The key to happiness

Recognize that nothing comes into your life without your attention.  Nothing stays in your life without your attention either. Pay attention to passing thoughts.  Listen to your words. Observe your behaviour. Notice your experience unfolds based on you.

When you choose to feel joy, this is evidence of success.   When you choose to talk about why you feel unhappy or why life is not going well, is it any wonder your experience reflects your words? You always get what you ask for. This also goes beyond words.

Take for example a woman who used to complain and self-criticize. She came to me and said one of her goals was to engage in a healthy, loving relationship. Unaware of the impact of her behaviours, she told me she slept in the middle of a big bed, filled her two sided closet with stuff, used one of her garages for storage and the other for a car. She also worked crazy hours with no social life. As she raised awareness, she began to see she was not being kind to herself or others and not making space for anyone to enter her life. Amazing things happen as you make space in the home and the heart. She cleaned out half her closet and started sleeping on one side of the bed. She chose to work less, was kinder to people because she could be not because she had to be. She began to see all life experience invites her to love herself more.  As she did, in thought, word and deed, the perfect partner entered her life. She discovered the key to happiness is loving yourself.

Another example is a man who sees his family moving from a rental to owning a home. He takes great pleasure from the vision.  He knows that nurturing joyful feelings is bringing a good feeling space closer in his reality.  It has to feel like the next logical step.  Grateful for the location and convenience of the rental, the whole family is also eager for what is coming. They appreciate the natural surroundings of their new suburb, visit houses, post an image of the house to buy like a vision board on the wall and look at it often. They explore furniture showrooms, discuss how to remodel parts of the new house and add solar panels. They develop a related business plan. Although a banker said they do not currently qualify for the mortgage they want, they remain optimistic. They thank the banker for his advice while sensing money comes from varied sources. They know the 'what' always comes before the 'how.' They behave as though details are in motion, give away belongings they no longer use, and do things you do as you prepare to move. They trust the universe has a plan. Life shows them the key to happiness is to be joyful where you are and focus beyond the limits of the mind.

Another example is a woman who asks me guidance in identifying her life purpose.  I remind her that she has nothing to figure out and nobody to live up to.  We are each eternal beings who create our paths and everything about our experience.  Its easy to forget that well-intentioned people train you away from your own inner guidance system.  I say to the woman as I say here you cannot make decisions that are the best for you while pleasing others.  There is no finished portrait of your mission that you can ever reach.  You move incrementally through experiences that are simply meant to make you feel good. So, you cannot get off your path. You can only live a purposeful life.  You can be deliberate about creating or not.  You are consciously in love with life and express this, receive and feel this fully or not.  For this woman, the key to happiness is to recognize events unfold based on how she feels and what she chooses to experience.

Ultimately, the key to happiness is the feeling of worthiness in all you do, knowing your value, that whatever you do you are winning, getting ahead, living the dream, that whatever anyone else is thinking or doing is irrelevant.  As you get a handle on how you feel, its like allowing yourself to be who you are.  In this state, everything comes to you.  Even to feel negative emotion is pointing to who you really are. Take this away:

1) Dwelling on 'what is', on what the mind judges is wrong or not possible prevents what could be from coming.  Ignoring 'what is' is as simple as focusing on something else.

2) Love yourself as the larger part of you does.  You only suffer if you cut yourself off from love and acceptance. You are the creator from the beginning to the end.  Know what you do and do not want. Know what feels not good and what feels better.

3) Revel in contrast.  Come into alignment with the best feeling thought you can find. Rather than saying, "It could be worse if...", say instead, "It is so great that..." or "It is fantastic that..." or "Its truly a blessing that..." or "It is so fortunate that..."

4) Be eager and solutions-oriented when apparent obstacles arise.  Remind yourself that more than one way to do things and to get places exists.  Be resourceful.

5) Be someone who chronically appreciates everything. reach out and help others because it is the right thing to do.  Be generous with no expectations.  Know you are living a good life.  Achieve the vibration consistently and watch what happens. 

