Posts Tagged ‘awareness’

Letting Go of Excuses

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

Dolphins at Play… As I’ve experienced the Dolphins playing they often seem to behave quite mischievously, and it is difficult not to believe that they possess a real sense of humor and give much of their time to having fun.

Dr. Peter Evans points out in his book, “The Natural History of Whales and Dolphins”, that when young animals play, they are often learning important actions.  As I’ve watched them leap, flip, and spin in the waves it’s hard for me to imagine that they are having anything other than a good time.  Yet, Dr. Evans says their activities in the water may have a greater purpose than pure pleasure.

When Dolphins leap out of the water, it is often to see whether seabirds are gathering on the surface to feed on fish.  Noisy splashing jumps may serve to scare fish into a tight cluster for an easier catch.  Complex aerial practices that take place after feeding may be jumps for joy, but they may also serve a social function, such as establishing the bonding that comes from shared pleasure.  However, it is also true that these Beautiful Smiling Creatures sometimes play just for fun and they send out a real sense of joyfulness.

My new awareness, regarding the dolphin’s playful actions, reveals my inability to tell the difference as to whether they are having fun or their taking care of their personal and physical needs. Dolphins appear to be in gratitude in all areas of their life and enjoying themselves.

We have the ability to enjoy and be grateful in all areas of our life. We can look at our challenges as opportunities for learning and growth when we begin letting go of our excuses.  Accepting our self for who we are, strengths and weaknesses, means letting go of our excuses.  As we begin “unlocking our vision” we find the courage to let go of our fear of being judged or not liked. We can begin to let go of our guilt regarding choices that we make or where and how we spend our time.

Our excuses are harmful because they prevent us from succeeding.  Excuses put the brakes on our progress.  As we accept responsibility for our life, our choices, and how we spend our time our confidence and power return and we can accomplish anything we choose.

There is freedom when we begin to recognize where we are spending most of our time and why we make the choices we do.  We can then let go of our excuses and make shifts and changes in order to move forward.  We can begin to have better relationships, better communication, better health and well-being, better spiritual connection, and make better career choices.

Notice when you are making excuses this week and what feelings you are having.  What excuses do you make concerning your goals and dreams? What about places you’d like to go in life, things you want to do, things you’d like to accomplish, but somewhere along the way you came up with some good explanation of why you can’t have those things.

How we spend our time defines our life.  Notice in what areas you are spending your time this week. Are you willing to be with the truth instead of inventing excuses? As we become accountable in seeing the choices we make with our time we can then let go of our excuses.  We can break the habit of making excuses and the solution lies entirely within our own control.

You can have all the benefits of letting go of your Excuses.  You’ll take back your power giving you the freedom to make choices that benefit you.  You’ll be able to confidently make choices that support you regarding your money, your relationships, your career, and your free time.  You can be in your truth and be comfortable.

When you give up your excuses you’ll find clarity regarding your values, your beliefs, and what you want to commit too.  You can make choices based on your needs and wants and not someone else’s.  You will find the courage to take risks.  You’ll become authentic and move into appreciation of the life you have now.  You’ll gain the courage to ask for what you want, and with confidence and clarity you’ll move forward toward your dreams and your desires.

I’d love to hear your comments on “Letting Go of Excuses”…

Sending Love, Joyce

joyce@unlockingyourvision.com

678-380-7361

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What is Happiness and How Do You Achieve it?

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

I have learned that my happiness doesn’t depend upon who I am, what I do, or what I have; it depends solely upon what I think.  As I become more aware of my negative and self defeating thoughts I am able to focus and start each day by thinking of all the things I have to be grateful for.  This shifts my focus from thinking about the things I don’t have, a place of unhappiness, to the place of recognizing and appreciating the abundance and gifts that I have in my life now, the place of happiness.

Taking time to meet our own needs may seem selfish to some, but it’s just the opposite, it’s the best gift you can give to yourself. If your not giving yourself the gift of self love and self care then ask yourself why and the answer is most likely fear.  I believe that true happiness comes from within and from our ability to love and care for our own needs.  When fear is in control we make choices that are based on what we think happiness should look like.  When fear is in control we believe that happiness comes from outside of ourself – our circumstances, money, people, and accomplishments.

