Respect Yourself- Set Boundaries

“People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person, or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die.” ~ Plato

Do you have trouble setting boundaries? In any relationship (whether it is with family, spouse, or friends), it is our responsibility to set the boundaries of how we allow others to treat us. It is not their fault if we allow them to use us, verbally abuse us, or take without ever giving back. Loving people does not mean you need to let them use you or hurt you emotionally or physically. If there are people in your life that you feel are treating you with disrespect or using you, you need to reset the boundaries. Learn to say, “No.” People only treat us as bad as we allow.

You can love someone without letting him or her in the inner circle of your life. The inner circle should be reserved for those who love and support you. Your presence and companionship are gifts. You are the one who decides who to give them to. You can’t change people, but you can change how you interact with them.

Lesson:

It is your responsibility to set the boundaries of how you allow other people to treat you.

Exercise:

Do you feel like someone is using you? Evaluate the situation to see if you have been allowing this behavior. Do you need to establish boundaries or reset current boundaries? Realize that if you have agreed to certain behavior, then no one is using you. Your time and attention are yours to decide who you give them to. You are not being used unless you have agreed to be used.

Work on establishing boundaries within your relationships. Remember, people only treat us as bad as we allow them to treat us.


~~~~~
By now you may have heard, the book, Be Happy Now:  Simple Steps for Enjoying Life is now available to buy on your kindle:


http://www.amazon.com/Be-Happy-Now-Enjoying-ebook/dp/B007S0B1N0/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2

A Buddhist Good Friday

Whether you are a Christian, some other faith, or even an atheist, you can use the spirit of Good Friday, one of the holiest Christian holidays, as a springboard to spiritual and/or personal transformation.  Good Friday is the day Jesus died on the cross.  At the heart of the event, it symbolizes an end of suffering which precipitates an extraordinary rise of a new beginning of life.

 Every year on Good Friday I take a hard look at myself. I take a personal inventory of any suffering that I need to release.  Some of the ways people suffer are:

*  Emotional pain that you are clinging to

*  Feelings of resentment 

*  Habits that are self destructive

*  Patterns of behavior that are not in alignment with who you are

*  Focusing too much on physical ailments

By taking a hard look at myself, I can bring awareness to the variety of ways I cause my own suffering.  With awareness, I can then let the emotions flow, and then I let them go, releasing the suffering in my heart. The Christian faith is founded upon the principle that Jesus died to release mankind of their "original" sin so that they may enjoy eternal life.  If you are plagued with internal guilt, resentment, or self destructive behavior you will suffer at your own hands.  This is a sin against yourself.  Let this day be one of reflection, moving past the darkness in your soul and moving toward a new resurrection of who you are.   

Many Blessings,

Laura Barrette Shannon

Rising from Darkness

"Adversity is like a strong wind.  It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are." ~ Arthur Golden

In everyone's life, relationships will end, health may decline, and people will pass on.  We all have to deal with loss and grief eventually.  It is important to allow your emotions to flow, to allow yourself to feel any way that you feel, without judging or suppressing your emotions.  Let the emotions flow, then let them go.  The sadness will eventually pass if you process the emotions with the knowledge that this too shall pass.  

Part of being happy and enjoying life is learning to move through the low tides without getting stuck.  Some people have a tendency to cling to loss much longer than it is healthy.  There may be thoughts of what-ifs, should-have-beens, or even blame.  All of these thoughts are unhealthy and will not help you move out of the darkness.  There are others who cling to their loss like a victim.  They become attached to their pain.  They think that by letting go of emotional pain, they are dishonoring the relationship- as if by not feeling sad they are expressing to the world that their relationship wasn't that strong.  These types of thoughts can keep them in the darkness for the rest of their lives.  There is no dishonor in moving past grief and being happy again.  When we cling to grief, we dishonor our own life and our own spirit.  I realized this after my eleven year old daughter, Nicole, died in 2000.  There were times when my victim mentality would creep into my mind and tell me lies about how i should never be happy again.  I came to the decision that the best way to honor her memory was to move forward and make the best of my life.  It is then that instead of destroying my life, her death became a catalyst for personal transformation.  It is in this way that your greatest loss can be your greatest gift.  Allow yourself to move through it, instead of getting stuck in it or trying to forget it.  Remember, what seems like a tragic circumstance can be used as a lesson to move you to a higher level of awareness.

Many blessings to those of you that are going through a dark time in your life right now.  Please know that you can move through even the darkest time in your life, if you allow yourself.

