happy life. Or to a miserable one.

Stress, I knew, comes mostly from “resisting what is.” Ease, then, possibly comes from creatively celebrating the same. Not always an easy task, not even always a feasible task, but what if it were something we could achieve, let’s say… some of the time?

What if we were to say “to heck with the neighbors and to heck with all the voices in my head” and simply aimed for peace?

What if we weren’t scared? Scared of losing control, scared of looking soft, or like fools, scared that “this” could lead to chaos and anarchy?

What if we were more interested in being happy than in being right?

What if peaceful meals and happy interactions were worth a shaker of cinnamon on the dining room table?
I know that we don’t always choose what comes our way but we almost always choose our reaction to it, and that can mean freedom.

I invite you to take a look, today, at the places in your life where you may be choosing stress; where you may be choosing to be right. And where you may be able to choose to be happy instead.
And who knows? Maybe cinnamon tastes great on mashed potatoes.

“Excerpt from Pink Hair & Chocolate Cookies, by Laura Lavigne. lauralavigne.com” $14.95 – Signed copies
For a personalized inscription, email me.

Anacortes Center for Happiness

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