Joy is a Choice - but Not an Easy Choice

Of course you want to be happy, but life is hard. Your job's a pain, your family nags, and sometimes your body hurts, so how can a Joyful Life be a choice? It isn't an easy choice, but Joy IS a choice that you can make.

Some choices are easy, because clearly defined alternatives are available. Choosing between vanilla and chocolate ice cream is such a choice. Other choices sometimes don't even appear to be choices. If I live in Detroit, but I would prefer to live in Florida, I may not feel that I can choose to relocate. In reality, I always have a choice about where I live. I have my story about how my job, my house, my family, and my friends prevent me from moving, but it is truly only a story.

The greatest obstacle to a Joyful Life is your "story" about your life. Your story is filled with needs and obligations. You are sure that you "need" at least a certain income to live - and you likely feel that you "need" more money than you have. You "need" a "good" job. You "need" a big house. You feel obligated to do whatever your boss and your spouse ask of you. Perhaps you also feel obligated to serve your parents, children, friends, church, and more. STOP!

There is nothing I ever need to have.
There is nothing I ever need to do.
I say NO to the demands of the world.
I say YES to the longings of my own heart. - jlh

The secret to a joyful life is Simplicity - saying NO to the advertisements for the latest this and the most glamorous that - saying NO to chasing that next job promotion - saying NO to all the stressful demands upon your time and energy.

It's YOUR time - it's YOUR life - YOU get to choose how you use it. There is no way that your life is "supposed" to be. Your parents had their vision for your life. Your boss, your spouse, your church, your friends, and even the family next door have their ideas of how you should live your life. What about YOUR vision for your life? What do YOU want? YES, it matters what you want. YES you can have what you want.

CHOOSE the life you want, and CHOOSE to live Joyfully.

Say NO to Stress: 8 Easy and Powerful Ways - Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Less Stress - More Joy - Making Healthy Choices
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Stress is to your emotional health as junk food is to your physical health. You need a certain amount of food to sustain your life, but overeating and eating the wrong foods are unhealthy and sometimes dangerous.

As you need food to live, you also need a certain amount of emotional stimulation, but unless you choose to live alone far from the reaches of civilization, you are bombarded daily with innumerable stressors (agents, conditions, or other stimuli that cause stress). You hear the daily woes of friends and family. Your job and your daily commute are filled with agitation. Just a few minutes of the 11 o'clock news provides far more than your daily requirement of emotional stimulation.

What to do?

1. Simplify your needs: Much of our stress is due to what we believe we need to have. Actually, we need very little - food, a roof over our head, companionship. The rest is all perceived need that causes stress. As a crazy, but everyday example, we get stressed that we don't have the money to finance a relaxing vacation trip. Suppose we just relaxed every day knowing that we don't need luxuries.

2. Simplify your obligations: Practice saying "NO." No, I won't babysit your parakeet. No, I won't work a double shift Sunday. No, I won't chair the fundraising drive. There is actually almost nothing that you must do. Everything in life is a choice. Break the habit of assuming that you need to do everything you are asked to do.

3. Ask yourself what is the worst that can happen: Usually the worst isn't really so bad. For example, the worst your boss can ever do is to fire you, and if you hate your job, that would be a blessing in disguise.

4. Don't be demanding: You ask someone to do something, they don't do it, and you get upset - raising your stress level. Suppose you asked less of other people? Your stress level would go way down. For example, you want your teenagers to keep their rooms tidy. For them, a structured living space is not a priority. Ask yourself whether exerting your control is worth the high stress level that it causes you.

5. Mentally, prepare for failures: Your boss WILL be critical of your work. Your cell phone and computer WILL fail. The stock market WILL drop. There WILL be another terrorist attack or war. It is just life. If you are mentally prepared, you won't be surprised or get stressed when the inevitable happens.

6. Mind your own business: Many of us get upset - and stressed - over the actions of others that are really none of our business. The lifestyle of others is NOT our business. Whether your adult son or daughter has a job, whether they married the "wrong" partner, whether your neighbor recycles, whether the man down the street watches adult movies or his wife is having an affair - these are NOT our business. Know that there is no single way that life is "supposed" to be. Demanding that life meet our expectations is a sure fire recipe for a miserable existence. Life is a game with no rules. Have NO Expectations of life. Stay in your own business and lower your stress.