Fear keeps us in expectations – expecting our happiness to come from outside of ourself instead of from within.  As we recognize and then take responsibility for  our needs getting met and for creating our own happiness miracles begin to happen.  Happiness is our true nature and if we aren’t nurturing ourself first we run out of energy and passion and sadly unhappiness becomes our state of being.

When fear and expectations run our life we have to consciously make the choice to stop, focus, and actually think about what really does make us happy.  Sometimes we need to try new things in order to know what we enjoy or don’t enjoy doing.  Without trying, stepping out and taking risks we will never find out what true happiness means to us and how we can live it everyday. Instead we will  keep looking for happiness outside of our self – through people, things, and places.

I think we can all agree that there is no short cuts to happiness.  Even a happy person does not experience joy/happiness 24 hours a day.  A happy person can have a bad day but still experience pleasure in the small things in life.  If you’re not feeling happy today, step back, choose to consciously see the things in your life you do have to appreciate and focus on gratitude.  Write daily gratitudes to support you in recognizing and embracing your true state of being happy.  Begin to notice when you are in a state of happiness and note the feeling and think about what thought or action created it.

Something that has helped me is to practice daily never saying or doing anything that disempowers myself or others.  No matter what the challenge, there is always a way to approach it in a way that can empower all concerned.  In this way you can find the perfect solution.  Our thoughts can either disempower us or empower us – choose the good ones.

Don’t postpone happiness until you reach a certain goal, like getting a promotion, retiring, taking that perfect vacation, communicating better, or having the great relationship – these things are short lived.  Consciously choose to take the time to focus everyday – to recognize the good things in your life and what you do have control over.

There is no rule or special formula that can make a person constantly happy. Instead, Happiness comes from developing positive thoughts and behaviors that lead to fulfilling social relationships, enjoyable work, better communication, and in taking great care of our mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical needs.  We gain a sense that our life really does have meaning, it does matter, and that we are an integral part of the wholeness of our Universe.

Take the time today to focus, meditate, listen, acknowledge yourself- your small wins and victories, and consciously choose to recognize what you do have to be grateful for.  Be thankful for what you do have now, embrace it, only then can you create the happiness and life that you desire.  This is an essential component of happiness.

You are worthy and deserve nothing less than to be in your natural state of being happy.

Warmly, Joyce

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You Decide if You Want to be Happy

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

You Decide if You Want to be Happy is something that I believed yet was confused by the fact that I allowed my circumstances to constantly get in the way of my being happy?  Circumstances that triggered fear; fear of not being lovable, not being good enough, and not being smart enough.  As I continued to allow the circumstances of my life to trigger the fear, my happiness became less and less, and unhappiness became my “state of being”.  Not because I chose it but because I didn’t understand how to stop it.  Fear was in control of my life.  In that state of being my feelings lied to me, my thoughts betrayed me as I rationalized and made excuses, and my actions became self destructive.

We all strive for Happiness in life.  Like many, I thought that achievements such as material things, money, the perfect marriage, education, family, a certain job, and financial/social status would make me happy, otherwise I must be less than everyone else.   Through my own pursuit of happiness I have learned that these achievements have little to do with my happiness or with my value as a person.  As I continued to live with my expectations of what happiness should look like it seemed to further escape my mental grasp and became even harder for me to express or define.

Happiness that came from my achievements, possessions, people, or temporary pleasures worked for awhile but eventually their power to deliver happiness faded.  The only lasting happiness comes from within each of us.  Sounds simple yet not easy to understand or do.

Life does throw us some uncomfortable and sometimes painful circumstances.  But as we begin to recognize that in these circumstances our life is continually sprinkled with ample opportunities for discovering happiness.  Circumstances provide us with opportunities to recognize how fear controls our life and our choices.  With this awareness we can then begin to make better choices to create the happiness that we want.  We begin to notice the little things.  A laugh, a smile, time with family and friends, time with yourself, giving or receiving a word of encouragement, a compliment, the joy that children, animals, and nature bring to us.  These are the treasures that enhance our happiness, not some grand achievement that only give us a lift for a short while.