Lesson:

You can move through even the darkest time in your life, if you allow yourself.

Exercise:

Ask yourself if you are emotionally stuck in the grief of a personal loss.  If you are, begin to give yourself permission to move through the grief process toward a feeling of peace.  Begin to believe that a devastating loss doesn't have to wound you forever.  Begin to believe that you deserve to be happy again.

Make a conscious choice to steer your trains of thought toward the present and the future when you find yourself focused on what you have lost.

You may find these affirmations helpful:

"It is okay to be happy again."

"I am more than my greatest loss."

"I am grateful for this opportunity to transform myself."

"What does not kill me makes me stronger, 

and compels me to connect with who I am."

"Go is always here to support and strengthen me."

You Are Perfect- Yes You!

Are you perfect?  Most of us would answer "No" to this question, being all too aware of our personal faults.  Yet, this type of self judgement, of not quite being good enough can lead to low self esteem.  When we think of an idealized self, we might imagine being someone with immense wisdom, compassion, and inner peace.  Of course most of us would fall short of this type of comparison.  But it isn't quite fair to ourselves to make this type of comparison in the first place.  Look at a baby.  They are perfect, even though they lack knowledge and understanding.  They are perfect even though they have so much more to learn.  They are perfect in the stage of growth they are in at the time.  As adults, we sometimes lose track of this inner perfection of being human.  We all have room to grow.  We all still make mistakes, fall down sometimes, and sometimes don't even understand why.  Today, believe that you are perfect just as you are, while knowing that you have the ability to grow into a new definition of perfection tomorrow.  Stop comparing yourself to others, or to your idealized self, and embrace your innate human perfection.

Accepting and loving yourself is an important part of being happy.  Ponder these thoughts the next time you are feeling down on yourself.  

Namaste-

Laura Barrette Shannon

When Your Cup Is Full~ Stop Pouring!

Do you try to do more than you can handle?

Time is a strange concept. It seems that most people live according to some sort of time schedule, usually attempting to squeeze in more time than there is. They say things like, “I don’t have time” or “I wish there was more time.”The problem isn’t the amount of time in a day. Everyone has the same amount of time. The problem arises when people either agree to do too much because they have taken on more than they can handle or they don’t schedule enough, not making the time for what is important to them.

Do you take on more than you can handle and then feel stressed? Do you have a problem saying “No” or try to please everyone all the time? Trying to do more than you can handle is like pouring hot coffee into a cup that is already full. If you keep pouring, it will burn you. It’s all right to pace yourself, choosing to do what is important to you and not committing to everyone and everything that vies for your attention. Remember that if you are overworked and overstressed, then you won’t be much good to anyone. Practice setting boundaries and limits on how many things you schedule, and then you will have time to drink that cup of coffee!

“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.”

~ Stephen Covey

Take a look at your life. Is it over scheduled with activities to the point where you feel that you don’t have time for self-improvement, creative endeavors, or quality time with loved ones? If you make a list of the top five priorities in your life, do you make time to attend to them? Decide what is important, schedule it, and then schedule the rest. You will be surprised at how much your life will be enhanced when you focus on what is truly important to you.

I periodically reevaluate my life and make a list of the five most important things to me. Right now, it’s peace of mind, relationships, my dogs, writing, and spirituality. Because these things are a priority to me, I make time for them first. Then I schedule everything else. As time goes on, the priorities will change and so will my schedule of activities. It is impossible to do everything and be there for everyone all the time. You must become aware of your limitations, scheduling no more than you can comfortably handle. If you over-schedule, you will become tired and stressed, which makes everything in life less enjoyable. When you get so caught up in the multitude of activities that you have committed to, you may end up neglecting what is most important to you.

Lesson:

When your cup is full, stop pouring!

Exercise:

Evaluate your schedule, and ask yourself, “What is important to me?” Make time for what matters most to you, and then schedule the rest. If a relationship is important, then schedule quality time together. If it’s your health, then schedule regular exercise routines and plan a healthy meal schedule. When you focus on what is important to you, you will feel at peace with your life and how you spend your time.

Do not take on more than you can handle in a balanced way. Taking on too much creates stress and imbalance in the rest of your life. Practice saying “No” when necessary.

Become aware of what is important to you, then make time for your priorities. Let the rest of your life be balanced with other activities that you have agreed to, but never more than you can comfortably handle.

Exercise Helps Elevate Moods

Walking daily will help depression.