7. Be grateful for what you have: Each of us has been infinitely blessed - beginning with the gift of life. Whatever may appear to be missing or broken on any particular day, our glass is not half full, it is 99.9% full. More practically, when we feel ungrateful, we become unhappy and stressed. When we choose to feel and express our gratitude, the act of feeling and speaking our thanks creates a happiness within us. The more we express our gratitude, the more we have for which to be grateful.

8. Make YOU your top priority: Your ONLY responsibility in life is to your own happiness. Lower your stress and raise your joy by focusing on yourself. Today and every day, take time to celebrate your life - whether an hour's meditation in a quiet natural space, or a brief moment's conscious pause to breathe deeply and celebrate gratitude for your life.

Regrets, Resentments and the Path to Forgiveness - Stop Anger & Live Happy With Conscious Awareness

I recently received a letter that began "How glorious it must be to be truly happy inside!" and continued with a request for my thoughts on regrets, resentments and the path to forgiveness. The following is my reply.

I am not always happy inside; I actually got quite angry recently. Simply An Inspired Life is not a perfect life; it is a life of conscious awareness. Often people go through life in a sort of fog - unhappy, helpless to address the unhappiness, and unhappy about the helpless feeling. That is what the Simply An Inspired Life approach can address.

There are two steps, the first of the mind, the second of the heart.

Have a talk with your mind (it really is something separate from yourself). Lay down the law. "My life begins TODAY. I am like a newborn. I have what I have today; I have my fingers, my toes, some people in my life, some material and financial state. Yesterday is only a dream - perhaps a nightmare, perhaps a cherished memory, but only a dream - nothing more. I will make all decisions and actions based solely on what I have today as a starting point."

To put this in practical terms, think of owning stocks. I own a share of stock for which the NASDAQ bid price is $10; how much is my share of stock worth? $10 of course; and there is no special emotion associated with that statement. But if I added that I bought the stock yesterday for $5, it feels different; and if I bought that stock yesterday for $20, it feels very different. The stock is still worth $10, and it makes no difference what price I paid - that transaction is now in the dream of the past - not real - not important today.

Personalize your conversation with your mind and be clear that you just won't tolerate any thoughts or actions that are not based on today's facts.

Moving to your heart, Breathe. Close your eyes and breathe deeply - slowly - fill your lungs with love and gratitude - exhale each and every trouble - again and again - gratitude in, troubles out.

Speak to your self from your heart as you would to a newborn baby, "I love you because I love you. You are a part of me, and I need no reasons to love you. Whether you cry or you smile, I love you. When you spill your milk or burp, there is nothing to forgive, there is no fault. You are love, I am love, and we are love."

The following is the beginning of the forgiveness chapter from our upcoming book:

FORGIVENESS - For Self & All

I Forgive Myself with Compassion - I forgive everyone, especially myself, for all actions and all inactions throughout my entire life. I accept that no one else has ever been to blame for either my joy or my suffering. The entire cause of all my joys and all my sufferings is my own emotional response to the events of my life, and I am committed to consistently distinguishing between my feelings about events and the physical occurrence of those events. I declare that everyone who has ever played any role in any of the events of my life is entirely without fault.

Would you rather be right or happy?
- A Course in Miracles

don't take it personally - it's not usually about you. - mar

I forgive everyone for every "wrong" that I believe they have ever inflicted upon me. I forgive them for my own sake, that I may release the venom - the anger and resentment within myself - and regain my joy and serenity. I have compassion for everyone who has ever been a player upon the stage of my life. - jlh

I'm angry. They wronged me. They lied, they cheated; why should I forgive them?

Forgiveness is not a reprieve that we give to someone else. Forgiveness for another's act or omission is a gift that we give ourselves. We are the one who suffers the upset and the anger when we feel that we have been wronged. It is our own blood pressure that rises when we hold on to resentment.

Forgiving others is a gift to yourself, given not because they deserve pardon, but because you deserve the serenity and joy that comes from releasing resentment and anger, and from embracing universal forgiveness.

Anger? perhaps there is a better way.

Anger? perhaps there is a better way. - jlh Know that anger is always fear and frustration. What if we could lean back into the arms of Spirit and trust the future? What if...

sometimes i could hear his voice raised in anger. other times i could hear what essentially sounded like whimpering. as if he were a small puppy being whipped. - mary anne radmacher