There is an energy crisis. The healing energy shortage is joy.
With the continuing avalanche of economic concerns, the political twisting of the truth that leads us up to the US election, and with the resulting pressures in our personal and professional lives, how can women possibly feel happy?
Feeling happy is an important ingredient to being able to creating the life we want and making a meaningful difference. Make it up if you have to! Believe it or not, in this case synthetic joy leads to authentic and durable joy.
Crazy, you might say?
Well, to a great degree the choice to feel happy is influenced by where you place our focus. If we believe that we cannot feel happy until all of the world’s problems are solved, our focus is in the wrong place, causing the continuous waves of self-generated worry and overwhelm.
Granted, to feel happy is a simple choice but not always an easy one. Still, the benefits of this leap of faith are profound. Actually, they are essential.
We need not accept the troubling circumstances that surround us, but it is in the choice to focus on and feel happy about all the things that ARE wonderful in spite of the challenges that brings an elevation of joyful feelings and expands our ability to witness miracles. It is this practice that shifts the energy of how we perceive everything else. The circumstances need not change for us to feel happy, although it is more likely that they will when we extinguish them with joy.
Like any ‘practice’, sometime we get it right and sometimes we don’t. so rather than be tempted to berate and demean ourselves for all the time we fall short of happiness, use each time you become conscious of being back in your negative thinking as the opportunity to learn and grow stronger.
By easing your grip on our circumstances, expanding our willingness to defy fear, and choose to focus on feelings of joy even though they may seem small we get to feel good and are better able to access the creativity and intuitive inner guidance we need right now to maneuver turbulent times with grace.
How does it make sense to stew in our worries and hook up an I.V. drip of doom and gloom TV and news when being happy feels good, makes us healthier, keeps away wrinkles, allows us to access our ‘smarts’, and makes us more successful?
Choosing to generate happiness, even if it is by remembering a time you used to be happy, and then relishing that feeling in your body is exactly what expands it and makes it a more constant and durable sense of overall well-being. Send that feeling from head to toe regularly as a meditation practice carries us back to who we authentically are.
When life appears so complex you may doubt the value of this, but it is far more practical than you think. The feeling of happiness precedes the experience, not the other way around, so it makes far more sense to start with feeling joy, even if the only place you can find it is in the cracks of life and in past times when your heart felt full. Hang out there and welcome the warmth and comfort. You’re worth it. Doing so actually serves us all.
We think that in being successful we will become happy, when in fact it is when we are happy that we more often experience true success. So, if what you say you want is to be happy, successful, and make a difference, why would you choose anything else that to allow joy into your life?
It’s not selfish! We need no longer sacrifice our happiness. Now is the time to commit to joy and shine!
The greatest gift you can give another is by taking full accountability and responsibility for your own happiness. Remember, what we focus on expands, so it is wise to make a conscious choice to defy fear and generate joy as your gift to the world.
A few joy generating tips:
1. Remember a time you were happy. Feel it throughout your body and spirit. Talk about it.
2. Practice gratitude and generosity, remember all you are grateful for, wallow in your positive emotions, share something meaningful, connect and say ‘thank you’ more often. Celebrate even the little things and appreciate your abundance!
3. Make a game of looking for the silver lining in each dark cloud and keep your focus there.
4. Don’t hang on too tight to your expectations and let go of things you do not need (especially your negative thinking). Willingly share the wealth you do have with others.
5. Get ample sleep, eat well, act consciously, spend time with friends, take time to play, and monitor your conversations taking the focus off the ‘dramas’ of life so you can replenish your energy.
6. Become creative and have fun finding ways to expand the joy of an experience while minimizing the expense.
7. Take a vacation from the TV and radio for a few days.
8. Allow yourself to love yourself as much as you love others.
9. Forgive quickly.
10. Repeat over and over.
Have a wonderful, joyful week.
In Joy,
Rhonda
