The Soul Has Different Concerns

"It's important to be heroic, ambitious, productive, efficient, creative, and progressive, but these qualities don't necessarily nurture soul. The soul has different concerns, of equal value: downtime for reflection, conversation, and reverie; beauty that is captivating and pleasuring; relatedness to the environs and to people; and any animal’s rhythm of rest and activity." ~ Thomas A. Moore, Psychologist

Boost Your Mood

Sometimes we all need a little lift in our moods. The stresses of life today can be a bit overwhelming at times even if you are in a healthy marriage or relationship, eat right, exercise, and like your job. Here are some simple tips to help boost our mood when we do get bogged down and begin to feel our spirit sag. See them here: Health.com

Simple Acts = Happiness

Sometimes we just make life's good experiences too complicated. Happiness, contentment, a sense of inner peace, those things don't come from a new car or a fat bank account or owning the biggest house on the block. We come to know the really good stuff -- emotional growth, inner strength, profound joy -- as a result of so much more simple experiences. See some here and give them a try: Happiness

Rise Above It All

Rise Above It All

by Jane Powell on September 22, 2011

“Reality is something to rise above.”


Great things are accomplished when you believe that what’s inside of you is superior to your circumstances. Believing you’re more important than any of your problems, that you’re bigger than anything that can happen to you, takes courage.


You may have to dig deep for this courage, but it is there. Rise above fear and doubt. Remind yourself that you are in control, that the time to live is today!


©Jane Powell – Meditations for Women

How to Love Your Crazy Life

Sometimes life goes haywire for all of us. Too many schedules. Not enough sleep. Wrong diet. Kids out of control. More expenses than income. On and on it goes. Here are some practical thoughts on how to take a deep breath and make it all sort of seem to work. Read them here: Your Crazy Life

Choice, not Chance

"Excellence is never an accident.  It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives.  Choice, not chance, determines your destiny." ~ Aristotle, Greek Philosopher

"I've come back from the colorless world of despair..."

"In my own worst seasons I've come back from the colorless world of despair by forcing myself to look hard, for a long time, at a single glorious thing: a flame of red geranium outside my bedroom window.  And then another: my daughter in a yellow dress.  And another: the perfect outline of a full, dark sphere behind the crescent moon.  Until I learned to be in love with my life again.  Like a stroke victim retraining new parts of the brain to grasp lost skills, I have taught myself joy, over and over again." ~ From, High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Never, by Barbara Kingsolver

How would your life be different...

"How would your life be different if you were conscious about the food you ate, the people you surround yourself with, and the media you watch, listen to, or read?  Let today be the day you pay attention to what you feed your mind, your body, and your life.  Create a nourishing environment conducive to your growth and well-being today." -- Steve Maraboli, Author/Speaker

I have learned that no matter what happens...

"I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad itseems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. I've learned thatyou can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things:a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. I've learned thatregardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them whenthey're gone from your life. I've learned that making a "living" isnot the same thing as making a "life." I've learned that lifesometimes gives you a second chance. I've learned that you shouldn't go throughlife with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throwsomething back. I've learned that whenever I decide something with an openheart, I usually make the right decision. I've learned that even when I havepains, I don't have to be one. I've learned that every day you should reach outand touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.I've learned that I still have a lot to learn. I've learned that people willforget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will neverforget how you made them feel." — Maya Angelou, American Poet/Author

The Purpose in Life is Not to Win

"The purpose in life is not to win. The purpose in life is to grow and to share. When you come to look back on all that you have done in life, you will get more satisfaction from the pleasure you have brought into other people's lives than you will from the times that you outdid and defeated them." – Harold Kushner, Rabbi/Author

A Simple Life Motto

“Do what you can.  Where you are.  With what you have.” ~ President Theodore Roosevelt

Transcending Ourselves = Meaningful Living

"A sense of life meaning ensues but cannot be deliberately pursued: life meaning is always a derivative phenomenon that materializes when we have transcended ourselves, when we have forgotten ourselves and become absorbed in someone (or something) outside ourselves" —  Irvin D. Yalom, Physician/Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry, Stanford University School of Medicine

            

Boost Your Mood Naturally

All of us from time to time get a little down, worn out, frazzled. Life is often carried on at a hectic pace. Financial woes, family conflicts, work irritations, health issues, all contribute to days when we feel drained of energy and good feelings. Here are some easy tips to help boost our moods and enjoy each day a little more. See them here: Health.com

Three Tips to Protect Your Family Now

Here are three very simple and easy things you can do to make sure your family is taken care of in the event of illness, death, or other emergencies. See them here: Protect Your Family Now

Adversity is a natural part of being human.

"Adversity is a natural part of being human. It is the height of arrogance to prescribe a moral code or health regime or spiritual practice as an amulet to keep things from falling apart. Things do fall apart. It is in their nature to do so. When we try to protect ourselves from the inevitability of change, we are not listening to the soul. We are listening to our fear of life and death, our lack of faith, our smaller ego's will to prevail. To listen to your soul is to stop fighting with life--to stop fighting when things fall apart; when they don't go our away, when we get sick, when we are betrayed or mistreated or misunderstood. To listen to the soul is to slow down, to feel deeply, to see ourselves clearly, to surrender to discomfort and uncertainty and to wait." — Elizabeth Lesser, Author/Cofounder of the Omega Institute

When Will I be Happy?