I’ve learned that focusing on the present, accepting the life I have now, consciously recognizing the things I do have in my life to be grateful for, appreciating brief moments, small miracles, and choosing to recognize and acknowledge my little victories are the keys that move me towards my happiness.

People don’t choose to be unhappy, yet they don’t think they have a choice.  I didn’t believe that I picked that state of being, but I did believe that my unhappiness was a result of being wronged, feeling unworthy, less fortunate, and that I didn’t have control over this outcome.  I did acknowledge that something did happen to cause the feeling of unhappiness but the issue was that I had a choice in how I responded to what happened.  I could decide to stay unhappy or I could decide to accept that something did happen, feel it, allow myself to be in it, then make the decision to move on and allow myself to be happy.  I had to make that choice for myself.  When I understood that I actually could choose to be happy or unhappy, and that I deserve and have a right to be happy, it began to change my life.

When we are not experiencing happiness, the brilliance of our heart and mind, the essence of who we are is hidden under clouds of negative thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.  The concepts and tools that I teach in Fearless Living empowered me, not only in reducing the cloud cover but guided me to understand and embrace my true nature of being happy.  Fearless Living helps you to understand the complete freedom you have in choosing happiness and that you deserve nothing less.

We do have the power to control whether we feel happy or not.

Warmly, Joyce


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Becoming Aware

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

Do you struggle with your health and well-being?  Are you challenged with making the choices that support the life you desire?  Are you confused about how to attract what will support good health and happiness?  Are you aware of your own self-healing potential?  Exploring this dilemma you will recognize that your state of mind has tremendous importance regarding what you attract or receive into your life.

We attract that which we desire when our subconscious thoughts and beliefs are in harmony with what we consciously intend.  But if our subconscious thoughts and beliefs run contrary to our conscious wishes we may ultimately lose the result we have achieved or want to achieve because the strength of our subconscious beliefs tends to eventually win out.  This is not cause for blame or guilt.  After all, we are not aware of how our subconscious beliefs work.  So how do we get clear of these contrary beliefs?  It’s all about “becoming aware”.  For my life the first area to explore was fear and how it was affecting my life and my choices.  How it prevented me from attracting and receiving that which would support my health, well-being and happiness.

I first recognized the definition of emotional fear and my body’s reaction to it.  My body’s reaction to fear was the same whether I was faced with a physical threat or an emotional one.  The problem was that the experience of a real or perceived threat was stored in my long-term memory.  So when I would see or hear something that appeared to be a threat my instinct was to run to avoid the pain whether it was physical or emotional.  I didn’t think to stop and find out whether the danger was real or not.

Throughout my life I added to my fears through my experiences.  As these negative experiences, either perceived or real, happened regularly over many years then my mental, emotional, and physical health were affected and clearly in danger.  This harmed my ability to experience my natural state of harmony and balance, good health and well-being, and it harmed my ability to simply enjoy life.

Becoming aware was the first step to healthy change.  I made the choice to become aware of how emotional fear was running my life and I learned what those fears were.  I then had the power to break free of my conditioning (old patterns of thinking and behavior) and make choices about how I wanted to think and behave.  Otherwise my subconscious mind and my conditioning would continue to decide for me.

I learned about the Fearless Living tools and concepts and I now use them in my own life daily.  They have shown me how to outsmart fear rather than allowing the memory of fear to determine my life.  I have learned to embrace the fullness of who I am including my limitations.  I have learned and practice daily making choices that support me in being my true self – the person I was meant to be.  I am once again able to experience my natural state of harmony and balance, good health and well-being, and I’m able to simply enjoy life once again.

My experience can also be your experience if you choose to explore how fear controls your choices, your health and well-being, and your happiness.  Self awareness is the key to transformation and in creating the life you desire.

I would like to receive your thoughts on fear and how it can control our lives and our choices.

“Live the Life Your Soul Intended” quote by Rhonda Britten founder of the Fearless Living Institute and author of the book “Fearless Living”.

“Do not fear going forward slowly, fear only to stand still. -Chinese Proverb

“You are not stuck where you are unless you decide to be. -Wayne W. Dyer

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