Happy vs Unhappy – A Wonderful Quote

“I am more and more convinced that our happiness or our unhappiness depends far more on the way we meet the events of life than on the nature of those events themselves.”

Karl Wilhelm Von Humboldt

Posted in Quotes that Rock | No Comments »

Courage & Grace

You wake up in the morning feeling great, ready to take on the world.  Your feel that your day will be wonderful and then ka-boom, you get pulled out of the happy place and into feelings that make you not so happy. It is wise to stop getting pulled out of your core by going into human reactor mode. To be in “human reactor mode” is constantly reacting to a world of effects that seem to make us smaller, taking us out of our power.  We are here to create, to generate, to build. Not to react, but to respond.  Responding gives you time to think, to re-evaluate.  In this way we can change the direction of our life.

What supports us?  Grace & Courage. If you live from the outside in, you are constantly reacting to the stimuli outside that makes you less.  Living from the inside out will make you more, a power to reckon with, gifting you with tools to build, to create the life you dream of.  Positive self talk helps you build your inner center into a powerful place that you can live your life from.

Let’s talk about grace. Grace gives us the courage to take one mighty step after another.  Welcome grace into your life and all your experiences.  Wear it, be it, smell it, taste it, see it, live it. Grace will reveal love to you, and lift you above the turmoil of the world.  Have you ever really thought about this word.  Now might be a good time.  Grace opens the door to wisdom,  illuminating your mind to guide you in your choices and decisions. We all have free will (a force, a power) that drives every quality, giving us passion, which unfolds into our creative expression.  Grace can take everything that opposes the joy of life, and transform it.

What is your relationship with your home, environment, creativity, work and employment, friends, and family? How does grace act when you don’t limit it?  I suggest you try living in courage and grace.  This experiment and experience my surprise you.  Where do you live the center of your life from?  This is a big question.   When we take ourselves off of automatic pilot and start answering the bigger questions with honesty, then we become expanded, conscious, and powerful.

You wake up in the morning feeling great, ready to take on the world.  Your feel that your day will be wonderful and then ka-boom, you get pulled out of the happy place and into feelings that make you not so happy. It is wise to stop getting pulled out of your core by going into human reactor mode. To be in “human reactor mode” is constantly reacting to a world of effects that seem to make us smaller, taking us out of our power.  We are here to create, to generate, to build. Not to react, but to respond.  Responding gives you time to think, to re-evaluate.  In this way we can change the direction of our life.

What supports us?  Grace & Courage. If you live from the outside in, you are constantly reacting to the stimuli outside that makes you less.  Living from the inside out will make you more, a power to reckon with, gifting you with tools to build, to create the life you dream of.  Positive self talk helps you build your inner center into a powerful place that you can live your life from.

Let’s talk about grace. Grace gives us the courage to take one mighty step after another.  Welcome grace into your life and all your experiences.  Wear it, be it, smell it, taste it, see it, live it. Grace will reveal love to you, and lift you above the turmoil of the world.  Have you ever really thought about this word.  Now might be a good time.  Grace opens the door to wisdom,  illuminating your mind to guide you in your choices and decisions. We all have free will (a force, a power) that drives every quality, giving us passion, which unfolds into our creative expression.  Grace can take everything that opposes the joy of life, and transform it.

What is your relationship with your home, environment, creativity, work and employment, friends, and family? How does grace act when you don’t limit it?  I suggest you try living in courage and grace.  This experiment and experience my surprise you.  Where do you live the center of your life from?  This is a big question.   When we take ourselves off of automatic pilot and start answering the bigger questions with honesty, then we become expanded, conscious, and powerful.