Our physical bodies have an effect on our emotional bodies. If we

are physically out of shape, it can have an enormous effect on

how we feel emotionally. When we take steps to stay physically healthy

and fit, we are increasing our emotional health as well.

Exercise doesn’t have to be difficult or vigorous to affect your

emotional body. Exercising, even with just a short walk, will increase

your oxygen intake, relieve stress, and elevate your mood. Walking is

one of the best and easiest activities to relieve stress.

Make walking a daily habit. Even if you only walk for fifteen

minutes, it will make a difference in the way you feel both physically

and emotionally. Walk outside when possible and gain the added benefits

of fresh air and sunshine. Take a friend or family member for a walk

and you’ll have quality bonding time.

As you walk, pay attention to all the sights, sounds, and smells.

This brings your awareness to the present, which makes it a walking

meditation. Make walking a daily habit and you will be exercising your

body and easing your mind at the same time. Walk more and enjoy life

more.

I cannot over emphasize the importance of exercise for those of

you who are prone to depression or are bi-polar. Whenever I feel the

downward pull of my cycle towards depression, if I force myself to keep

walking daily, it really helps to keep me from spiraling further into

depression. Walking is one of my most important tools for maintaining

stability and balance during emotional swings.

Lesson:

Exercise helps elevate moods.

Exercise:

Incorporate some form of exercise into your life. At the very least,

make walking a daily habit. If you start exercising every day, you will

reap the benefits both physically and mentally.

The Grass Really Isn't Greener...

A married woman tending her garden sees a plane go by and dreams of travel. The traveling salesman on the plane sits next to an old man, which starts him dreaming of retirement. The retired old man sitting across from a young family yearns to be young again. The young mother is looking at the teenager sitting in front of her and can’t wait for her toddler to be self-sufficient. The teen is looking out the window at the woman in her garden and wishes she was older so she could get married and have her own garden.

We often look away from where we are to the past, the future, or to what someone else has that we think we might enjoy, instead of being where we are in life. The grass isn’t any greener anywhere else. Life is what you experience. Enjoy your own life instead of wishing you were someone else or in a different time in your life. Each part of your life will be different from the others, but each is worth experiencing while it is here. Whether you are young, old, single, married, traveling, or being a homebody, appreciate it.

Lesson:

You can’t enjoy life if you are wishing you were someone else

 or focusing on a different time in your life.

Exercise:

Become aware when you are wishing you were in a different phase of your life. This train of thought devalues where you are right now in life. If you find yourself caught up in time travel thinking, bring your awareness back to the present. Begin to focus on gratitude and appreciation for where you are right now in life. 

Stop Waiting!

“The essence of life is not in

the great victories and grand failures,

but in the simple joys.”

~ Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Patience is allowing life to unfold in its own time. If you feel the unease of impatience, bring your attention back to the present and remind yourself that there are no ordinary moments. Every minute of every day is just as fleeting and sacred as any other. Impatience devalues the present moment, as if it’s not good enough. Become aware of this and start valuing all of your time.

Many of us have become so busy that we feel rushed and stressed throughout the day. Some of these feelings arise from the annoyance we cause ourselves by always waiting for the next activity. When you are in a mind-set of waiting, you are not present. If you are at a stop light, in a checkout line, or a doctor’s office, you are in a traditional waiting situation. By switching your state of mind to being present, you can relax and enjoy these few minutes of inactivity. In a busy day, these moments give us a much needed opportunity to take a break.

Many people have experienced the agitation of waiting while stopped at a red light. For some reason, there seems to be a lack of acceptance when it comes to traffic. Logically, we know that red lights, detours, and accidents are a normal part of traffic. Yet when faced with a couple of minutes at a red light, some people feel irritated. They spend these couple of minutes dwelling on how long the lights are, how many lights are on their route, and how the car in front of them should have gone through the yellow light so that they could have sped through the light before it changed red. Sometimes they even start to verbalize derogatory names about other drivers. In these few minutes, instead of peace and relaxation, these drivers have worked themselves up into a fit of anger.

It’s time to stop waiting and start relaxing. Use this time to take a few deep breaths, feel your body, hear the music of life, and be aware of the details around you. When you bring your attention to your physical body and the surrounding environment, you are forcing your awareness outside your head. This is an automatic tension reliever. Nothing can bother you when you are present in the moment.

Lesson:

Stop waiting and enjoy life as it is happening. Be where you are.

Exercise:

When you are in a waiting situation, give yourself a break!

Take a few deep breaths. Slowly inhale, feeling the air expand your lungs. Then feel the tension leave your body with each exhale.

