The Importance of Having Fun
For a long time I had heard that I needed to make room for joy in my life. This message fell to very deaf ears for a number of years. I had committed myself to my dream and I was going to do whatever it took to make it work and in my mind that meant hard work and lots of it. I can and do work hard and don't often consider joy a requirement in life. I will be joyful when all of my dreams come true...but until then I will just work my bones off.
Then life threw me a curveball. My business was booming and I was still working full time due to a wonderful article written about me in a local magazine. I am so grateful for this windfall of luck.
I was busy and while it was everything I had ever dreamed about the inevitable happened...I got burned out for about an eight month period.
I could see it happening like a slow moving accident, but I didn't listen to the signs. I kept feeling inspired by new projects and prospects and I never took a break for a long time, too long apparently.
What happened in getting burned out was actually a blessing...I finally learned what people had been telling me all along. That life is supposed to be enjoyable and that when we put an effort into enjoying life we make more room for joy and joy makes room for success.
What did I start doing?
1. I crafted. The Dollar Tree became my new addiction as I found their craft section to be a gold mine of creative inspiration.
2. I started going out more and socializing. This involved becoming more engaged with my family and going to social gatherings with my family more often.
3. I started watching movies (I don't have cable so I don't watch tv) and I watched all the sappy romantic comedies that I love.
4. I stopped feeling like I had to do intense, long workouts and I started walking and doing yoga or just taking naps (mainly whatever my body wanted to do).
5. I spent more time engaging with my clients and getting to know them on a personal level before and after appointments. These are, often times, people that I really connect with and have a lot in common with. Oh, and I am grateful for each and every one of them. Honored that they share their lives with me and so thankful for each and every one because they are, often times, my greatest teachers.
6. I started to go to therapy and have finally found a wonderful therapist that is helping me to unravel my life and put it back into wonderful, healed, thriving pieces.
What happened as a result of me trying to interject more joy in my life:
1. I had fun.
2. More social opportunities presented themselves.
3. When I decided that I was going to exercise less and with less intensity I also decided to eat less and I found that it was easy to cut down on what I consume at dinner and that my body responded positively to this change. I lost weight and started liking my body more.
4. I laughed and enjoyed life so much more than I have for a very long time perhaps ever.
5. My business continues to thrive and I found that I connected more with my clients, enjoyed my work more and the gift of having each and every one of my clients bless me with their knowledge and their presence in my life.
6. I am feeling more healthy and whole on mind, body and emotional levels.
7. I still love my work, but unlike in the past, it is not my one, very few sources of joy. I am thoroughly enjoying life 360 degrees around me.
8. Men have started asking me out on dates. Yes...I am dating. I know that many of my friends and family members have given up on me ever having a dating life...to be honest I had given up on me ever dating, but, lo and behold it is happening and I am not going into it kicking and screaming. I am having fun like a stupid teenager as naive as a 13 year old but...enjoying it nonetheless. Yes, I am still fearful of getting hurt but getting hurt is part of playing the game. Thankfully the sting of rejection gets less and less with time and with practice.
Sooooo.....have more fun in doing so you will continue to bring more joy into your life and maybe even be more successful in all of your ventures in doing so.
Unconditional Love
Thank you God for allowing me to stumble upon one of the greatest lessons in my life.
I don't know how I found it but I found something that is the key to happiness in life...love, how to love and how loving leads to being loving.
My initial question was how do I create more love in my life? That's a pretty big question to approach. How do you create more love in your life? You are more than welcome to answer; I would love your reply. Please reply...
In response to this question I started attracting to me more and more people with these really open heart chakras. For those of you that are new to chakras chakras are energy centers centered around the major organs of the body. The heart chakra is centered around the heart and people who have big heart chakras generally have a great ability to give and receive love.
When these people sat down at my table ready for a reading the first thing that I usually saw was their wide open heart chakra and then I thanked them personally for sitting down with me. My clients are, often times, my greatest teachers and these rare individuals (people who have wide open chakras) I intensely studied in my short visits with them.
What I saw over and over again with these people that had wide open chakras was that they understood that you needed to give love without condition. The result of this unconditional love was that the love that they gave was returned in trumps. These were the people in loving relationships, with lots of friends, who adopted children, who had love and respect, who had the quality of life that I was seeking.
It is as simple as that. If you aim to have love; give love. Simple.
Although this theory seemed simple I didn't know how to apply it to every day life. How do I, a really shy girl, who rarely dates, who is actually terrified of dating, of possibly relationship, how do I put this into practice?
Luckily life provided me with a victim; as I was learning this I was also becoming interested in a guy that was actually interested in me. It was my perfect opportunity to put this very theory into practice. What I found was that this very simple idea could and was easy to put into practice.
If you want more love you have to give more love. You have to risk. You have to initiate. You have to say I like you with your words, with your actions, with your voice, with your body, with your eyes...even when you feel vulnerable, especially when you are vulnerable. And when you risk, however you do risk, you have to risk without caring whether or not you get a positive response.