6) Feel fulfilled as you are, wherever you are, and then like magic, "it" comes.

Negativity unresisted is grace

Everything you experience makes you who you are. As negativity arises, you may be conditioned to resist it. And yet, as you allow every emotion to flow freely, something amazing happens. All things experienced fully reveal their opposite. Are you ready to take responsibility for peace within yourself in this moment? NO waiting is required.

Something prompts you to realize you can exist in peace. Notice polarity or conflict within yourself as part of the human experience. You can also recognize that any sort of separateness, any perception of divided ideas or personalities, whatever identity you are protecting, is pure illusion. You know nothing is knocking on the door of the mind.

The human part of human-being is an opportunity for deeper discovery. Cease doing what you are doing.  Let go of all self-image, all you are taught. Do nothing. Notice what remains.  Allow grace to reveal itself. The source of awareness or consciousness is present and exists as you to know itself now.  The heart only loves everything as it is.

"God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other." -Rinehold Niebuhr 

Recognize the root cause

You do not need to do anything to be and feel free. Suffering of any kind always comes back to perceived lack of freedom. Delve into roots of your own suffering and see them as they are. The more you deny who you are, the less you trust and more you fear.

Only as you acknowledge the essence of being and its ever-present awareness, do you begin to realize problems are in essence, human at the core. The mind is the origin of distortion and misperception of reality. Words and interpretations are human mental filters. of energy  Know you allow or resist the one unified being that is.   

From the moment you see and feel everyone as a reflection of yourself, you begin to recognize every encounter is an invitation to love yourself more, to appreciate everything and everyone equally, and to see through the illusions of separation you create. Heartfelt honesty shines though as you gaze into the eyes of another. You are him and he is you. Intrinsic value, is. This said, where does your sense of freedom, suffering and separation come from? What happens as you take responsibility for your perception? Notice what stands out as you realize where your energy and attention go. 

"Where attention goes, energy flows and results show."- T. Hary Eker

Notice everything from a total view

Whatever you notice, you can choose to view it from a perspective beyond the mind, beyond conditioned beliefs and attitudes.  You can choose to see everything from a place of non-resistance and fearlessness.  As you recall you are an energy being, you know whatever you are vibrating is reflected in what you feel.  How you feel influences which manifestations unfold, those you discern or overlook.  Notice your focus now.

Consider you only ever communicate with yourself.  Every experience invites you to recognize and drop mental filters that allow clarity to reveal itself.  What feels right is as meaningful or meaningless as you decide.  What you are allowing or surrendering to determines how much of the real presence of being is noticed.  This is changeless.

To know deep down all is well enables you to step back from what appears to be unfolding and reflect on how it relates to the whole of who you are. Being who you really are is to see everything through the lens of unconditional love and acceptance, to see every situation as offering you a message about love. Difficulty only exists in the mind. You already know how eagerness and inner peace feel. Everything reflects what soul knows. You choose how and what to see. Notice how easy it is to be keenly aware, to know the universe confirms all that matters. Every moment is as remarkable or non-descript as you allow.  Every imagined division that falls away expands the view.

"Awakening is the process of overcoming your false self and discovering your True Self." - Steve Baxter

What are you right now?

The human part of you plans and questions. It constructs belief systems and perceptions grounded in the past and future and invites you to focus there. The mind prompts you to act, to do and become. How can you let go of who you think you are?

Being is perfectly content. It has no plans. It does no judge. It has no ambitions or judgments. It does not seek to understand. The feeling of joyful knowing arises naturally.  It is the recognition nothing can control you and you control nothing.  You have all control without controlling everything.  It exists in the present moment.

What happens as you awaken as a 'human- being?' You shift focus of attention and see everything from expanding vantage points.  You revert to innocence and no longer exert effort to be untrue to what is. You no longer believe but know. A connection to wholeness never leaves you.  The love, freedom, presence is all right here.  What are you right now?

"I discovered that I am tired of being a person. Not just tired of being the person I was, but any person at all"  -Susan Sontag