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Author: Barbara Dean Aliaga
Thank you for letting me share my thoughts with you as well as receiving your thoughts, too. Isn’t this the way we expand? We can achieve great things when we interact with one another in positive ways.
Are you aware of how you approach the precious moments when you wake up?
Let’s make an assessment.
- Do you check your body to see if you still have that ache in your leg, or a cold?
- Do you rehash an argument you had the day before with a friend?
- Do you begin to worry again over your finances?
- Do you start to plan and then fret over the project that is still unfinished?
- Do you check the latest news headlines?
- Can you think of other worrisome thoughts that greet you each day?
These may not be thoughts that are the best for starting your day. There is little happiness in any of these concerns, wouldn’t you agree?
Each day offers a clean slate into the happy life you seek. You can seize this opportunity by guiding your thoughts towards what feels good.
You can begin a little ritual upon waking up. Become aware of how good your body feels wrapped in your cozy blankets. Enjoy the good feeling of your pillows. Feel the wonder of just waking up! Yesterday’s burdens can wait. This is a time for you to enjoy life. These are the precious moments of the day. Remember, pursuit of happiness? If not now, when? Here’s what we can do each day.
Upon waiting up, take advantage of the safety of the moment. Approach these moments with the good feelings that make you smile inside. These few moments upon waking are yours. These moments are your key to a happier day.
On those days when you wake up and find you are still locked into yesterday’s concerns, stop the thoughts by changing your actions. Get up when you are lost in the same worrisome thoughts. Begin an action that makes you feel better. Here are some ideas.
- Just go back to sleep and reset.
- Get up. Look in the bathroom mirror and give yourself that knowing smile. –You know, the smile, that remembers how cute or clever or funny or bright or awesome you are.
- Listen to a motivational talk on-line as you get ready for the day. (There are countless tapes available.)
- Listen to your favorite upbeat music.
- Look out the window and let yourself enjoy nature
- Write a list of activities that would be fun right now if you were someone else
Most of all, find actions that feel good. Allow yourself to be happy first, every day upon awaking, no matter what. Be committed to how you feel. Appreciate what feels good for a few moments every day before you take on any responsibilities. Make a habit of this: Wake up! Appreciate what makes you feel good!
This simple change in how you begin your day, promises to allow new opportunities to unfold during the day. You control the amount of improvement in your life. Opening up the happiness valve at the on-start of day, supports your plans to achieve during the day: to complete your project, heal your illness, complete your project with more ease, to make the world a better place.
Wake up! Appreciate what makes you feel good! That’s good advice because it works! If you know someone who is struggling through their days, please share this article with them and we’ll both make a happier world.
Who is controlling thoughts? When I was young I was taught that I have happy thoughts and bad thoughts. I remember a story that was read to me. It was about the good angel and the bad angel who sat on my shoulders. The good angel whispered thoughts that were good. And the bad angel whispered thoughts that were bad. I loved when my mother would find time to read to me at bedtime. Little Tommy would be tempted to steal a bicycle, — or maybe it was a pair of skates that were fastened under his shoes, — from a neighbor’s house. He could be fooled into thinking that his actions were good when, in fact they were not good for him in the long run. After taking the skates, he had to return them. He felt oh, so bad. He had missed the happiness mark and was now separated from everyone else. He felt all alone by what he did and I felt bad for him. I was taught about choosing good and avoiding evil by hearing these stories over and over. The good angel sent happy emotions and the bad angel sent unhappy emotions. I was learning to listen to my emotions to help me make sense out of life.
In remembering this, I begin to check with what is serving up my inner conversations. I seem to Happy have a playlist that is not serving me at all. I want to keep checking these endless, inner conversations that produce and often times, prevent my actions.
Why is it important to run playlists that are happy? Happy thoughts serve me! Happiness allows actions that support health, wealth and peace of mind. Happiness produces clarity and stamps out confusion. Happiness allows love to energize me. Connect to feelings of happiness and I will act in ways that help me lose weight, create wealth, and live a peaceful life. Happiness is my guiding force to help me get what I want.
Who is the gatekeeper of thoughts, if not me?
I bring out all sorts of thoughts on any subject matter without even being aware of it. I can be unconscious and let an assortment of past experiences, mostly bad experiences, play on a looped setting. I can play this endlessly until I become conscious and choose to change my thoughts. If I check, I can recognize that only one thought can be entertained in any given moment. It is very reasonable then, to change my negative and hurtful thoughts to thoughts more positive and supportive of me.
Negative thoughts that are looped brings discouragement and self-doubt into my existence.
What does all this mean? How can I make a happy day out of this?
- Happiness is the core value of my life.
- Begin and end my day with a moment of quiet. Focus on nature: waves, trees, flowers, animals, rain, snow, sunshine. Focus without attaching any judgement or description to it. If I become aware that I am lost in thoughts about the tree, (like I find I am thinking about how dry the tree looks and how I better water it), I will bring myself back to meeting the object of my focus as if I have seen it for the first time.
