:: The Center of Happiness ::

Couldn’t miss the opportunity to point you in the direction of good news. Yep, a site free of fear tactics. Go take a look…

Now, go make some of your own.

Every day I get the spot-on email messages from T.U.T., Notes from the Universe. Seldom do my fingers reach for the delete button when they arrive. They always snap me awake before I completely nod back off into old familiar stuck spots.

“Sweep the floor. Clean the slate. Pick a date. Window shop. Buy a few things. Go out on a limb. Rearrange the furniture. Pick some flowers. Take some time off. No, no. Not necessarily because the tipping point has been reached… But because this is how you reach it.”

– TUT, Messages from the Universe, Andy Dooley

Yesterday, even though I was with a dear and inspiring Heather Flannagan, working on a collaborative project in an absolutely beautiful setting, I was dragging my feet. I just didn’t have the spark. I couldn’t quite identify the lull in my enthusiasm, but I suspect I was thinking too much and judging what I perceived to be my non-steps.

It’s just fine to sit on the pity-potty for a while, constipated by false thoughts of ‘not-enoughness’. Just don’t get tempted to hook up cable, order pizza, and hover long enough to get a ring you know where. That victim role can feel cozy. “Cozy?” you say? Yes, cozy. It feels familiar, therefore comfortable, even though it feels crappy.

Hmmmmm.

More…

I didn’t settle into it or attach myself to the sinking ship. Instead, I kept moving and raised my awareness a notch. I didn’t fight it, I merely noticed the quality of my thoughts. Nor, did I chase them away, for giving them attention invites them to stay. I watched the clouds above my head. They pass, too. Good clue. I breathed in the air that pushes them along and soon felt that I was a delightful part of it all. No worries were worth having. I felt more accepting and at peace by my exercise of accepting what was, shifting my attention, noticing and allowing with each breath.

Happiness is more than big belly laughs, loud squeals of joy, and good things coming our way, although these are yummy reflections of joy, too. Wise happiness has a more elegant and subdued appearance. She arrives as a deep content and knowing even amidst turmoil. This shadowed face of joy reminds us every moment is one that transforms, so is worthy of celebration, too. Such happiness reveals an acceptance and trust that is surprisingly sustainable and brilliant because it is honed to shine through our sorrows and low spots. If you are willing, you become fortunate. Like magic you then become able tosee new possibilities. From this vantage point you can recognize and appreciate happiness even in moments like these.

Emotionally gray days bare gifts, as well. Although not my clearest day yesterday, I did have an insight. As much as I complain about not having enough time, I am the one who chooses how it is spent. I am the one who allows myself to be pulled off course, consumed by a T.V. show or a candy bar rather than taking a walk or writing in your journal. I am the one who gives time away. Old habits die hard when seen from the eyes of a victim, and many of us would rather be right than happy. Oh yes, and that would sometimes be me.

Sticky and gooey. It seems to be fear that holds me back. Call it by any name. It can be the fear of failure that is really the fear of success. It can be the fear of the unknown that is really the fear of not being in control. Flush! Deep breath, for “When fear knocks and faith answers, no one is there.” (Old English Proverb)

So, what if I am a creator who can influence the outcome by simply keeping eyes forward, acting as if, and leaning in the direction congruent with my desires? When perched on the slippery slope, how can I shift from my attachment to the problems, and instead welcome the possibilities? This time, not from a judging place, I got a clearer peek that it would serve me more to adjust my focus, even in increments.

Each baby-step counts for each one can be the tipping point. I lovingly tugged myself little-by-little to what fuels my passions. The adjusted feelings prompted different thoughts. I refurbished my thinking to what fills my heart with joyful feelings and wallowed there instead. Then I let the magic happen, knowing that feelings sculpt the quality of my thinking, and what I focus on expands.