Think an affirmation of gratitude for these few moments of tranquility that you are about to experience. 

This is wonderful! I am so grateful for these few minutes of peace.

Bring your attention to your surroundings. Engage your senses and be aware of sights, sounds, and smells. Get out of your head and reconnect with the world.

Start actively relaxing in situations where you would normally find yourself waiting. It’s time to reclaim these precious minutes of your day! Begin to experience the peace and serenity that you can enjoy in these same few minutes. Cultivating patience is one simple step to enjoying life.

What Trains Are You Riding?

“The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self-created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

Thoughts are like trains passing through your mind. You can either let the train go by, silently watching it flow through, or you can jump on the train of thought, allowing it to bring you to a destination. Some trains go to happy places: warm memories, future dreams, gratitude, present surroundings. Others go to places of misery: regret, worry, resentment, complaints. Be aware of what train you jump on. When you pay attention to trains of thought, they grow stronger and come more often. Begin to be aware of how your thoughts affect your moods. Ask yourself, “Where is this train going?” Then you can either stay on it or jump off! 

The optimal goal is not to allow ourselves to indulge in trains of thought that lead to misery and suffering. But since this takes time to master, most of us will occasionally find ourselves on a self-destructing train of thought. To maintain peace of mind, we must learn how to jump from negative trains to happy trains.

There are many ways to change your train of thought. One of the easiest is to bring your awareness back to the present moment. Use the ABCs of redirecting attention. A- Awareness B- Breathe C- Choose.  Take one or two slow, deep breaths. Pay attention to your surroundings; concentrate on feeling your body sensations, sights, sounds, and smells. When you are fully present, your mind will not be thinking about past trauma, today’s complaints, or tomorrow’s worries. You will be in the now, fully aware and free to experience life outside your head until you choose to jump onto a more pleasant train of thought. Practice being aware of what train you are riding, and jump trains as necessary. The more you practice, the easier it will be, until one day it will be second nature. The less attention you pay to the negative trains of thought, the less often they will come to mind and the quicker they will pass through, eventually not coming much at all.

Lesson:

By redirecting your attention, you have the ability to jump off negative trains of thought.

Exercise:

Practice jumping trains of thought.

When you become aware that you are riding on a negative train of thought, jump off. Practice bringing your awareness back to the present moment. Take a slow, deep breath. Engage in the sensory input around you. Stay present as long as possible. Engage in your life as it is unfolding before you. Become an active participant in your surroundings. Eventually, pick a happier train of thought to ride. Choose trains like gratitude, future dreams, or compassion.

Be patient with yourself during this training phase. It’s been a lifetime riding on the same unhappy trains over and over. It will take some time to lay new train tracks. Any amount of effort you give this exercise will pay off as it will raise your awareness and hone your ability to focus your attention at will.  

Self Awareness

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.”~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Know thyself.” ~ Socrates

Self-awareness is the cornerstone to transformation. If you do not understand yourself, how can you change?

One easy way to increase your self-awareness is to put yourself into an observational mode by watching how you usually react to people and situations. Bring your awareness into an observational mode by paying attention to your patterns of being and questioning your thoughts and behavior. You can then assess your behavior. Distinguish if the way you are acting is in alignment with who you desire to be. Do certain people seem to upset you or cause you to feel stressed? Discover what it is that you are thinking around them. Watch yourself and you will find out what situations push you into automatic reactions. Once you can recognize these situations, the mere fact of recognizing them brings a state of higher awareness. Then you will have the power to be however you choose to be instead of driving on impulse.

You may be surprised to find that when you come from a place of reaction, you are not in alignment with how you would choose to respond if you had given the situation a moment of thought. Once you have attained this watcher awareness, you will have the power to respond to life instead of operating with your automatic default reactions. Remember your ABCs of responding to life: Awareness, Breathe, Choose. Then you can choose love over fear, peace over conflict, and happiness over despair.

Lesson:

Watching how you interact in the world raises your self-awareness.

Exercise:

Practice observing yourself. Learn to shift your awareness as necessary. When you are watching yourself, you are in a state of higher awareness. In this mode of consciousness, you will be open to new types of behavior as well as increasing self-awareness.

Don’t judge your efforts. Any amount of attention you give to this practice will enhance your ability to move into higher awareness at will. Have fun with this exercise. You will learn things you never knew about yourself. 

Embrace Your Real Beauty

“A woman whose smile is open and whose expression is glad has a kind ofbeauty no matter what she wears.” ~Anne Roiphe

“In so much as love grows in you,so in you beauty grows.”

