Pursuing Happiness

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

Rooted in the Present

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

Working Out for Good

Noticing and counting the beautiful reasons unexpected things happen for us ends the mystery. If you miss the real reasons, the benevolent reasons that coincide with kind nature, then count on depression to let you know that you missed them. Anger, frustration, and aggressive reasons can always be imagined — and what for? People who aren’t interested in seeing why everything is good get to be right. But that apparent rightness comes with disgruntlement, and often depression and separation. Depression can feel serious. So “counting the genuine ways that this unexpected event happened for me, rather than to me” isn’t a game. It’s an exercise in observing the nature of life. It’s a way of putting yourself back into reality, into the kindness of the nature of things.

— Byron Katie, I Need Your Love — Is That True?, p. 187

Out of Control

How do we respond to a world that seems out of control? The world seems that way because it is out of control — the sun rises whether we want it to or not, the toaster breaks, someone cuts you off on your way to work. We’ve never had control. We have the illusion of control when things go the way we think they should. And when they don’t, we say we’ve lost control, and we long for some sort of enlightened state beyond all this, where we imagine we’ll have control again. But what we really want is peace.

— Byron Katie, A Thousand Names for Joy, p. 85

Maintaining Positive Energy

Negative energy can have a powerful pull on us, especially if we’re struggling to maintain positive energy and balance. It may seem that others who exude negative energy would like to pull us into the darkness with them. We do not have to go. Without judgment, we can decide it’s okay to walk away, okay to protect ourselves.

We cannot change other people. It does not help others for us to get off balance. We do not lead others into the Light by stepping into the darkness with them.

— Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, p. 114

Every Experience for Good

I remember hearing, early in my spiritual recovery, that we should thank God for every experience we have, while we are having it; that we need to look for the good in every one of our experiences.  I was not easily convinced.  I had had too many painful times in my life to believe it was all intentional and all holy.  It took more than a little willingness for me to review my past with an eye toward seeing and then accepting that all of my experiences were holy, even the most painful, and that all were necessary to help create who I had become, and thus had been a blessing.  Letting in the idea that there are no accidents allows us to give up our confusion, our fear, our spiteful anticipation, our preconceived resentments, our resistance, and our near-constant concern over outcomes.  We can choose to believe that every experience is on its own schedule and that showing up for it is our only real job.

If this seems too simple or far-fetched, consider this:  If you find out at the time of death that this way of seeing was all wrong, will it matter?  I think not.  In the meantime, it will have allowed you to be far more peaceful going forward.

— Karen Casey, Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow, p. 111-112

Anxiety Doesn’t Help.

Anxiety is often our first reaction to conflict, problems, or even our own fears.  In those moments, detaching and getting peaceful may seem disloyal or apathetic.  We think: If I really care, I’ll worry; if this is really important to me, I must stay upset.  We convince ourselves that outcomes will be positively affected by the amount of time we spend worrying.

Our best problem-solving resource is peace.  Solutions arise easily and naturally out of a peaceful state.  Often, fear and anxiety block solutions.  Anxiety gives power to the problem, not the solution.  It does not help to harbor turmoil.  It does not help.

— Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, p. 65

Confident Expectation

I encourage you to confidently expect, while not being attached to an outcome.  Expect it, but then let it go.  Yes, the money would be great, the job would be perfect, the relationship would be wonderful, but they in themselves are not what has value.  It’s what they provide that we are really interested in — the sense of security or freedom, the experience of happiness and belonging.  We can claim those states as our inner reality, with or without the associated tangibles.  It’s the essence behind the form that really matters to us.  And when we live in It Already Is, we are irresistible to the flow of abundance in the universe.

— Victoria Castle, The Trance of Scarcity, p. 120

A Mental Shift

Gratitude is indeed like a gearshift that can move our mental mechanism from obsession to peacefulness, from stuckness to creativity, from fear to love.  The ability to relax and be mindfully present in the moment comes naturally when we are grateful.  One of the most delightful aspects of my Jewish heritage is the saying of Brachot, blessings or prayers of thanksgiving throughout the day.  These are praises of God for creating a world of infinite wonder and possibility.  There is a blessing upon seeing a star or a rainbow.  There is a blessing for the gifts of food, wine, and water.  There is even a blessing upon going to the bathroom for internal organs that function so well!

Joan Z. Borysenko, PhD, Gratitude: A Way of Life, by Louise L. Hay and Friends, p. 11

Feelings and Circumstances

From my vantage point, you’d have seen many, many people who are deeply loved and still lonely, beautiful and still horribly self-conscious, professionally successful and still so terrified of failure that their nocturnal tooth-gnashing could crush diamonds.  Here’s something you’ll need to hold in your mind, at least temporarily, if you want to get a good look at your own North Star:  External circumstances do not create feeling states.  Feeling states create external circumstances.

— Martha Beck, Steering by Starlight: Find Your Right Life No Matter What!, p. 6