:: The Center of Happiness ::

Live as if you were to die tomorrow.
Learn as if you were to live forever.

– Mahatma Gandhi

Serve Our Self
Sense Our Source
Support Our Soul

From the www.gogratitude.com

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.
Live the life you have imagined.”

– Henry David Thoreau

…I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

– Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903
in Letters to a Young Poet

“If you want to find God, hang out in the space between your thoughts.”

— Alan Cohen

Whether formally or informally, acknowledged or not, we all have some spiritual sense of wonder within and about us. What we call this power is unique to each of us, but generations and generations of a variety of spiritual beliefs have revealed a common thread between us all regardless of our name for the Mystery. So, let’s not get hung up there. Instead of focusing on how our beliefs are different, let’s revel in the common theme - Love, and the power of connection.

I have been paying conscious attention to the quality of my thoughts for while. Our thinking can become so routine that we then become deaf to our thought quality and merely regurgitate the old patterns and limiting beliefs that have long since stopped working for us. This corrodes our connection to Spirit and often rather than moving forward adjusting our path, we spend our energy being frustrated, thus trapped. Aware that that upon which we place our focus is what we experience and create more of, it is surprising when we listen in to what goes on in our mind.

Once we listen in, often the garbage we hear startles us, and then shifting our negative thoughts can be as challenging as stopping a freight train. And yet, with all my thinking successes and setbacks, I am now dedicated to revising my thoughts incrementally, and with greater self-love and compassion. My loving thoughts for others and my self allow me to participate in life, influence what I create, and more tenderly touch those around me. The quality of my thoughts influences the quality of my reality. Life is not a journey where you merely sit back and enjoy the ride. It is a collaborative adventure that calls for your co-creation and participation where Love is the fuel.

So join me on this magical journey with a heightened awareness of the power of your thoughts. Together we will re-discovering our still voice within, become conscious in our thinking, and embrace our co-creative abilities of finding God, finding Good, finding the Love that is ours and awaits us in the space between our thoughts.

In Joy,
Rhonda

“Happiness is a direction, not a place.”

– Sydney J. Harris

“Let no one come to you without leaving a better and happier. Be the living expression of God’s kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile.”

– Mother Teresa

Rhonda’s Refelctions:

Lately I have been intentionally clarifying what I want, and the process of doing so has caused me to reflect on who I really am. What is my purpose, my calling? Am I living it boldly and fully? Am I allowing in all that life has to offer? What are my limiting beliefs and how can I enthusiastically and prosperously surrender old habits of thinking and embrace what I know to be true?

Amidst the challenges of my childhood that offered me the opportunity to choose differently, somewhere along the way I decided from some authentic place within that it was my calling to offer what would allow people to leave my influence ‘better and happier.’ In simple ways I was called to connect and demonstrate love. As I ponder not only my career, but all my relationships and experiences, I feel I have been on course more than not. However, I find my greatest challenge is offering this consistently to is myself. Questioning my worth has prevented me from fully opening the flow to the abundance, freedom and the peace that IS.

So, it is my intention to walk through this day and all the days to come choosing self-love so that my life, too, can be ‘better and happier’ because I share my gifts. Each day I will include myself in my salutations of acceptance and love with kindness in my eyes as I see myself in a mirror, and with a smile of gratitude when I notice and drink in all my blessings.

I invite you to join me at the Center of Happiness. Today I remember that Divine Love, as me, blesses and multiplies all that I am, all that I have, all that I give and all that I receive.

Please pass this blog site forward to those you feel would welcome it.
Also, invite them to sign up for my DRIVE YOURSELF HAPPY Road Ramblings Newsletter, which throughout the comming year will grow and change as we all will.

In Joy,
Rhonda

The Center of Happiness
P.O. Box 1667
Port Townsend, WA 98368
info@driveyourselfhappy.com
www.driveyourselfhappy.com
www.detourfromstress.com

When it comes right down to it, the truth is that the greatest gift we can give another is to take full responsibility for our own authentic happiness. Whether I am interacting with my family and friends, sharing the concepts of Drive Yourself Happy, or traveling the journey of defining my new focus on empowering women, this is the consistent Truth upon which I build my life. This knowing ‘drives’ and inspires me… the knowing that I am the one called to create my own happiness.

Life is a journey and an interesting one at that if you choose to participate in expanding your consciousness. It is often the case that we “teach best what we most need to learn” (Richard Bach, Illusions: The Journey of a Reluctant Messiah). This is why and how happiness became a guiding theme in my life.

At times I still can be tempted to detour from my own happiness and clarity about what I want by my attempts to create joy for others. For me, they are so closely woven together. I truly love making a difference and bringing joy. It is one of the greatest inheritances I received from my dad, the genuine enjoyment derived from creating experiences that prompt joy for others. My dad would absolutely take delight in knowing that he had facilitated a magical experience to make someone else’s life easier. For him as well as for me it is not about expecting anything in return. His gifts were often done anonymously. His fulfillment came from seeing others truly happy.