Debra Oakland @ Living in Courage Online

Posted in Courage, Thoughts | No Comments »

Use Courage and Wisdom to Live a Happier Life

It is through experience that knowledge becomes wisdom.  Wisdom is a great gift.  When used properly, wisdom can assist us to live a life of peace.  What do you search and strive for in your life?  For each one of us it appears in different forms.  Hopefully at some point we become wise enough to see the walls we have built around ourselves that limit us.  Allowing ourselves to release and let go of all that does not work in our life any longer takes courage and inner strength.  These walls of resistance are sometimes invisible even to our own eyes.  It is so easy to look at someone else’s life and see why things are not working out for them.  Yet when we look at ourselves, we often miss what limits us.  I know I want to be a happy little miracle maker.  How about you?  I think we all feel that way.  Some serious contemplation and examination may be necessary (when you are ready) to make profound shifts in your life.  There are millions of books on the subject of living a better, happier, healthier life.  Why then is the world not filled with happy, healthy, successful, peaceful, fulfilled people?  It is sometimes even hard to find people that are filled with true joy.

Our world seems to have sped up at a pace no one can keep up with.  Everyone is busy, busy, busy.  No time is the mantra everyone hears from each other.  People want and need more time just to get through the day and accomplish tasks, just to keep up.

It is time to take the journey back to self, back to love.  Living in the past will only complicate your life and do nothing to build a better brighter future for yourself and your family.  The future does not exist yet.  The moment you are in right now creates your next moments, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years.  This is so simple, that we just don’t get it.  The few who do live happy lives.  How do you feel right now?  Think about this, because it is all that exits.  Imagine a tightrope.  You are standing on the tightrope, which represents NOW.  On one side is the past and the other is the future.  Do you notice there is nothing there? Absolutely nothing.  The past is gone as soon as the moment passes.  The only thing that keeps it alive is your mind or a memory, that’s it.  Imagine the things people could let go of if the past is released into the nothingness that it is.

Embrace the NOW moment.  What do you want?  In the fullness of this moment happening NOW, you get to decide.  Your moments gain momentum and appear in the physical for you to experience.  So, if you get to choose, wouldn’t you want something wonderful in your life?  Every moment you stay peaceful, joyful, productive and take action towards your dreams, you take a step closer to the life you want to live. I want this life for myself and work towards it daily.  Old patterns and habits are exactly that – old, and keep us stuck in a continual rut.  I want out and am climbing that ladder one step at a time, one day at a time by practicing the art of living in the NOW moment.  The more you can stay present, miracles do start happening.  The phone rings, connections are made, people supply you with information or bring you something you needed (without having to ask.) Synchronicity is happening all around you.  Oops! then we forget and go back to old patterns and get old results.

Remember to pull yourself back to NOW as often as you can, until it becomes a great new habit that will reshape your life.  I did not say it would be easy in the beginning.  Just get your foot in the door, use courage, and please trust that things will shift for you when you let go of the judgments and move into joy.  What I wish and dream of for myself, I wish for and dream of for everyone everywhere.  I send you love and support in your best life lived in the courage each of you represent to me.

Debra Oakland @ Living in Courage Online

Posted in Courage, Intellectual, Thoughts | 2 Comments »

Are You Happy?

What makes one person happy and not another?  Many years ago the Sociology Department at Duke University did a study on “Peace of Mind”.  After studying hundreds of people, both happy and unhappy, nine factors were found to contribute to emotional and mental stability.

l.  The absence of suspicion and resentment.  Holding a grudge was the major factor in unhappiness

2.  Living in the present and the future. Much unhappiness stems from an unwholesome preoccupation with past mistakes and failures.

3.  Not wasting time and energy fighting conditions you cannot change.

4.  Cooperating with life, instead of trying to either demolish it or run away from it.

5.  Forcing yourself to be outgoing with others-instead of retreating within-during times of emotional  stress.

6.  Refusing to pity yourself or seek self-justification in easy alibis that make you appear “noble” to yourself   and others.

7.  Cultivating the old-fashioned virtues of love, honor, loyalty, thrift.  ( We add courage to the list at Living in  Courage.)

8.  Not putting too much pressure on yourself.  When there is a wide gap between the standards you set for yourself and your actual achievement, unhappiness if inevitable.  If you cannot improve your performance, try lowering the demand instead.

