Imagine: waking up happy!
I spend a lot of my life with women gathering in small groups, talking… in person, on the phone, via email; from 5 minute chats to 5-day, in-depth explorations of potential and everything in between. During those conversations, it’s not unusual for women to explore what it takes for them to be ‘happy’… for them to wake up in the morning and be delighted by that simple fact : “I love being me!”
Clearly, a longer conversation ensues, starting with an exploration of what ‘happy’ means to each individual. What they quickly discover is that ‘happy’ is a label for something that is exceedingly personal to each one of us. One person’s ‘happy’ is another’s ‘challenge’ so we invest a good chunk of our curiosity wandering around in that for a while, seeking to discover what really lights us up!
We do eventually come to a realization that ‘happy’ is a state of being that can be maintained by a few simple and essential truths of living – and here they are. You’ll likely be surprised to discover that it does not have to take a lot of effort, does not have to be difficult and starts with a few simple things:
- Breathe – easily, regularly and deeply. Notice when you’re holding your breath and when you do, don’t beat yourself up for doing it wrong – just be gentle with yourself. Take two or three long, slow deep breaths and move on.
- Tell the truth. Not the one you think someone else wants to hear, but the one that fills your body. The struggle is not in knowing what the truth is – it’s in trying to figure out how to pretend that we don’t.
- Trust your instincts. Just follow the roadmap that your body offers you every minute of every day of your life and let the details get worked out as you go.
- Don’t say ‘yes’ when you want to say ‘no’! What else can be said about that? Plain and simple – and will change your life.
- Stay in the tough conversations. Even when they’re uncomfortable, trust yourself to move through the conversations that you’ve been avoiding for hours, days or decades. The longer you’ve been pushing it away, the more important and life-altering you can be sure it will be.
- Choose what is meaningful to you. Not the ‘right’ thing or the ‘good’ thing or the ‘appropriate’ thing but the one that lights you up and makes you smile! The choices you make create the quality of the life you’re living. How do you like it so far?
Every day, I wake up and love being me! Every day, I take a few minutes to lie in bed and ask myself: ‘How does the lifeforce that I am choose to express myself today? How does the lifeforce that I am choose to live today?” – and then I get on with it, knowing that tomorrow i can change my mind and do something different.
And so can you.
