Tag Archives: being happy

DOES IT MAKE YOUR HEART SING?

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I’m in the midst of one of my periodic clear-outs. I find it both satisfying and interesting to go through all my ‘stuff’ and get rid of things I no longer want.

It’s satisfying because it means cupboards, wardrobes, drawers etc. get cleaned and tidied and decluttered – and I find some of those things that get lost or buried – you know what I mean: the other earring, sock, the cheese knife, the favourite pen!

The interesting aspect is seeing what I can part with this time. Of course, there are some things we keep because they’re just useful: the vacuum cleaner, the washing up bowl, the tools we have to help us with our everyday tasks. However, most of us have a lot of stuff that doesn’t fit into that category. And years ago I realised that logic doesn’t help me to de-clutter everything else. Throwing things out because I haven’t used them for a year doesn’t work for me. What does work is a simple question: ‘does it still make my heart sing?’

In the first place, this question helped me to get rid of heaps of stuff that didn’t fit with my story any more. I let go of those things we have because someone gave them to us, and the things that were part of my past rather than my present, and the things I had because people like me are supposed to have them.

Nowadays, the answer to: ‘Does it still make my heart sing?’ shows me how my story is changing, what I’ve grown out of, so to speak. The process helps me to clarify who I am now, and at the same time ensures that the stuff I have makes me happy, makes me smile, reflects me back to myself.

And much of what I get rid of can go to the charity shop, and find another home, be in someone else’s story for a while. I also use freecycle, where you email in what you have on offer, and if someone wants it, they can contact you and you give it to them. I love finding someone who really wants those odd things you’d prefer not to just throw away!

If you haven’t looked through your stuff for a while, why not give it a go? Just do a bit of a check: does it make your heart sing? And if it doesn’t, let it go to a new home. And if it does make your heart sing, appreciate it, enjoy it fully.

LEARNING TO ACCEPT

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We are contrary creatures! Most of us are poor at accepting how life is. We know from experience that it is not a smooth ride, yet we still struggle with its ups and downs. We fight the natural flow of life, both in its external form and in our moods and motivations.

When external circumstances are more difficult – our job is hard, the weather is bad, the item we wanted is out of stock – we rail against it, complain and wish it were different. When we are not in a good mood, we try to hide it, berate ourselves for having no good reason for being like this, or blame others. Yet we know that you can’t just wish it away. When we fight how things are, or how we are, we just perpetuate it – what you resist persists.

And we even resist when life feels good, rejecting compliments, telling ourselves that it won’t last. It’s a great way to spoil the moment!!

There is an alternative approach and it works more usefully for us. It’s called learning to accept. This word is powerful. It doesn’t mean give in or give up. It means to actively take hold of how things are. Instead of passively wishing things were different, we accept how they are. Then we are back in control, and we can do something about it.

For example: ‘I am feeling fed up today. What can I do that would cheer me up?’ or ‘It’s really cold today. So where’s my warm scarf and gloves?’

When we accept the state of affairs, we have the possibility of making a change that will help.

And if it’s a good mood, a good moment, our acceptance means that we give ourselves an extra boost. Enjoying and accepting a compliment puts an extra spring in our step. If we’re in a good mood, we can use it to tackle something we’ve been putting off.

Life isn’t logical; it’s an emotional experience. When we resist how it feels, we are fighting the way it works. It’s like wishing a one-way street allowed you to go the other way – futile! When we accept the way life works, it gets easier, and we can enjoy the ride..

BE KIND TO YOURSELF

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Oh dear, when are we going to remember that we’re only human, not super – man or woman, not an angel of perfection!

I keep being reminded that we are taught too well to be critical of ourselves, and to expect more from ourselves than we do from anyone else. It is so mean!! We wouldn’t be so harsh with any of our friends or family because we recognise that they are only human, with ups and downs, good moods and bad moods, motivated days and apathetic days..

