Category: feelings

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What If Today…

I want to share something that I wrote for a dear friend of mine recently. It was intended to provide a spark to ignite a different way of viewing life. It was something that I needed. As with all of my posts, the thoughts and words arrive for me and then moved outward into the world.

The post is a dream in a way. Of a richer life. And of course, as it is in all cases, it depends on what we choose. I wonder to myself what will I choose, I wonder too, what will you choose?

What if today…

What if today…I choose to believe…to truly accept and embrace…that every single thing that happens to me is here to benefit me. What if I choose to see beyond appearances and all of the things that blind me. What if I give myself permission to believe that I am loved and cared for and know that everything I experience in my life is there to offer me something of value. That no matter what the world tells me, I can choose my own path. What if I embrace that my heart and spirit are the ones that set me free.

What if today I release any need to control the uncontrollable. What if I spruce up my ability to yield and let go of all the things that weigh me down…to set them aside and feel the precious liberation and the expansive freedom that choice creates.

What if today I collect all the most lovable parts of me and hug them and ask them to spread their joy throughout my body…my life.

What if today I allow every sorrow, pain, challenge, and concern to take the day off…to rest…what if I placed them all gently in the ocean of bliss that is my true home, where they can be washed clean.

What if, for one day, I give up needing to be in charge of anything and allow life to flow gently through me.

What if today…I breathe in peace and breathe out love.

What if today…is that day.

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Would A Smile Help

I pulled a card from my Four Word Question deck at random and ended up with this card…Would A Smile Help?

My first reaction was, yes, of course a smile would help no matter what was happening. Smiles are awesome.

I wondered why. What is it about them that is so appealing?

My answer is…because they change how I feel inside me. They brighten my day and connect me, to the world, to others and perhaps most importantly, to the divine.

It feels like a smile is an extension of the love that is offered to the world. Smiles feel like they are filled with good intentions.

I don’t think I ever smile and still have negative feeling toward the world. I suppose it’s possible, but not very likely.

Smiles are definite mood shifters. They may be difficult to put on your face during challenging times. When this happens, they prompt a question for me. Given the choice, where would I rather be, in a happy or unhappy state of mind?

The trick might be whether I can answer this simple question while in a bad mood, a sad mood, after a fight with someone, a depressing day or during a sickness.

Sure, when I’m feeling fine, smiling is easy and fun and I think anyone can do it, but what about during the tough times in my life? I wonder, what would it take to remind myself to smile? What trigger would shift me from frowning to smiling? Could I set some kind of internal alarm that would go off, sparking me to remember to smile?

I want that to be the case.

I’m not talking about a Pollyanna approach where I tell myself that all is right with the world even though it’s not. I don’t find lying to myself to ever be the answer.

Recognizing that at any time in my life I have a choice of how I want to live and experience the world opens me and offers me the opportunity to choose. I find I choose much better when there’s a smile on my face. How about you?

I’m not denying that things can feel out of control and sometimes miserable. They can be and at times, they are.

What a smile does is it sends a message to me and to the world that I am exercising my ability to choose how to see and experience the world. It’s an opportunity to shift my consciousness.

This is an incredibly easy solution for me. Afterall, how many simple, easily controllable things can any one of us do? One answer is that every one of us can smile.

I also think to myself, I am not alone in this world. I ask what sort of message do I want to send out? If given the choice, what do I want to offer others?

My answer is often the same. I want to channel the love I feel running through me from my divine source.

It is such a simple thing to do. All I have to do is…smile.

It feels good and connects me to others. And it’s also great when you receive a smile in return. It’s actually life giving and life affirming and one of my most treasured things.

I invite you to test this out for yourself if it intrigues you. See what happens when you smile, even during your most difficult experiences. I bet you’ll find it lifts you up and brightens your day. I ask you, who couldn’t use that in their life?

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A Visit From Sadness

How often would you say you feel sad?

I know that there are specific times and events where sadness can be quite intense, but I’m asking about the smaller versions, the ones where we seem to fall into a state of temporary sadness.

As humans, I believe we all realize our lives are going to be made up of many different feelings, some we welcome and others we hope will never arrive.

Recently I had an encounter with sadness. There was a faint sense of it and then wham, sadness seemed to ooze in from every direction.

I was away from home and although I was in a place of my own choosing, I still had an overwhelming sense of sadness overtake me. And it reminded me of other times when sadness came to me and was accompanied by its friend, loneliness.

My first reaction, as it usually is, was to try to push it away, hoping that by sheer force of will, it would move on. I was afraid of feeling it and unsure how deep it would travel inside of me. After all, why would I want to feel sad? Why would I want to get dragged down, unsure of when the sadness would let go?

Something about how I felt was different though. At first, I couldn’t put my finger on it. I tried and all I could come up with was that it felt ‘lighter’.

As I’ve mentioned in prior posts, I’ve spent a great deal of time exploring my feelings. Part of that process is focused on allowing them in and being open to what they have to share with me. That may sound a little unusual, but it’s something that has been very helpful for me.

So, when this sadness arrived, I coached myself not to panic, but rather to stay open to it, and in the opening, to see if I could listen to what the sadness might share with me.

I softened my normally apprehensive self and leaned into it, allowing the sadness to enter me. What I discovered was that it didn’t really want to stay long. It just wanted to let me know it’s okay to spend time together every once in a while. And, after a short time, it stood up and waved goodbye and wished me a good day.

This whole exchange fascinated me. Here I was worried that sadness had decided to move in permanently and all it really wanted to do was come for a quick visit.

Sadness, like every other feeling, comes and goes.

What occurred to me later was that I am the one largely responsible for its length of stay. Every time I resist it or try futilely to push it away, it gains a certain amount of strength so that when it finally does arrive, its’ power is far greater.

It also occurred to me that many other feelings follow this same curve. They arrive asking for me to pay attention to see if there is a useful message attached.

In this case, sadness came and went, a fleeting feeling. It opened me up and I realized I would survive its stay. I would move on and after a bit, be happy again. I think it’s this way with all of our emotions and feelings. They don’t have to be permanent. They can just be visitors, filling past, on their way to somewhere else.

It’s up to each of us to decide how long we wish to keep them.

So, I decided to wave back as sadness left me and accept its offer to have a good day.