~St. Augustine

Beauty is a cultural agreement of what physical traits are most desirable. To evaluate yourself on external criteria that are beyond your control is to sentence yourself to a life of trying to mold yourself into an ideal of what is currently considered beautiful. This type of behavior reinforces low self-worth by repeating thoughts that you are not good enough the way you are. It drives people to have unnecessary cosmetic surgery and to develop hate for their own natural physical characteristics.

Real beauty comes in all shapes, ages, colors, cultures, and every other variety imaginable. There is nothing more attractive than self-confidence mixed with compassion, or a warm, authentic smile. Realize that beautiful isn’t an adjective but an action verb. It is an expression of being. Act beautiful by being loving and compassionate. Act beautiful by being an expression of joy to those around you. Be an example to others. Stop trying to mold yourself into the media’s idea of beauty and embrace your own beautiful traits as the uniqueness that is part of what makes you you. Real beauty comes from within.

Even those of us who have fended off the peer pressure of culturally conforming to current beauty standards can be surprisingly affected by loss of youth. You may feel less than you used to be because the years have etched a few lines on your face or you no longer have the body of a twenty-year-old. Real beauty comes from the charisma and radiance of self-confidence and inner joy. It never matters how old you are. Age is a number. The higher the number, the more you have experienced and the wiser you become. Don’t let growing older be a cause of distress. Let each year be a badge of honor you display gracefully. (And remember to stretch!)

Fluffy or thin, old or young, wrinkle free or etched to perfection, love yourself. You are perfectly beautiful just the way you are!

Lesson:

Realize that beautiful isn’t an adjective but an action verb. It is an expression of being.

Exercise:

Make a list of what makes you beautiful as a person. Start each sentence with “I am beautiful …”

Examples:

I am beautiful when I help others.

I am beautiful when I smile.

I am beautiful when I play with my dog.

I am beautiful when I embrace who I am with love.

Realize that beautiful isn’t an adjective but an action verb. It is an expression of being. Be real. Be beautiful.

Seeds of Discontent

When we cultivate acceptance, it will begin to strangle the weeds of discontent. When we can begin to accept that certain things in life are beyond our control, then we can understand the uselessness of complaining about them. When we complain, we are planting seeds of misery in our minds and spreading those seeds to other people.

Complaining will amplify your fixation on negative circumstances. If you can change what you are wishing to change, then have the courage to do it. If you choose not to, then stop complaining. If it is something beyond your control, then the complaining serves only one purpose: to aggravate yourself and others around you.

Not only is complaining a waste of time and energy, but it is detrimental to peace of mind. Whenever you complain, you are planting weeds of misery instead of seeds of happiness. You are reinforcing negative thinking with every complaint you utter. Begin to notice how you feel irritated when you complain about things. This irritation is one of the root causes of stress in your life. Stress is caused when the mind refuses to accept what is. When we are constantly dwelling on things that are out of our control, we plant seeds of discontent and anger. The events in our life do not create stress; our thoughts about these events are the seeds of discontent.

Mom was right: “If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all.” Become aware of how your words affect your emotions and those who hear them. It’s not just gossip that hurts; it is any complaint or negative comments about life in general. Become aware of the power of your words. Words are powerful. They can bring people together or drive them apart. Watch your words and those around you. Begin to see the power behind them. Practice being positive and you will not only feel better yourself, you will be a light to those around you.

Lesson:

Become aware that complaining is

 a seed of discontent and unhappiness.

Exercise:

Begin to be aware of what you say. Your words are a mirror of your mind. See if you can notice how much you complain and how others will complain about the littlest things. Become aware of what type of conversations you have with people. Are most of your conversations positive and uplifting, or are they mostly complaining about people or life in general? Begin to notice how you feel when you complain about things. How do you feel when others are complaining? All that is required is for you to become aware of how complaining is contributing to your level of stress.

This is an awareness exercise. Raising your awareness is the first step to complaining less. Awareness is the key to getting your emotions under control. Don’t judge yourself. Be grateful that you are becoming aware of how stress originates and that you have the power to begin living peacefully.

The Ripple Effect- It Starts with You

Like a pebble dropped into a pond

our lives affect many, today and beyond,

causing ripples with what we say

in those we touch throughout the day.

One kind word or action well done

can change the world for someone.

Our thoughts, opinions, and attitudes

are absorbed by all, influencing moods.