I have learnt that I ebb and flow – sometimes inspired, sometimes daft as a brush – nothing is constant in me and my moods. And of course, that is our natural state – we aren’t robots or machines that can just keep going at a constant speed in a consistent way. The trick is to take advantage of the times of motivation and energy and let ourselves off and have a bit of a rest when we don’t feel like doing all that stuff – most of it is not actually that important anyway. I find I set myself ridiculous targets and deadlines, and then beat myself up for not meeting them. So I have to re-assess every morning – not whether I have ‘succeeded’ or not, but whether I have been giving myself too much to achieve. Ad if I have, I need to reduce the targets for that day. By doing this regularly, I can keep my tendency to make myself feel bad to a minimum!!

So this week, how about being kind to yourself? I is getting colder, the days are shorter, Christmas is coming and we are feeling the pressure of present-buying, card-sending and stocking up for that – we deserve a break!

So let yourself off, be a little kind to yourself, sit down with that cuppa and relax for 10 minutes, take that extra thing off your list – it can wait – treat yourself to something that makes you feel good, remind yourself of how much you have done, rather than what you have not done. Let’s have a being kind to yourself week – you wouldn’t be so mean with anyone else – don’t do it to yourself!

MAGIC MOMENTS

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It is so easy to miss the magic moments in our lives. They come in many forms, and it is not as if they usually have some major significance – they are just little reminders of what it’s all really about.

I’m talking about seeing the sun’s beams of light coming through the clouds, hearing a baby giggling with delight at something, smelling the scent of jasmine or roses as you walk past, that first mouthful of really good coffee or tea, feeling a few slight drops of rain on your skin when it’s been hot, exchanging a smile with a stranger you pass on the street.

These magic moments interrupt our normally busy minds, if we allow them in, and just for a moment, we stop and smile. And that moment is like a reset button. It puts a little more spring in our step, it lightens our thinking, it interrupts any negative stories we are creating in our heads, it gives us an opportunity to start again in our day.

Now we are all more likely to notice the magic moments when we are not caught up in our normal everyday lives. I always realise that there are hundreds of them every day when I am on Maui and taking life easy – and then tend to forget again when I get back to my normal life!

And I’m getting slowly better at noticing them no matter what is going on, because I recognise how much they can make a positive difference to my day.

So once in a while, let something catch your eye or ear, and give it a moment’s attention. Once in a while, just stop and appreciate that taste or smell, or sensation on your skin. Once in a while, look up and notice the person smiling, the baby laughing.

Let’s all have magic moments in our lives – they are there for the taking, if we give them a chance.

 

THE POWER OF LOVE

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Sometimes we forget something that we all know in our hearts – that love is the most powerful, all-pervasive feeling in our universe.

We don’t generally talk much about love; we keep it down at a smaller level: like, quite fond of, pretty good. It’s almost as if we are wary of the bigness of it, protecting ourselves from having such a strong emotion, perceiving it as a bit risky to open ourselves up that much.

And that’s understandable. Loving is often a place of vulnerability; if we open our hearts for love, we are also open for hurt or rejection, or sadness. And yet if we keep our hearts closed, we miss the joy, the passion, the power of loving – and these are what feed our soul.

They are also the emotions that keep us physically healthy. Science has shown that positive emotions create chemicals in our bodies that boost our immune system, keep our organs healthy, and help us to fight off illness.

In my experience the positives of love far outweigh the risks. Our hearts can recover from heartbreak, but they wither when kept closed.

And we can practise lots of our loving without any fear of rejection. Nature never says no thank you to love and thrives on loving attention. A delicious meal, a wonderful perfume, a warm fluffy sweater, a beautiful piece of art, an inspiring piece of music – let’s love them rather than limiting them to quite nice, and feed our souls with that feeling. When we do, the world seems brighter, more benevolent, prejudices are overcome, fear is dissipated.

And maybe we can then love other people in the same way – not as a tit for tat kind of thing: ‘I’ll love you some, if you show you love me some’ – but just because they are fellow human beings. They will have the free gift of our loving warmth towards them, which they will feel even if they don’t know it. And we will have big warm hearts because giving love feeds us too.

ARE YOU OPEN OR CLOSED?

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Most of us no longer live and work in real communities, where we know most people we encounter. We are often in close proximity to strangers, in shops, and buses and streets. So we have learnt to close ourselves off from others, to march along in our own bubbles of protection, increased these days by constant use of mobile phones/handsets with music etc.

