Pursuing Happiness

Joy, Letting Go, Peace 2

It’s ironic that the only joy you ever experience while pursuing happiness is when you very occasionally allow yourself to rest, relax, and stop pursuing happiness. Think of what joy you’d experience if you dared to stop pursuing happiness completely. Think how fearless you would be, how creative and at peace you would be, and how free you would be to enjoy the world more fully if you were to stop pursuing happiness and simply start accepting and allowing happiness to happen.

— Robert Holden, PhD, Happiness Now!, p. 46

The Sanctity of the Present

Children, Joy, Life, Parenting 0

Too often, we miss the sanctity of the present. The present usually arrives peacefully, offering itself as a refuge over and over again while we sit muddled in our minds. We might believe that our thoughts are productive or even interesting, but we’re really ignoring the gift of the day before us.

This is where our children can teach us. babies absorb the world around them, touching, tasting, and seeing. They delight in their senses, enjoying the unexpected swoop of a robin or the warmth of the sun emerging from a cloud. Let’s suspend our thinking for a change, return to the simple and original mind with which we were born. Let’s immerse ourselves in the river of the senses — to drift, swim, and float in the day.

— Lisa Groen Braner, The Mother’s Book of Well-Being, p. 100-101

Rooted in the Present

Gratitude, Peace 0

Being in a state of deep Appreciation is a surefire way to keep us rooted in the present.

Now, after years of facilitating Appreciation exercises, we’re convinced that when you’re in the act of appreciating someone, something, or yourself, all worries about the past and anxieties about the future evaporate. You’re only attuned to what is good in the here and now. And that’s a great place to be. A common thread of multiple world philosophies and religions is the profound value of being in the moment or fully present.

— Rick Foster & Greg Hicks, Choosing Brilliant Health, p. 155

Focus on Abundance

Gratitude, Healing, Joy 0

When we focus on abundance, our life feels abundant; when we focus on lack, our life feels lacking. It is purely a matter of focus.

It is true that we can’t be in denial about the pain in our life. That is damaging to our physical and emotional health. And just as importantly,

We can’t be in denial about the abundance in our life!

— Susan Jeffers, PhD, Gratitude: A Way of Life, by Louise L. Hay and Friends, p. 132-133

Trust

Letting Go, Love, Relationships, Trust 0

To love others without feeling the need to trap or control them requires trust that your needs will all be met, withor without the other person’s cooperation. You must be absolutely sure that loving connection can encompass any level of difference without disappearing. You don’t have to trust the other person. You must only trust that your needs will be met no matter what that person may do.

— Martha Beck, Steering by Starlight, p. 198

Roaming the World in Books

Books, Inspiration, Reading 0

It’s refreshing to roam the world — plunging into different countries, meeting new people and tasting their cuisine. If walking another step in your home leaves you less than inspired, sashay into a well-told story. The charms of being at home return after sampling new horizons. Books are an open invitation to another place and time. . . . Good books lead us to discover that it is not our house that binds us, but rather the dullness of our thoughts. Reading refreshes the mind and the imagination.

— Lisa Groen Braner, The Mother’s Book of Well-Being, p. 72

Seeing the Inner Light

Core Value, Healing, Parenting, Relationships 0

True healers take into account any type of darkness, but their real task is to see the Light in their clients so as to help them remember and consciously reconnect to their own inner Light. In this way, both healer and client are healed together. Parenting is the same. The ultimate gift of a parent to a child is to care for the inner Light of children until they can care for it themselves. True friends are those who believe in you through thick and thin. They still see the Light in you even when your moods and behavior are dark and low. Mentors, managers, leaders, visionaries, peacemakers, and everyone who truly serves . . . they all see the Light.

— Robert Holden, PhD, Happiness Now! p. 29

Controlling People

Letting Go, Relationships 0

Every person alive has a chosen journey, one that is right for him or her. Letting the truth of this sink in is one way to begin the process of giving up control, as is acknowledging that the more we try to control someone, the less interested he or she may be in staying in our life. Every time we get into a power struggle with the person we are trying to control, we drive a wedge into the relationship. Other people’s desire to escape will be directly proportional to our continuing obsession with how they are living and what they are doing.

— Karen Casey, Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow, p. 140

Needing People

Letting Go, Relationships 0

How do you know when you don’t need people? When they’re not in your life. How do you know when you do need them? When they are in your life. You can’t control the comings and goings of the people you care for. What you can do is have a good life whether they come or go. You can invite them, and they come or not, and whatever the result is, that’s what you need. Reality is the proof of it.

— Byron Katie, I Need Your Love — Is That True? p. 189