Never underestimate the power of words,

'cause what is said is always heard,

rippling waves through space and time,

so keep speech positive and actions kind.

"Rippling Waves' from Awakening Perception 

Today, see how many smiles you can receive in response to your own bright smile.  Watch how the world responds to you.  You do not even have to say a word to affect others.  Your expressions, the way you move, even the way you feel is emanated out from you onto others- whether you want it to or not.  How you are affects others.  When you are in a rushed or anxious state of mind, it will influence those around you.  When you are calm and have a warm expression, it will make others feel at ease.  With awareness, you will be able to monitor your moods and begin to regulate them to more neutral or positive expressions of being.  If you feel agitated, just by changing your outward expression by consciously smiling, breathing slow, and moving slower, you will begin to feel calmer.  You can be a positive influence on your own emotional body as well as be a positive force in the world.

Today's meditation is to ponder how we start ripples that affect more people than we will ever know. 

Please make your ripples something you want amplified, because they are.

What are you amplifying to the world today?

Namaste-

Laura Barrette Shannon

Using Prayer to Release Resentment

"Pray for those who despitefully use you." ~Mathew 5:44

The advice given here is the key to releasing any resentment in your heart that you may be holding on to. When we become attached to our emotional pain, we resist letting go of it. When we repeat thoughts of resentment, anger, or hatred in our minds we are reinforcing our attachment to the pain by justifying it to ourselves.  This causes suffering. 

By praying for those who act in unawareness, we are not only helping them with our prayers, we are helping to heal our own hearts. Remember that people do the best they can with the knowledge, beliefs, and psychological state of mind that they have at the time.  There is no need to take offense from anyone.  What people do is never personal.  It is not about you.  There is no need to carry this pain and resentment any more. You are only hurting yourself.  

Pray for those who have hurt you. Stop justifying your resentment and you won't be attached to it. Prayer will heal your heart.

Be happy my friends-

Laura Barrette Shannon

See the Perfection in Imperfection

Do you need everything to be perfect before you can relax? Do you feel anxious if your life isn't planned out perfectly, if your day takes an unexpected shift, or if things don't go the way you expect? The desire for perfection can drive you to do extraordinary things, but an obsessive attitude can drive yourself crazy. If this is an issue for you, by bringing self-awareness to your perfection tendencies you will have the power to get those thoughts under control. Remember that moderation is the key to peace of mind. Learn to see the beauty in imperfection and you will be able to relax and enjoy life without trying to make it perfect.

The Joy of Service

“Many times when we take the focus off of ourselves and work to help others, our own problems shrink in size.” ~ Angie Hoover Lawson

Being of service to others is one of the most powerful techniques to raise your spirits. When we are helping others, it takes the focus off our own problems while building a sense of self-worth. It also arouses feelings of interconnection and love. Since love is the master from which all positive emotions spring forth, it will trump all negative emotions. If you feel awful and don’t know what else to do, after you pray for peace of mind, go help someone. You will feel like you make a difference. It will remind you that what you do matters. At the same time, it will refocus your attention away from your own personal problems. Serving others always allows us to build and strengthen our bonds of interconnection.

I remember the night I learned of my daughter’s death. I was emotionally stunned and just sat looking out the front window all night. As morning came, I noticed the man across the street come outside to pick up his garbage, which had been spread all over the place by some animals overnight. Without thought, I went outside and started helping him pick up the garbage. We didn’t speak, and he had no knowledge of what I was going through. When we were done, he said, “Thanks.” and went back inside. It was those three or four minutes, picking up garbage, that were the most peaceful moments of that day. Acting in service, even in one of my darkest moments, helped me feel at peace for a few minutes. So yes, service will not only help others, it will help yourself too.

Lesson:

Being of service to others is one of the most powerful techniques to raise your spirits.

Exercise:

Do you feel overwhelmed with your own problems? Or feel like you’re in a funk? Offer to help someone in need. Become aware of when people could use some help. There are so many opportunities to be of service. It can be as simple as giving someone a ride to the store or offering to do yard work for the old widow next door. Even just bringing someone a warm meal or a plate of cookies can make his or her whole day brighter. When we pay attention to the needs of others, we’re not only helping them, we are helping ourselves in the process. It opens our heart, which allows us to feel more love. An open heart is a healthier and happier heart.

Lift the spirits of two people. Give someone a helping hand today! If enough people make a habit of helping others, it will be a kinder world. It starts with you.

Be Who You Are

“It isn’t until you come to a spiritual understanding of who you are—not necessarily a religious feeling, but deep down, the spirit within- that you can begin to take control.” ~ Oprah Winfrey

A girl asks her Grandmother, “How do you know what your purpose in life is?”