This may be useful sometimes – when we are in a hurry, when we’re feeling irritable. A lot of the time, it means we lose out. We miss the beautiful flower in perfect bloom, the lovely architecture in a quiet corner. We miss the smile or brief greeting from people we pass. We miss the chance encounter with someone who asks us for directions or comments on the weather, and maybe has more of a conversation with us, if we are open.

None of these things take anything away from us – they all add a little extra pleasure to our day. And they cost us nothing but a few moments of our time.

It is easy to say this, sitting in a courtyard in Provence, on holiday, with lots of people passing by, so plenty of time and opportunity to practice! And sometimes we all need to close down for a while.

And sometimes, being open to the world around us will significantly enhance our day – just for a while..

OH WELL, TOMORROW’S ANOTHER DAY..

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I don’t know about you, but I have good days and bad days. I used to be far more aware of my bad days – you know, those days when you don’t really feel in the mood, and then nothing seems to go smoothly, and you get more and more fed up and frustrated. I could easily end up beating myself up for my ‘failure’ and making myself feel even worse.

And the good days? I tended to take them for granted, not count them, because they were merely what I expected of myself.

I decided a while ago that this was not helping me to have more good days – I don’t respond well to punishment, even when it’s self-punishment! So I started to take a different approach.

Firstly, I had to remind myself that I’m human, not a robot. It’s natural to have highs and lows, be motivated or demotivated, feel energetic or weary.

Secondly, I started actively complimenting myself for the good days, telling myself that I’d done well, that I’d been on form.

Thirdly, I began to notice the bits of the not-so-good days that had been fine – it’s rare to have a totally bad day. At least I got up, and made a nice dinner, and did the washing!

Fourthly, when the day hasn’t gone very well, instead of beating myself up, I let myself off the hook. I adopted the phrase, ‘Oh well, tomorrow’s another day..’

In truth, we can always have another go. Tomorrow is a new day, a fresh opportunity to see if we can make life/work easier and more enjoyable. What’s gone is gone, and agonising over it doesn’t change that. But we can be a bit kinder to ourselves, relax and have a good sleep, and set ourselves up for a better day tomorrow.

I have found that I have far more good days and quite a few good bits of days as well, since I started this. It might be worth experimenting with…

WE ALL NEED TO GROW STUFF!

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I picked my first home-grown courgette of the season this morning, and it reminded me of some of the delights of growing stuff. A tiny seed planted three months ago has become a big plant with lovely yellow flowers and delicious fruits to harvest and eat – it’s like magic! And the taste is different from anything you can buy in a supermarket. In fact, it has a real taste, as do the strawberries, carrots, lettuce leaves, even potatoes.

We have lost touch with the natural goodness and freshness of home-grown food, and the seasonal delights of our fruit and veg. Supermarkets have made them available year round, but at the cost of their taste and goodness, using all sorts of methods to make them look good and last, at the expense of their taste and health-giving properties.

It isn’t just the joy of harvesting and eating that makes growing stuff good for us. We get a bit of fresh air on a regular basis, even sunshine sometimes. This gives us the vitamin D we need to be healthy. We have contact with the earth, which literally grounds us and helps to counteract the effect of spending so much time surrounded by concrete, tarmac, metal, bricks and mortar.

And we are reminded that nature (including us) works in cycles. It isn’t natural to have instant results – it takes time and there is a flow to it, if we want a sustainable result.

Once upon a time, our lives would automatically have included the activities of sowing seed, nurturing our plants and harvesting what we grew. Without that we would have gone hungry. That is no longer the case, as we can easily and conveniently feed ourselves without ever experiencing the process of producing that food – we don’t even have to cook it these days! It may make life easier, but it means that we miss out on the joys, reminders and health-giving effects that growing something gives us.

Now I know that not everyone will want to grow their own veg and fruit, but we could all just enjoy one thing grown in our own garden, or even just a pot on the kitchen windowsill: fresh herbs, a strawberry plant, some cut- and-come-again lettuce. The satisfaction is great, and it doesn’t have to be a lot of work.

And if you’re not into fruit and veg, growing a few flowers from seed is lovely. A few sweet peas on a tripod, a few marigolds in a pot – to sow the seeds and water them, and then have flowers a few months later is a treat for the soul.