So how this played out with me was whenever I put myself out there I risked from that space of I didn't care how he responded. I did it from that space of I was willing to risk to conquer myself, to better myself, to learn more about myself, being vulnerable, and being a better me.
What did I learn from this experiment? That it actually worked.
Did our relationship last? No.
BUT...it lasted a lot longer than I thought it would...about two and a half months more. And I had a great time. And I learned that I could risk and even though it didn't last and it ended badly I learned.
I also left the experience without fear for the next experience. I felt invigorated and excited to try again and again and again...unto infinity. I learned that it felt good to give and to give without expecting in return. And when you gave from this space of unconditionality you actually gained.
What did I gain? I gained my ability to give. I gained my ability to give unconditionally. I gained a knowledge about myself that is priceless...that I love myself enough to try, to risk, to try again...I also saw how this unconditional love is what everyone craves. It is what we want from our parents, our friends, our teachers, our siblings, Jesus and, yes, our lovers.
We all do try and try as hard as we all do fail...life is an experiment...we all don't come out of the shoot succeeding. How comforting is it though, that at the end of the day, our mom loves and supports us and our sister forgives us for bullying her for most of our early days and my dad still believes in my dreams and my friends understand that when I am busy I don't call or write but I'll come around. All we really want is for people to understand and respect us and to be there when we need them and to love us at the end of the day no matter what.
What we all want and need more than anything else is unconditional love. That's it. It's that simple.
If you want more love; give more love; without condition.
I don't know how I found it but I found something that is the key to happiness in life...love, how to love and how loving leads to being loving.
My initial question was how do I create more love in my life? That's a pretty big question to approach. How do you create more love in your life? You are more than welcome to answer; I would love your reply. Please reply...
In response to this question I started attracting to me more and more people with these really open heart chakras. For those of you that are new to chakras chakras are energy centers centered around the major organs of the body. The heart chakra is centered around the heart and people who have big heart chakras generally have a great ability to give and receive love.
When these people sat down at my table ready for a reading the first thing that I usually saw was their wide open heart chakra and then I thanked them personally for sitting down with me. My clients are, often times, my greatest teachers and these rare individuals (people who have wide open chakras) I intensely studied in my short visits with them.
What I saw over and over again with these people that had wide open chakras was that they understood that you needed to give love without condition. The result of this unconditional love was that the love that they gave was returned in trumps. These were the people in loving relationships, with lots of friends, who adopted children, who had love and respect, who had the quality of life that I was seeking.
It is as simple as that. If you aim to have love; give love. Simple.
Although this theory seemed simple I didn't know how to apply it to every day life. How do I, a really shy girl, who rarely dates, who is actually terrified of dating, of possibly relationship, how do I put this into practice?
Luckily life provided me with a victim; as I was learning this I was also becoming interested in a guy that was actually interested in me. It was my perfect opportunity to put this very theory into practice. What I found was that this very simple idea could and was easy to put into practice.
If you want more love you have to give more love. You have to risk. You have to initiate. You have to say I like you with your words, with your actions, with your voice, with your body, with your eyes...even when you feel vulnerable, especially when you are vulnerable. And when you risk, however you do risk, you have to risk without caring whether or not you get a positive response.
So how this played out with me was whenever I put myself out there I risked from that space of I didn't care how he responded. I did it from that space of I was willing to risk to conquer myself, to better myself, to learn more about myself, being vulnerable, and being a better me.
What did I learn from this experiment? That it actually worked.
Did our relationship last? No.
BUT...it lasted a lot longer than I thought it would...about two and a half months more. And I had a great time. And I learned that I could risk and even though it didn't last and it ended badly I learned.
I also left the experience without fear for the next experience. I felt invigorated and excited to try again and again and again...unto infinity. I learned that it felt good to give and to give without expecting in return. And when you gave from this space of unconditionality you actually gained.
What did I gain? I gained my ability to give. I gained my ability to give unconditionally. I gained a knowledge about myself that is priceless...that I love myself enough to try, to risk, to try again...I also saw how this unconditional love is what everyone craves. It is what we want from our parents, our friends, our teachers, our siblings, Jesus and, yes, our lovers.
We all do try and try as hard as we all do fail...life is an experiment...we all don't come out of the shoot succeeding. How comforting is it though, that at the end of the day, our mom loves and supports us and our sister forgives us for bullying her for most of our early days and my dad still believes in my dreams and my friends understand that when I am busy I don't call or write but I'll come around. All we really want is for people to understand and respect us and to be there when we need them and to love us at the end of the day no matter what.
What we all want and need more than anything else is unconditional love. That's it. It's that simple.
If you want more love; give more love; without condition.
A Ray on a Cloudy Day: Brene Brown
I was praying for grace...I know that's the way life is sometimes...looking for that ray of sunshine in the perpetual darkness of the cloudy skies that extend for days and I stumbled upon this video. It was my ray of sunshine. I hope the sun shines for days from this one ray of lightness...enjoy! I also think there are some people...one in particular that I need to be more vulnerable to...