The following article is by Shawn Achor and appeared at www.huffingtonpost.com

When Will I be Happy?

"I will be happy when..."

This innocent comment is the very reason that happiness is so elusive for us in the modern world. We think: I will be happy when I have a successful relationship. I will be happy when I find a job. I will be happy when I'm out of this relationship. I'll be happy when I get that job promotion. I will be happy when my kid gets into the right school. The formula is clear: arbitrarily-defined success, then happiness.

Based upon the research in the new book "The Happiness Advantage," that formula -- success then happiness -- is scientifically backward. Over the past several years, I have been researching the relationship between happiness and success, only to discover that the problem is not that we forget to pursue happiness, but that we are pursuing it with the wrong formula.

Think about how some people conceive of relationships: "I am unhappy being single, so I will be happy when I am dating the person of my dreams." I had a friend in high school tell me that he would never be happy until he met his other half. This is exactly the formula of "I will be happy when..." While researching for an online dating website, I found that people who use this formula actually decrease their chances of finding a date. We have found that happiness and positivity are attractive traits. When the person we date is positive, it raises our own happiness, improves our immune system and lengthens our lives. So we are biologically attracted to happiness. Thus, we are turned off by the desperation which often stems from believing that happiness exists on the opposite side of success.

We don't quote Freud much anymore, but he did get one thing right: Freud said we leak information through every pore. Our brains are designed to look past things we control consciously (like what we say) to look at how we unconsciously say it. Negativity, uncertainty and desperation leak out through our non-verbals: our eyes, lines on our face, the tone of our voice, etc. So if a person wants to start dating, the key is to not wait for happiness. The key is to cultivate happiness first, which shines through on first encounters, instead of wallowing in the discontent of delayed happiness, waiting for some arbitrary success point in the future to trigger happiness.

This is true in every aspect of our life. I have worked with some unemployment service providers who wonder whether it is okay to have an article about happiness research in a newsletter about unemployment. Absolutely. If we think, "I will be happy only when I have a job," then we are putting happiness after success, which significantly decreases the chances of that person getting a job. Job interviewers, just like potential relationship partners, are looking for positive people to work with and to create a good environment. We leak optimism or pessimism through every pore.

So how can we pursue happiness right now? When I was counseling overwrought Harvard students, one of the first things I would tell them is to stop equating a future success (dating) with happiness. Dating does not mean you will be happy. If that was true, then everyone in a relationship would be happy. Look around and you'll see enough empirical proof that relationship does not guarantee happiness. The same is true with success. Is everyone with a job happy? Then stop thinking that finding a job, getting a promotion, etc. is the only thing that can bring happiness. Success does not mean happiness. Check out the entertainment section of The Huffington Post to look for examples to disabuse you of thinking that being beautiful, successful or rich will make you happy.

Second, we need to break the belief that our external world (how much money we make, are we in a relationship, what the economy is doing, etc.) is predictive of our happiness. Only 10 percent of our long-term happiness is predicted by the external world; 90 percent of our long-term happiness is thus how our brain processes the external world. This is why we find people at the same job who are positive and love their work, and others see it as drudgery and stress. This is why some people love being single and others cannot stand it. The external world does not predict your happiness, which is a freeing scientific realization about how much control you actually have over your happiness.

Third, happiness is a work ethic. You have to train your brain to be positive, just like you work out your body. Doing one positive habit, like eight minutes of meditation a day, journaling for two minutes about a positive experience (it backfires if you write about negative ones!) or writing a two-minute long positive email to a friend once a day -- all have been found in research over the past decade to significantly increase happiness, whatever your current life circumstances. Training your brain for gratitude is one of the most powerful ways to accomplish this. Gratitude is the recognition that the present can make you happy instead of waiting for a future event. Thus, if you think of three things you are grateful for over the course of 21 days, your level of optimism in life significantly rises.

The other half of the research in "The Happiness Advantage" is the good news: if you reverse the order of the formula, you end up with greater happiness and greater success rates. Happiness is the precursor to greater success. Every single relationship, business and educational outcome improves when the brain is positive. If you cultivate happiness while in the midst of your struggles, work, at school, while unemployed or single, you increase your chances of attaining all the goals you are pursuing, including happiness.

(c) 2011 Huffington Post

Try something new for 30 days

Here is a great little video challenging all of us to add new things to or take away old things from our lives for a month. See it here: Video on TED.com

The ability to let go.

Some helpful thoughts about learning to let life move along without trying to control every single thing that happens to us. See the article here: The ability to let go.

The Only Dream Worth Having

"The only dream worth having is to dream that you will live while you are alive, and die only when you are dead. To love, to be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and vulgar disparity of the life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all to watch." —  Arundhati Roy, Novelist

Bliss is not normal

"Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he has been robbed. The fact is that most putts don’t drop, most beef is tough, most children grow up to be just like people, most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration, and most jobs are more often dull than otherwise. Life is just like an old time rail journey ... delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders, and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed. The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride." — Jenkin Lloyd Jones, Unitarian Minister (1843-1918)