So, today will be a new adventure of baby steps. I will allow them to be playful, mindful, and a work-in-progress. First-things-first. I lean into what matters and make friends with time as I discern between what is truly important and what I only perceive to be urgent. I will place my focus on the horizon and even the heavens, rather than on the slippery slope of doubt. When I sturdy my steps here I can more consciously access the space between those pesky, polluted thoughts. I laugh at the gymnastics of my default thinking rather than lament it, and let the old thoughts go to be transformed. I choose instead to swim in the calm and silent spaces where I can drink in confidence and sun bathe in the knowing that I am wonderful just as I am, just as life is, rough edges, gray days, warts and all. Here I notice peace, and am propelled forward by the calling of my true direction. Today I climb out on a limb to celebrate what is. The view is good. Happiness is.

Dear Fellow Traveling Companions,

I shared a delightful day with a dear friend, each tucked in our own corner of the room, each working on our individual projects that had a deadline. Come lunchtime we got out her good china and silver settings to have a very ordinary lunch in an elegant fashion. After lunch and before returning to our work we took a glorious walk along the beach on an absolutely spectacular day. With the days of summer few, we decided not to wait.

“Start living now. Stop saving the good china for that special occasion.
Stop withholding your love until that special person materializes.
Every day you are alive is a special occasion.
Every minute, every breath, is a gift from God.”

–Mary Manin Morrissey

We keep waiting. We live life trapped and limited by the feelings of “what if…” and “only when…” when now is the only moment we really have.

Too many of us have been caught short of time, money, or love because we waited for what we thought would be the perfect time further down the road. It is important not to wait to be happy. We can be happy right now. Even if we are sitting in a pile of ‘circumstances’ the happiness is only a choice away for it is not our circumstances that matter, it is how we view them, and the way we view them is what generates our reality.

There are plenty of people with perfect health and pile of money who feel empty and alone, and there are those who have lost what would be judged as everything to cancer or a fire, and still they consider themselves to be the richest person in the world. Having more does not guarantee happiness. Being present is the present.

Your happiness is not dependent on having ‘more’. It requires knowing only that you are enough.

A SHORTCUT TO HAPPINESS:
Today, I don’t wait to be happy. Regardless of the magnitude of my circumstances, I find some reason to be happy now. I pick up the phone and call that person who is on my mind that I haven’t spoken to in forever. I forgive the grudge I hold toward a person by whom I feel I have been wronged. I take the vacation I have dreamed about rather than wait until I retire someday.

Summer came and swept me off on a delicious two month mix of a little work and volumes of play and took me from the top, bottom and to both coasts of the United States. On paper it appeared that in between drinking in my grandsons and attending the U. S. Social Forum I would have plenty of time to hide away for writing and reflecting. I thought I would clarify what direction I wanted to head after over a year of having been devoted to being available to my toddler grand-nephew as he traveled his healing journey from cancer. I thought I could balance three grandsons, two grand-nephews, visits to Alaska, California, and Georgia while reshaping my work. Oh, silly me! What was I thinking!!!

I spent wonderful time with my three grandsons, and then traveled with my youngest daughter and her two little ones to spend two weeks in Alaska celebrating Connor’s return from his year in Seattle and a bone marrow transplant as a result of leukemia. This was my primary goal for summer, to see this bald headed little Buddha back running free with a full head of hair in his own back yard. During this whirl-wind series of adventures, as eager as I was, there was no time to work, to think, to plan, to vision forward. I was in survival of sorts surrounded by the energy of several people under three-feet tall. Everything I had nursed along prior to this had to fall from the screen of possibilities. At first I resisted, and it soon became evident that it was wiser to surrender. Surrender guided me to letting go of the rigid vision I had planned to welcome the shape it was meant to take for greatest joy and sanity.

This intense experience gave birth to the opportunity to ‘love what is’, to celebrate the task at hand, to go with the flow, to be happy regardless of circumstances, to face each challenge and trust where each one would lead me. I also had to trust that I could handle it’s organic flow and I could choose to shape my attitude when I couldn’t control the circumstances.

This is birth, this is happiness. It is the moment-by-moment challenge of letting go of a plan in order to love what is. Dancing with unknowns opens the door to limitless possibilities. Life is a process, an adventure, a journey that often leads, with each contraction and push, to a belly-laugh beyond what we can imagine and, when we allow it, reveals an even deeper sense of our power.