- I have stopped the looped playlists when a deep breath, perhaps a yawn, takes place, but don’t wait for it… that will be a thought.
- Commit to regularly checking in with my feelings. When I am unhappy or anxious, I will veer my actions toward something I particularly like to do.
- New, improved actions can bring about new, improved thoughts.
- Keep refining a list of actions that particularly allow happiness to shine through to my conscious mind. Keep 5 actions updated and kept in a place I will view frequently during this day. Locate actions that increase my ability for happiness on a daily basis.
I am hopeful these two actions can help me change my direction
We have lots to do on this journey of life. If you haven’t The Longest Journey, perhaps that will be helpful also.
We are destined for an enjoyable life!
I’ve heard it said, and I’ve said it myself on numerous occasions: The longest journey you will ever make is from your mind to your heart. This morning as I had a little pep talk with myself in the mirror, I replaced mind with negative thoughts and replaced heart with a state of happiness: the longest journey I will ever make is from my negative thoughts to my state of happiness.
This is helpful to me. This mysterious influence of thoughts have the power to defeat every attempt in allowing happiness. Negative thoughts can be like gray clouds that form and make visibility difficult. Like clouds, these thoughts often go unnoticed until the cold or rain interfere with our lives, our feelings of well-being.
The way we translate the experience of people, places and things, the way we perceive the world around us, is through our five senses. Thoughts are interpreted through senses, past and present, and are the gatekeepers to our happiness. Our thoughts act as guards to how we feel at a particular time. If we want to feel better, we can always consciously change our thoughts by sensing something more pleasant.
For instant, we may be thinking about something at work that is unpleasant. Perhaps our boss talked to us about how she thought we were not performing as well as we used to. We are home and feeling bad and don’t feel like doing anything but complain to our dog about how bad our life is. Once we become aware of our poor feelings, we can choose to experience something new with our senses, quick before we think about it. Perhaps we go out and water the flowers. We feel the warm air outside. We smell the beautiful roses. We begin digging around the flowerbed and sit down and feel the warm dirt . We choose to feel better by doing things that make us feel better and our thoughts are focused away from an experience at work. When the old thought comes back, we gently remind ourselves that we will change what we can change but we have no power over the opinion of our boss. We will accept the conversation as what it was and realize it is now in the past. We will do what we can to improve. But for now, we are going to enjoy this moment with the outdoors. We are going to choose to do things that make us happy.
Now, as we become more aware of our thoughts and mold them into friendly greeters and facilitators between bliss and our existence in our bodies, the easier we move about the earth. This is important to me.
Here are five ways to help mold your thoughts into friendly greeters:
- List five activities that consistently bring you into a happy state. Examples: taking a nap, listening to music, doing the laundry, rearranging the furniture, taking a walk, going to the beach.
- Put this list on a business card for your wallet or print it on a post-it for your bathroom mirror, or on the desktop display.
- The moment you realize you feel poorly, congratulate yourself for being alert, and move toward that list
- Pick one and do it. If you do not feel better, cross that item off your list
- Revamp your list for better feeling activities.
This journey is the never-ending journey. We are destined to move forward to better and better ways of feeling, of living in our hearts!
There are many opportunities to change unhappy situations around us. I guess we just don’t know that we have that power!
Somehow we have come to believe that the only way to change a situation is to fight against it. It appears that when bad things happen, we spend the majority of time talking about it and shaking our heads in confusion. We talk and read about things we don’t like and we are confused how these things continue to escalate.
This happens with world current events and it happens in our world. Situations present themselves to us; we may not be aware that it is our response to the situation that holds more of the same or changes everything.
I am speaking about situations that are within your present moment awareness. If you think about it, there are millions, no billions, no an infinite amount of situations taking place at any moment. You are aware of only one of these situations at a time.
Interesting perception! Only the situations that are within your awareness are the situations you believe as true. But to another person, even a person in the same room, this very situation that holds all of your attention may not even exist in their world.
So what is it about situations that have the power to enthrall us or crumble our confidence? What really are situations? What part of a situation is an illusion? How can situations change in time? Where are we, anyway?
More interesting questions! Here are my answers for now. We may be amazing beings who are able to create situational moments that are so detailed they can fool even ourselves. We create these situations to objectify our thoughts. We can expand as we see what we want and what we don’t want, and even what we want to explore further.
This type of perspective can be very helpful in changing situations that are unpleasant to us. We now have a way to move on to the next lesson when we accept the situation in front of us. We don’t have to respond to it or necessarily suffer from it. The suffering may be coming from an illusion we desire to experience. Why would you want to suffer, you ask?
I do not know. I do know, however, that if I don’t want to suffer, and I believe I do not need to suffer, I will begin to live a completely different life. It may seem like a miracle. It may seem like a brand new door appears from nowhere, and opens up a new reality. It has the power to surprise and delight me.
