More Smiles ~ February 2008

Creating Greater Joy Today

As I pointed out in the January issue of More Smiles, most of us spend our lives making ourselves wrong for how we feel. Feelings are never wrong. It’s not about making pleasure ‘right’ and pain ‘wrong’. Rather it’s about achieving some sort of balance between our experiences of the two. I believe that when we dwell on exclusively one or the other, we’re unhealthy. We are first and foremost spiritual beings having a human experience. That human experience by definition involves the full gamut of emotions, as opposed to nearly constant pleasure (like joy and gratitude) or pain (like fear and anger).

Consequently, both pleasure and pain exist to some degree in everyone’s life. Many adults I know and have worked with tend to focus more on the pain/what’s wrong in their life, than on the pleasure/what’s right in their life. This makes perfect sense. It’s what we were taught to do from the time we were children. The issue is that we create what we focus on. Focusing on pain begets more pain.

So, to create more pleasure in your life, start by consistently focusing on the pleasure that already exists in your life.

First, determine where you are now. Do you spend most of your time thinking and talking about your pain/what’s wrong, or your pleasure/what’s right? Notice what pain you currently focus on pretty regularly – your loss; the falling stock market; the news; war; how your _____ (boss, spouse, partner, parent, friend, colleague, acquaintance, neighbor, child) has done you wrong; or what you or someone else ‘should’ be thinking, saying, or doing.

Then ask yourself what pleasure already exists in your life that you tend to overlook. Are you blessed by a pet that loves you unconditionally? Are you physically healthy? Do you have enough money to comfortably support yourself today? (Are you fed, clothed, and protected from the elements?) Are you physically safe? Does your breath flow easily and effortlessly? Do you have people whom you trust and love in your life? Do you have a loving relationship with yourself, or with your Creator? How are you blessed?

Experiencing more joy in your life can be that simple. Start paying attention to what’s right in every day and in every situation, even the ‘bad’ ones. Good things always exist. It’s just a question of whether or not we’re open to discovering them. You can start being happier today by changing your focus. So why wait?


Call to Action: This week, ask yourself what action you can take to consciously cultivate the joy in your life and tip the scale so that you feel more balance between pleasure and pain. Would you like to start a gratitude journal and write at least 5 things in it each day? Would you benefit from talking about what’s right about the people and situations in your life instead of what’s wrong? What are you willing to commit to doing?

Remember: Greater joy is only available to you if you desire it, believe you deserve it, and are willing to consciously create it in your life. What do you desire, believe, and choose to create?

Start Being Happier by Simply Taking Your Own Advice

Do you ever catch yourself telling others, or at least thinking of telling others, what they should do? Pay attention to the advice you're giving to others. It's really meant for you. Whatever you find yourself consistently urging others to do, is really what your inner wisdom is asking you to do. The question is, do you listen to yourself?

Lately I've found myself wanting to tell friends to attend this three day transformational workshop put on by Debbie Ford that I attended a few years ago. It's called the Shadow Process and it really started me on the path of awakening to myself and opening up to other ways to see myself and the world. (To learn more about the Shadow Process visit
http://www.debbieford.com/pages/the_shadow_process_workshop.html.) As I was thinking this yet again, it hit me. This was really about me advising myself to continue to pay attention to my thoughts, words, and actions, and to look for other areas where I can open to new ways of looking at life.

So, do you find yourself repeatedly telling your partner that they ought to take better care of themselves physically? How could you stand to take better care of yourself physically?

Since the loss of your loved one, do you think about how you want people to reach out to you more and talk about the person you lost? What could you do to reach out to your friends and family more and share stories about your loved one?

Do you know somebody who acts like a doormat and rarely if ever stands up for themselves the way you want them to? Take a look around your own life. How do you fail to honor and respect yourself?

Or, do you wish your friend would handle their finances better? How and where are you out of integrity with your own finances?

This is the point: whatever you're seeing as something that somebody else ought to be doing, is actually something that your own inner wisdom or intuition is advising you to do. One of the quickest and easiest ways that I know to boost my own happiness is to get into integrity with myself by taking my own counsel.

So, what have you been consistently telling somebody else that they should be doing? How or where could you stand to be doing this in your own life? What action can you take today or this week to get yourself into greater integrity around this issue?

Do you hold on like this?

Lately I've recognized how much I struggle to hold on to things, especially beliefs. Have you ever noticed what happens when you have a belief that somebody should be doing something and they don't? Do you, like so many people, get cranky and harp on them about it or gripe about it to somebody else? Then, rather than communicating your expectation to them more clearly, providing yourself with what you want, or letting go of your expectation altogether, you use the situation to fuel your unhappiness.

Let me give you an example. Recently, a friend told me that his wife wanted him to be more romantic. Expectations like those are really common in relationships. Lots of times it's because we have some idealized picture of what the relationship 'should' look like, you know, the 'Leave it to Beaver' version of life. Then, when life doesn't play out that way, we get upset.

The thing I want to point out though is that when we hold on to our beliefs about what somebody else should be doing or how they should show up in the relationship and they're not, what's really happening is that we're choosing to be a victim in that situation. We wait and wait for them to change and act like it's totally outside our control to bring romance, for example, into our lives ourselves. It doesn't have to be that way.

You could ask your partner to be more romantic and describe what that looks like to you - flowers, cards, candlelit dinners, etc. If they say 'no', thank them for their honesty. That says something about your relationship that they feel safe enough to be up front with you and tell you the truth. You can choose to be grateful for that. Then, you can decide to bring more romance into your life yourself.

If it's flowers you want, pick some up next time you're out, or order some to be sent to you. Make sure to include something on the card that's going to make you feel great when you read it. I love you! You're so special. Here's something to brighten your day. Thanks for all your hard work! You have the most gorgeous smile! Whatever you most want to hear is appropriate. Go for it!

If you'd love to receive some cards, buy them, fill them out to yourself and give them to a friend to send to you. Or hide them around the house. Chances are really good that you'll forget about them and get a fabulous loving pick me up when you happen to find and read them.

You get the idea. If you're willing to let go of the belief that what you're wanting should be showing up in a certain way, and if you're open to the idea that you may be able to provide it for yourself, you can stop being a victim and have some fun giving yourself whatever it is you most want. Be creative. Enlist the help of some friends if you want. The point is that you can let go of the belief that what you desire has to show up in the one and only way that first pops into your head or in the one way that you think it 'should'. What are you more committed to, being right about how the situation should look or work, or starting to create the happiness you desire right now?

All you have to do is let go and recognize that there's more than one way to get what you desire.

So, what feeling do you want to experience more of in your life? What action can you take today or this week to start bringing it into your life?

Share the action you took and how well it worked for you here on the blog. (If you're new to blogging and you want to share, start by clicking on the word 'comments' in aqua at the bottom of this entry. Then, click on 'sign up here' to create a Google account if you don't already have one. Next, type your comment in 'leave your comment'. Finally, complete the 'word verification', and click 'publish your comment'. Once you've created your Google account it'll be easier to comment on future entries.)