9.  Finding something bigger than yourself in which to believe. Self–centered, egotistical, materialistic people score lowest of all in any test measured for happiness.

Posted in Courage, Thoughts | No Comments »

Gratitude – Gratitude – Gratitude

Today I am grateful for every beat of my heart, for every breath I take, and this gift of life I have been given. What are you grateful for? Think about it. Gratitude is essential for manifestation. How can we be given more, if we are not grateful for what is already in our lives? Doesn’t that seem to go against the natural laws of the universe? As a whole, we greatly underestimate the power we hold to create excellence on our lives.

Those who have achieved greatness in the face of adversity pushed through every obstacle, using their will, courage and spirit – the core of achievement. There are many times when we get what we want, and instead of savoring the moment in gratitude, off we go, running to the next thing that seems more important. Focus is lost. Gratitude is sometimes forgotten, or ignored. We start asking why our lives are not working as well as expected. A circle of activity that repeats over and over, until we take action to make a conscious change.

With the wonderful presence of new technologies, the pace of life has accelerated greatly, leaving most people with “not enough time” for the simple pleasures in life. Make a choice to choose what brings you joy and peace. Be grateful. When waking up, decide how you want your day to go. Pre-pave by imagining a clear picture of the activities in your mind, feeling positive and successful. When going to bed in the evening, be grateful for the activities of the day. Write down 5 things from the day you are grateful for. Having a written copy to look at from time to time, can be of value.  This will keep you out of worrisome negative thinking habits, allowing your mind to reprogram itself to success. You are so powerful. Take a stand in your life. It is so important you do this. Your happiness and a courageous life “well lived” depends on it. I send my love to each of you as you take your stand in the joy you were meant to be. Go out and make it a great day.

Debra Oakland @ Living in Courage Online

Posted in Thoughts | No Comments »

A New Earth – Eckhart Tolle

In A New Earth, Tolle expands powerful ideas to show how transcending our ego-based state of consciousness is not only essential to personal happiness, but also the key to ending conflict and suffering throughout the world. Tolle describes how our attachment to the ego creates the dysfunction that leads to anger, jealousy, and unhappiness, and shows readers how to awaken to a new state of consciousness and follow the path to a truly fulfilling existence.

Posted in Books I Read | No Comments »

Lunch Today in Laguna Beach

Have you ever been in one of your favorite restaurants, happily munching, when you hear a loud voice incessantly talking negative about other people? Today was that day. I should have moved, but I did not notice “the voice” until my food was delivered. I must have heard the word “narcissist” 25 times, loudly repeated in the course of one conversation. Everyone this person talked about had a problem and this person had all the answers. I almost fell to the ground in gratitude that I have been reading Eckhart Tolle’s new book “A New Earth”, as it saved me from wanting to turn around and scream “are you freaking kidding me with this crap”. I took a big breath, noticing a woman at the next table having similar thoughts. After I tried singing along to the song being played in the restaurant and sticking my fingers in my ears, I stopped myself, quit judging, labeling or placing any importance on this person. I know better. I realize that people come across our path and are brought to our attention for a reason. What we do with it, is entirely up to us. I decided to ask for the highest and greatest good for this person, blessed them, and went on chewing fast, leaving as soon as possible.

A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle could not have arrived on the scene at a more perfect time. I applaud Oprah in presenting this book and the author, every Monday night on her website for 10 weeks. This is the world’s largest online classroom of around 700,000 people and over 1.5 million listening to the link after the Monday classes. If you are interested in the planet earth, all relationships, finances, physical health, mental health and happiness, politics, any belief system of any kind, this is the book for you. Most of the people I know are reading it or participating in the online classroom. What is great, is if you miss the Monday night class, you can go to www.oprah.com and listen to the whole class the next day. I love seeing people from all over the world involved.

Debra

Posted in My Stories, Thoughts | No Comments »