By accepting the situation in front of you, by keeping your heart open with optimism and love, great things can emerge. Think about it. You have probably already experienced moments of exhilaration at one time or another. Can you remember a lovely situation that completely embraced you? You may have sustained the experienced the happy situation for hours, even days. Then, you become a little uneasy and questioned whether this kind of well-being was a bit naive You may have closed the door and entered another irritating situation that felt more familiar. But it was miserable. Hopefully, this article will open more doors to happy situations. The first step is to allow or accept the door as it presents itself. There is paradise on earth. It is up to us to find and allow it through trial and error.
The sooner you realize your inner power to create your reality, the sooner you will be able to break the cycle of pain and suffering. I welcome your thoughts on this topic. Life can be just as amazing as us! It is up to us!
Peace! My upcoming blog hopefully can give some practical ways to change your situations through acceptance. I look forward to seeing what will come out of these fingers! Thank you for reading.
It is so easy to speak and write about choosing happy thoughts. Then a situation arises that clashes with my current direction. A rude remark, an oversighor an interruption leading to a misunderstanding. My state of mind then depends on the level of self-confidence that allows an unwanted situation to be brushed off or solved and forgotten
Just how happy am I? The answer: as happy as I can heed my own words and return often to a consciousness of happiness. I understand that happiness is always available but so often I loose my confidence in locating it when my situation presents as an irritant. How do I develop this confidence to withstand these irritant situations?
It is impossible to cultivate the skill of self-confidence without putting it into action. Did I think it was an inherent trait? It may have been at one time. It may have been, before I allowed others: parents, siblings, friends, teachers, church reps, government reps, news reps, heroes and just about anyone who was not me, dictate the direction I should take at any given moment. When I put my voice second to others. And when others scolded me for listening to my inner guidance and not theirs
My confidence seemed to rise temporarily when it was in agreement with the thoughts of the person I was with. I struggled in stating my unique perspective. I was seldom in contact with who I was and what my thoughts were. And when my statement came out in a group, it came in the form of an argument. It was often an offensive stance that was not readily accepted, probably because the tone was not understood. Over the years my skill diminished and refused to serve me in the tamest of gatherings.
But have no fear; it is not a gloomy picture at all. It is the gold lessons of experience. I like to practice and expand many skills. Confidence nudges me daily to move about with, well, confidence! And by utilizing this skill I am making many discoveries about this adventure called life, ad communication There is still much to learn I will be staying around for a while longer!
Today’s objective is to practice confidence by responding to my thoughts. I am determined to be my best friend today. Self-confidence is a skill I can use to discover my best self, my best life. I am on to something major! Thank you for sharing in this day’s journey with me and I hope these words are helpful for you!
Love expands. It is movement, change, rearrangement and development. Love can withstand heat and cold, and when it does, it can change everything within and around it. Love can soar above, below and within. Love exists before, during and after our time here on earth. Love is a good word we can use to hold everything together and apart. When I allow and trust in the dynamic nature of love, I am in awe.
Mother’s Day is fast approaching and I have these thoughts in relation to my conception of love. Everyone has a mother, living or not, living locally or separated for whatever reason. Usually we hear stories about how selfless our mothers were and how much of themselves.they gave to us. We dutifully send our words and tokens of appreciation for their life of sacrifice. If we currently don’t get along with our mothers, or even if we do, we may feel discomfort and confusion with this day. It may be even harder for those of us whose mother has passed away. We may wish to avoid Mother’s Day altogether.
A new attitude towards our concept of mothers may be able to help. A new attitude may permit everyone to celebrate with ease! How do mothers think about themselves?
Do mothers think about their state of motherhood as sacrifice, as selflessness?. I wonder if mothers have any time to think about themselves as an object of reverence, an idol of sorts. I wonder if mothers are comfortable with these misleading comments in greeting cards and news stories about mothers. Mothers are pretty busy just being and doing and occasionally, sleeping! They have learned that the less they think of themselves as beings who have been placed on pedestals, and more like human beings who enjoy the ups and down of their family, they flourish happily and with more ease.
I have experienced motherhood and grand motherhood . I don’t think it is at all helpful for me to think about my life as a mother in terms of selflessness. For me, motherhood is the vivid participation in movement, development, and growth in family living that makes me especially appreciative of being a mother.
This expansion and engagement of spirit makes motherhood so desirable. Love energizes us to go beyond what we imagined we could do. Love moves us forward and outward. Love creates. Love enjoys. Love continues to breathe even when things appear stressful. Love takes the higher view or sometimes appear to take no view at all as it mysteriously unfolds to new possibilities.
For me, motherhood has always been the privilege of participation. It is delight in playing with Life itself, the planning and executing, the meltdowns and the ah-ha moments.
Whether you have been a mother or not, this year Mother’s Day can be a celebration for mothers and for children. Yes, it singles out one player in the family, but hopefully, it can be a celebration of how love can expand our relationships beyond what we thought. Hopefully it will be a time to listen and share with our mothers, in person or in thoughts. Ease up on the one-line speeches that can cut off the loves energy. Instead, enjoy interaction with the family you are with, just the way they are now! Whatever you presently feel about your own mother, take time to celebrate the current of love that continues to hold all of us together!
