Tag: Awareness

WHAT ON EARTH IS IT?🤔

Here is a great gift I received from the love of my life. A book filled with 500 things to be happy about. The cool thing about all of these…well…things, is that none of them require a large amount of capital. Most of them require none at all. Can you imagine that? In a world that makes a fortune off helping people find their bliss or joy, here is a book that lists 500 ways you can do it for free or pretty close to.

One of the things that makes this book so fun, other than the amazing lady who gave it to me, is that many of these things happen to us daily and we take them for granted. Why is that so fun? It means we are passing by happiness daily to look for it. Most of them we fail to notice or fully appreciate. Some we even turn into negatives. Does this sound confusing at all? It did a little to me in reading what I just wrote, so let me clear it up with a few examples.

Here is a picture of me working out. Seriously, it is of the late Greg Plitt, one of the people I draw inspiration from. Many of us are on a quest to get in better shape. Does this sound familiar? You make an gym date with your friend after work. 5pm rolls around and you are so tired you just want to collapse on the couch. How could you have been so dumb to say you would go to the gym? Suddenly you are mad at your friend, mad at yourself and dreading going to the gym. You make it there and complain about how tired you are through your entire workout. After you make it back home you cannot believe how sore you are. With a change in perception this could be an entirely different experience. You could look forward to working out after a long day knowing that it will help reduce stress, release the feel good hormones and provide you more energy on the back end. You could enjoy the knowledge you are getting stronger with each rep. When you get home you could let the sore muscles give you a feeling of pride that you put in a good workout. 

There is a literal fountain of possibilities to be happy. Most of them require the ability to be present. Some listed in a book are as follows. Finding a matching lid to a container. We all know how frustrating it can be when you can’t. Why not enjoy a little moment of happiness when you do. A bird landing close without seeing you. How cool is it to be able to catch a glimpse of an animal that is normally scared of humans? Peeling of the protective sticker on a new gadget. Knowing that it is ready to be used. It is like starting a new adventure. Take a moment to smile about it. How about the smell of early morning coffee? If we take a second to notice it at all, we may just say, “That smells good.” What if we really took even a few seconds to pause, inhale and really savor the smell.

Here is what I noticed almost all of the ‘things to be happy about’ involved. There were two things required to transform what may be ordinary happenings into moments of joy in our hearts. Those two things are being present and being grateful. Knowing this, we can transform anything into a moment of being happy. Like our workout example above, if we change our perception, we can change our emotional state. Imagine being grateful you can workout. Sure, you may not be where you want to be, or able to do what you want to do just yet, but you can workout. Many people can’t. Think of the ability to read this blog. How many people in the world are still not literate? How many do not have access to the internet?

Let us add to the list of 500. Share your little things that bring you great joy, or could bring you great joy with a little present moment awareness and gratitude.

THE POSITIVE POWER OF NEGATIVE THINKING…

At first glance this may seem like a paradox.  After all, how can negative thinking be anything but…well negative?  Let’s face it, positive thinking can empower us to do a lot of things.  Being positive minded 100% of the time is not only unrealistic, but not very healthy for growth either.  I would say a good healthy mix is 95/5.  So why are negative feelings so ‘good’ for us.  They can serve to vital and very important purposes.  First, they let us know what is not working.  There is something in our life that is currently not meeting our standards.  Why is this important?  Let me explain it with a situation we can all relate to, going to the doctor.  Why do you go to the doctor?  The answer usually is “because something is wrong”.  Noticing this means you have had bad physical feelings.  Whether they are nausea, pain, or some other not so pleasant feeling it let you know something is not as it should be.  If you are anything like me the very next question to the doctor is “How can we make this go away?”.  That leads us to the second great thing negative feelings can do for us.  They can motivate us into action.  In the case of the doctor visit, to do what actions are necessary to heal our condition.  The same holds true for any condition in life.  If we notice something in our life is causing us a noticeable amount of grief, get excited!  Excited about grief Neil?  Are you crazy?  Well, yes I am crazy, but here is why you should get excited.  Our bodies are designed to use feelings as warning signs.  Such as pain so you don’t leave your hand on the hot stove, or nausea so you don’t keep drinking the expired milk.  These may seem like a pain at first, after all who likes to burn their hand?  Yet if we didn’t have the pain we could leave our hand on the stove until it cooks right off.  Interesting thing is our minds do the same thing.  Ever wonder why certain things make you feel sad or angry.  That is our mind and spirits way of telling us something is wrong with them.  It is a warning sign, just like the burn on the hand.  We must decide what is causing this upset and act to correct it.  Now here is where negative emotions can be a double edge sword.  When trying to discover what would work to eliminate our discomfort we must think in a positive, solution oriented frame of mind.  For example, I had a friend who had recently given her all into a relationship that she felt had true potential, but when push came to shove the man she was in a relationship with did not feel the same.  I heard her utter phrases like “I’m never going to get into a relationship again, that way I won’t get hurt again”  Haven’t we all felt this way at one point or another?  I know I have.  In this situation she was willing to sacrifice all the pleasure a healthy relationship could provide her to escape the pain of another possible unhealthy one.  This may seem like a solution on the surface, but what it really amounts to is giving up.  If there is one thing you don’t want to give up on it is your own life.  So make negative emotions our servants, not our masters.  Let us use them for clarity and motivation, but not dwell in them.  So next time you find yourself upset, remember the positive power of negative thinking!