A little bit of growing stuff is good for us. If you already do, appreciate the benefits and joys it brings you. If you don’t, get yourself a seed tray and some salad leaves seed, or some flower bulbs and a pot. Bring a little more nature and pleasure into your life.

LOWER THAT BAR!

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Every so often I realise that I’ve started evaluating myself against a set of standards that a saint would find it hard to match – and I’m no saint! I don’t think I’m unusual in this. We all fall into the trap of expecting ourselves to be perfect – whatever that means for us – and then berating ourselves for not matching up to that ideal. It’s very unfair – we wouldn’t do that to a friend.

There’s nothing wrong with having high standards, an ideal of how we would like to live our lives, how we’d like to be. In fact, it is part of how we motivate ourselves, and clarify whether we are making progress in our lives. The ideal picture gives us something to aim for and helps us to know what we really want life to be about.

However, it is not motivating to criticise ourselves for not being there yet, and anyway, if we were, we would disappear in a flash of white light, because we would have reached perfection!

The measure of our progress is not in what we haven’t yet achieved, but in what we have put into our lives that moves us towards that ideal. What encourages us to keep going is the recognition that we are gradually making progress, rather than noticing where we’ve slipped or failed or got stuck.

That means that we tell ourselves that we’re pleased with ourselves when we do those stretching exercises, rather than berating ourselves for not doing it today. And we don’t expect ourselves to do it every day, if we are having a go at doing it more often. We start with being pleased at once a week, and when that has become habitual, maybe three times a week. It means we give ourselves credit for all the times we deal with others and their moods compassionately, instead of beating ourselves up for a moment of temper or meanness with someone.

The question is not, ‘Have I done it perfectly?’ it is, ‘Am I doing a bit better on this aspect of my life than I was?’ or ‘What have I done well today towards my ideal picture?’ And if you don’t feel like you’re getting anywhere, then maybe you need to lower your expectation of yourself for a while, to begin to make progress – you’ll move more easily then.

This approach is not only kinder; it’s also more effective. None of us respond well to being criticised or made to feel like a failure, so why the hell would we do it to ourselves? Give yourself credit for what you do well, according to your own standards, and it gets easier to bring more of it into your life.

A QUIET MIND

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I don’t think we realise most of the time just how busy our mind is. It’s like when you leave the radio or TV on in the background – you don’t notice the noise after a while, until you turn it off and you notice the quiet.

The mind runs a commentary on whatever’s going on, or whatever you’re doing, so it tells you the story of your life: ‘I’m just sitting down for 5 minutes because I’m tired. I won’t need long before I can get going again – don’t want to sink into lethargy – lots to do – although I wish I could just stop sometimes.’ Your mind also does past and/or future at the same time – like having two different channels running simultaneously! ‘ I did quite a lot today, but I didn’t finish my list of tasks. And I must remember to phone so-and-so, and what shall I have for dinner?’

It’s amazing that we don’t go a bit crazy with it constantly playing in our heads – or maybe we do!! And it isn’t usually very kind in its commentary, and sometimes it is downright mean and twisted in its reasoning.

So once in a while, it’s great to be able to switch it off and have a rest, but this is not as easy as switching off the radio and TV. I remember learning a meditation where you count the breath up to ten, and them start again from one. I told the teacher I just couldn’t do it: I’d get to about three and then be distracted by my thoughts. He laughed and said that was normal – you just start over when you realise you’ve lost it again. I still find that I rarely get to five, years and years later!

And once in a while, I realise that the noise in my mind has shut up, apparently on its own – so what has that effect on it? For me, something moving gently with a natural rhythm seems to work. It may be a sound or, more often, something I’m looking at. Examples would be: the sound and sight of waves breaking on the shore; leaves on a tree moving gently in the breeze; a candle flame or a real fire; the tick of an old-fashioned clock. If I stay paying attention to it, the rhythmic sound or sight seems to lull my busy mind to sleep for a while. It’s as if the noise gradually fades away until there’s nothing left.

And a little while of that quiet feels so restful, so refreshing!

So what allows you to have a break from your own busy head? Experiment, find out, and enjoy a few moments of peace and quiet.