This has been a tricky edge for me to walk. And, I suspect I am not alone. What is our greatest strength also provides us with our greatest challenges and offers us unlimited opportunities to grow. There are always two sides to any coin. I am grateful to be inspired by my dad to focus on the importance of happiness and gifted by him to experience deep contentment by fostering happiness for others, connecting them with their innate value. But, as it happens for many of us, we forget the power of the wisdom we know. Somewhere along the way my well being got wrapped around and dependent upon making others happy in order to be happy myself. On occasion it still is my unconscious default to fall back into the belief that I have failed if I disappoint someone or if what I do does not result in their happiness. I more consistently catch myself, and I have given permission to dear ones in my life to awaken me when I slip into my old false beliefs. In my more conscious moments I know it is my own choice and responsibility to be happy, detached from the prerequisite of making another happy to prove my worth.

Life certainly gets full and rolls along at a fast clip. We so easily get caught up in the frenzied pace. We live as if we believe that if we just run fast enough we ‘should’ be able to ‘do’ it all. With the same amount of information that it took two years to process a hundred years ago now crossing our desk in just one day, the reality is that it is humanly impossible to do it all without great sacrifice and self-damage. We are human beings, not human doings, and true joy comes not only from what we accomplish but from being authentically who we are as we do whatever we do. Our success is not measured by how many things we get done, but from having lived a life of grace and happiness each step on our journey.

When we value ourselves enough to fill our own souls and feed our own spirits, the love that we give others is then authentic and heart-felt. Our energy will grow, radiate and bless them. Even with full and busy lives we can still generate abundant energy. When we deprive ourselves of our own basic self-care in order to care for another, our generosity, love and enthusiasm for life become tainted with resentment, disappointment, and frustration. Eventually our fatigue and discontent block us from knowing that we are wonderful and all is well regardless of our circumstances.

Not loving ourselves as much as we love others destroys the very well-being we are working so hard to create, and eventually we become a burden rather than an asset to those we are intending to serve. Our self-imposed abuse creates incredible self-doubt, and initiates that horrible spiral downward of believing we have failed and are just not good enough. Women, especially, have been well trained to be harshly and easily self-critical. On this detour from happiness, we fail to realize that we are the ones generating all the evidence to support our mis-belief, when we could be generating joy and prosperity instead. It feels tiring just writing about it, let alone living it! Sound all too familiar?

This week I have mentored several people with co-dependency as their common detour from happiness. They are not whiners. They truly have huge challenges on their plates managing the mental illness and dementia of close loved ones. It is easy for all of us to say that the demand on us is too big and that we just don’t have time to stop to care for ourselves. We feel we can’t afford the luxury of even the smallest respite or the world will collapse on our watch. And yet we must!

We teach those around us how to treat us by how we treat our selves. Contrary to what our fears are yelling as the truth, the Real Truth is that we cannot afford not to nurture ourselves. If we do not take care of ourselves, we will collapse and be of no help to others. It need not be in big ways to make a difference, but we must announce and demonstrate to the Universe that we love ourselves and have assumed responsibility for our own joy. Small steps accumulate an abundance of energy because they connect us to the Truth and hold a forward intention.

So, if you are totally overwhelmed and frantic in this moment and have been taken hostage by your limiting beliefs, here are a few suggestions for your freedom and the refueling your Spirit with simple small steps of self-love:

* Read even one line of something inspiring when you get up and before you go to bed.
* Ask for what you want not by stating what you don’t want, but by declaring what you do.
* Dare to share your burden with a trusted someone.
* Ask for support.
* Expect a miracle.
* Write down all your negative thoughts and destroy them.
* Say ‘no’ when you mean no and ‘yes’ when you mean yes, regardless of what people will think.
* Wait 24 hours before you take on another responsibility.
* Place time for yourself on your calendar before you say yes to someone else.
* Honor time with yourself as if you had an appointment with Mother Teresa.
* Do not answer the phone during dinner.
* Do not do for someone what they can do for themselves, even though they may not be able to do it according to your standards. It robs them of their power and drains yours.
* Drink lots of water.
* Do things that are truly important rather than doing them just because they feel urgent.
* When you catch yourself in the doldrums, raise your vibration even a little by thinking of something that brings you joy. Focus on feeling joy for a few minutes.
* Celebrate small steps.
* Dare to do something that takes you a little out of your comfort zone.
* Look in a mirror and tell yourself how much you appreciate all you do.
* Do not compare your success by the success of others.
* Eat well.
* Stretch and walk often.
* Sit in the sunshine, even if for only 2 minutes.
* Visit my blog at www.centerofhappiness.com
* Forgive yourself quickly and easily.
* Learn from your ‘mistakes’ and apply what you learn to the next opportunity, side-stepping guilt all together.
* Look for and focus on all that is working, rather than on what is not.
* End each day with gratitude, focusing on all of your blessings.
* See all things, good and bad, as beneficial.

Circumstances do not make the man — they reveal him.
    
– James Allen

The anxious student asked the Zen master how long to enlightenment. The Zen Master answered a long time, at least 10 years. The student said, “Well I will work twice as hard.” The Zen master said, “Then it will take 20 years.” “No!” said the committed student, “I will work three times as hard.” “Well then,” said the Zen master, “it will take 30 years.”
Do you need to work at being spiritual? No. You already are spiritual. Do you need to work at being human? No. That’s just who you are.
The spiritual path doesn’t require us to get anything. It’s a process of opening to new dimensions of who we already are. It’s a process of awakening to our own truth. It’s a process of allowing ourselves to be authentic.