The grandmother gently takes the child by the hand and leads her toward a pond where a frog is sitting on a lily pad.

Grandmother says, “Dear little one, see this frog? Does he have to think about what his purpose is before he sits in the sun to warm himself or swims with delight with his friends? Does he think about being patient and working hard for his next meal as he awaits a passing fly?”

The girl responds, “I guess he just does those things naturally, Grandma.”

“Yes, and by following his instincts and doing what he naturally yearns to do, he is living his life’s purpose.”

You too might wonder if there is a purpose for your life. I assure you that there is. Finding that purpose is part of discovering your authentic self. The more you align yourself with who you really are, the clearer your life purpose will become. Finding yourself involves listening to your intuition and your natural instincts. If you yearn to play piano, if find yourself composing original melodies in your head, then the chances are good that your life purpose involves music. When we suppress our basic natures or our inborn talents, we are holding ourselves back from being all that we could be. When we suppress our innate yearnings of self-expression, we suppress a huge part of who we are. This can result in feelings of uselessness, low self-esteem, and depression.

Finding your life purpose involves moving beyond your childhood programming and following what feels right to you. If you are in a family of doctors and were always expected to grow up to be a doctor, this may or may not be your true purpose. Only you can answer the call of spirit, which will guide you to express your innate gifts. By allowing your innermost desires of self-expression to come out, you release yourself from being who and what everyone else thinks you should be, thus finding yourself in the process.

Not everyone’s life purpose will be an enormous influence on the world, such as Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, and Gandhi. Sometimes your life purpose is felt most on your inner circle of family and friends. But the most important result of living your life with purpose is the effect it has on you. You will feel passion and immense joy for life.  Also, by being authentic to who you are, you will inspire others to be themselves too.

Act in alignment with your heart and connect with spirit, and you will be living your life with purpose.

Lesson:

The purpose of life is to reconnect with your authentic self and then to let your life be an expression of who you are.

Exercise:

Do you act in alignment with your authentic self, your deepest desires, and your intuition? The best way to decide if you are living your life with purpose is how you feel about who you are and what you do with your time. It’s not about thinking or logically planning a life of accomplishments. Finding your self is about connecting to the still small voice of spirit in your heart. It’s about listening to your intuition and instincts. It’s about rediscovering the pieces of yourself that may have been lost or suppressed. Sit quietly and take a few deep breaths. Take a few minutes to really feel who you are. What it is that you wish to do, to experience, to express, to be like today, next week, next year?

This is the most important question you will ever answer. The answer will change over time as you continually evaluate your innermost desires. The purpose of life is to connect with your authentic self and then let your life be an expression of who you are. Once you know who you are, you can evaluate what is working in your life to achieve balance between who you are and how you live. Evaluate what is in alignment with your dream of self-expression.

Do you believe and think you are on the path to actively live out your sense of self?

Do your words and actions work for or against your authentic self?

Keep doing what works. Stop doing what doesn’t.

Find a way to act and speak in alignment with who you are and what you want to experience.

Realize your dreams of self-expression by realizing what they are, believing you can reach them, and then following the path of action in alignment that leads to them.

Be true to yourself and you will be following your life purpose.

Be who you are.

Releasing Anger

“Throughout life people will make you mad, disrespect you, and treat you bad. Let God deal with the things they do cause hate in your heart will consume you too.”

~Will Smith

A fundamental step to being happy is learning to process negative emotions in a healthy way. When we are born, we freely express our emotions with passion, letting them completely flow. As children we process emotions with full force: we cry hard and laugh out loud. Then we move on with our day, not thinking about them. Children let their emotions flow with complete passion and then release them. They can be angry one minute and laughing the next. As we got older, we learned to suppress our emotions and/or express them in unhealthy ways. We also learned to dwell on the emotions in our thoughts, keeping them stuck inside our emotional bodies.

When we allow our thoughts to dwell in anger, discontent, or injustice, we are causing our own suffering. Anger, as all emotions, is a natural response to some situations. Feel the emotion, and then let it flow and let it go. We all did this when we were very young. We would get upset, cry, scream, and jump up and down, and then a few minutes later we would be onto something else without dwelling on the past emotion.

When people stay with the emotion by repetitively rehashing the situation in their minds, suffering occurs. Anger itself is the demon that wields the punishment. Oh, that we could instantly feel the burning nature of anger like the burn of a fire, we would avoid touching it again. There are many ways to extinguish this emotional fire. The one that works best for me is taking a few slow, deep breaths. This is instantly calming and allows your attention to move away from the angry thoughts. The fire of anger feeds on attention. Don’t feed it, and it won’t burn you.

Anger is never an excuse to act in harmful ways toward others. We all feel angry from time to time. With any negative emotion, it is best to let it flow to let it go. But that doesn’t mean you have to yell at someone or resort to violence. When you feel angry, acknowledge it, take a few slow, deep breaths, and then, if the feeling is still strong, choose an appropriate way to channel it: Walk, run, jump, scream (never at someone), take a shower, exercise, sing, or cry. Use whatever method works for you to discharge the emotion without spreading it to others.

Lesson:

Let emotions flow, then let them go.

Exercise:

Begin processing your negative emotions in healthy ways. Practice using different techniques to calm yourself and to release the emotional energy. Discover what methods work best for you. Be aware of your responsibility to keep your negative emotions from attacking others either verbally or physically.

Do You Victimize Yourself?

“What poison is to food, self pity is to life.”~ Oliver C. Wilson

“Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.” ~ Helen Keller

What does it mean to victimize yourself? And why would anyone in his or her right mind do such a thing? Unfortunately, people do it all the time and don’t even know they are doing it.

When you experience a negative event in your life, it can be very tempting to dwell on it in your thoughts or tell the story over and over days, months, and even many years later. Each time you do this, you are emotionally right back in the situation. Maybe it was someone who physically hurt you, a tragedy, or emotional pain from the past that you tend to revisit time and again. When you rehash old wounds by telling the story over and over, you reopen them, causing emotional pain. Humans are the only animals on earth that allow themselves to repetitively suffer over and over by the same event. By focusing on when you felt victimized, you are playing the role of the victim once again. This is emotional abuse that you inflict on yourself.

The first time you may be a victim, but the second time you are a volunteer. This is often said about physical abuse when referring to the people who return to harmful situations again and again. When we play the victim, by repeating stories of our perceived victimization we are reinforcing a victim attitude in ourselves. Being a victim will convince you that you are powerless, that life is beyond your control. This is not true. You are only a victim if you believe that you are. You cannot always choose what happens to you in life, but you can choose how to respond to life. Do not play a victim. Take your power back.

If you find yourself caught up in self-pity, immediately bring your awareness back to the present moment. Focus your attention on your physical sensations. Take a deep breath. Actively switch your attention away from thoughts of the past. If you have been in a habit of dwelling on past negative situations, you have not made peace with those situations or the people involved. Until you resolve the issues, they will continue to haunt you. The first step is to stop repetitively verbalizing your past pain to other people.

How do you make peace with your past? It all starts with intent. Begin with the intent that you can and will be able to live a happy life even though some things happened in the past that you wish did not happen. There are many processes for accepting the past and letting the emotions finally flow through you and leave. One of the best I’ve used is journaling. You can get it all out on paper. Write the things that you might never say to anyone else. Then burn it.

Another method is to tell it to God. Pray for peace of mind and the strength to let it go. Or tell it to your dog, cat, plant, or a candle. Get it all out one final time. Allow yourself to feel the emotions, cry, yell, jump up and down, and release the anger, pain, and sadness. Allow the emotions to fully emerge and to finally release themselves from your mind and body.

Then, let it go. Repeat it no more. If it comes across your mind, immediately switch your train of thought and don’t ride that train. Eventually the train will come by less and less, and eventually it won’t even pass by. By focusing less on the past pain, you will be taking its emotional fuel away. This will allow you to recover enough personal power to work on acceptance and forgiveness as time goes on.

Watch what you say about yourself. When you repeat stories of being a victim, express self-pity, or talk down about yourself, you are giving away your personal power and playing the role of the unworthy victim again and again. Remember lesson #12: You are the narrator of your life story.

Be aware of how you talk about yourself. Words can either be empowering or victimizing.

Exercise:

Become aware of how you feel when you repeat stories of victimization. Avoid retelling any story that makes you feel upset or weak. Also, avoid encouraging others to tell their stories of victimization. Avoid saying self-effacing comments, such as, “I’m not good enough, smart enough, or attractive enough.” Don’t victimize yourself!

If there are issues that are emotionally unresolved, please take whatever action is necessary to release the resentment and anger. Don’t be afraid to seek professional help, such as a counselor, a psychologist, group counseling, or spiritual guidance. It is time to resolve any issues that make you feel like a victim so you can move forward into a life of joy and peace.