Susan Mary Malone's Blog: Happiness is a Story, page 20

YOU DON’T HAVE TO ALWAYS BE HAPPY TO HAVE A HAPPY LIFE

That just doesn’t seem to make sense, does it.  How can you live life happy if you aren’t always happy?

Webster defines happiness in two ways: a :  A state of well-being and contentment :  joy

b:  A pleasurable or satisfying experience

We all know that b brings us happiness, no?  Something fabulous happens.  You achieve a desired goal.  A loved one comes to visit.  Whatever the experience is that brings happiness to you, you’re joyful!

Life is filled with peaks and valleys, and a lot of just trudging in between.  It’s a great life.  It’s also of course filled with sadness and fear and anger, and all those emotions we’d rather not have or deal with.  But all emotions have to be felt, dissected, understood, and responded to in order to put whatever at rest (and sometimes multiple times!).  We all have our demons to deal with. 

Life is just like that.

And the one you lead came from a framework, a way of seeing that is either all a mess and then you die, or wow, what a gift that we’re even here.  It’s your choice.  Perception truly is reality.

But how does one stay in a when b is absent?

Simple enough, no?  Happiness is a state of mind, a choice we make every day (or again, sometimes multiple times a day!).  And it does all start in the mind.

We were given these amazing brains.  And the more we learn of them, the more amazing they reveal themselves to be.

And one thing I know for true, having worked with mental theories for a while, is what we tell ourselves, we become.  If I look on a terrible event as personal, pervasive, and permanent, my depression will last so much longer.  But if I can see that though I had a part in it, I didn’t cause the war, and the event doesn’t color my whole life and this too shall pass, then the negative emotions don’t own me.  Or at least for not nearly as long!

 We have choices as to how we see the world and our part in it, and how we frame events, and even how we feel about all of the above. 

An old college roommate contacted me recently.  Decades have passed since we’ve been in touch.  She was such a hoot then, and filled with oh-so-many true-life gifts, succeeding in everything she did–when she didn’t self-sabotage.  But self-sabotage was her middle name.  Her mantra then was, “This is so hard.”  No matter what this was at the time.

I’d forgotten that, actually.  Until one of the first things out of her mouth when we spoke was about social media, and she said, “This is so hard.”

Wow.  All these decades later.  Seeing life in terms of how hard a certain thing is to do.  With all of her potential, all of the gifts given her, she’s not been able to use them to succeed professionally or personally.   She feels like a failure.

Life is so hard.

After saying a prayer for her once we were off the phone, gratitude filled my heart.  While I feel empathy for her situation, and truly wish her better (she’ll stay on my prayer list a while), how appreciative I am for the lessons and trials and knowledge that have brought me to where I am today.

Because I don’t see life that way.  A while back, I changed my mind.  And yes, it took a lot of work, a lot of discipline, and sometimes does to this day (I wasn’t a born optimist!  LOL).  But I decided to live life happy. 

And from everything we—seekers and students of all ilk—know, happiness is a choice.

As the Buddha said, “To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him. ”

  And that I know for true.  

 

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7 REASONS WHY THE PAGANS WERE RIGHT ABOUT OUR WORLD

Ah, Pagan.  Isn’t that just a loaded word?  It has come to be synonymous with heathen (or, heathern, as we say in the South!), savage, even devil-worshipper, although the latter is such a 180-degree stretch it boggles the mind.  There were historical reasons for that, but it would take ten blogs to explore!  So we’ll leave that for another time 

The word pagan derives from the ancient Latin ‘paganus’ or ‘peasant,’ meaning of the Earth.  I.e., people from a rural district.  Of course as time went on it took on the other meanings above.

These were people who of course dwelt on the land, rather than in the vast cities such as Rome, and therefore lived and died by the seasons and what they brought or didn’t bring.  They were pantheistic and worshipped nature, of course, as that was their day-to-day reality.  No need to go kneel at a church pew when the evidence of god was right in front of you.  Every day.

But no matter in what category you believe this group to be, they sure were right about Mother Earth.  They knew her.  And here are 7 ways they were:

            The Earth is our Mother.

The pagans looked on this planet exactly as one does her mother.  She gives us life.  She provides us with bounty.  She is what sustains us.  There was no praying to an unseen god—they saw her every day, in every way, in all of their lives.

            God is not “out there.”

They lived within the body of the goddess, the gods in all their forms being part of the one.  We think of them as pantheistic, but that’s really a misnomer, as although you can break the one down into the many, for various reasons of clarity and needs at the time, all is part of the one.

And in the Pagan world, people lived within the one.  They didn’t pray to a god in the sky, but to the one that lived within them, and they in god.

             They revered the world in which they lived.  These “simple” people knew a bit about cause and effect.  You plant a seed in good soil, water and weed it, and it produces the expected vegetable or fruit.  I often think (especially when writing a novel!) how pleasant that must be (it was when I farmed J.  So often the finish line to what we’re toiling for is so far away, and so much time passes before we reap our rewards, how nice to be able to actually watch the fruits of your labor grow!

But they knew is what we do to the earth, she does to us.  Boy, could we ever use a little of that thinking today  . . .

            First Do No Harm.  You know, this is attributed to, and we think of it as, originating with the American Medical Association.  But it predates that organization by thousands and thousands of years.

Long, long ago, the term “witch” was given to women healers, young and old.  It derived from the root word “wit,” which meant wise.   A far different meaning from how we think of it today.

The earliest healers were women of this ilk.  (Isn’t it funny how today we are using so many of their herbs in our modern medicines?)  And the creed to which they followed was do no harm.

These women were then in the dark and middle ages burned at the stake as heretics.  And dare I say, but true, after that only men could be doctors . . . .

           The Power of Rituals.  To true pagans, both then and now, these were not about spells on other people and things.   But rather, they focused on changing one’s own consciousness.  In effect, a form of prayer and reverence, of giving the mind and body something to do to get one into that place—you know the one, where you can hear the still small voice of god, whatever you perceive that to be.

As Joseph Campbell said, “A ritual can be defined as an enactment of a myth.  By participating in a ritual, you are actually experiencing a mythological life.  And it’s out of that participation that one can learn to live spiritually.”

          Celebration.   Which is merely expressing gratitude for the blessings in one’s life.  Celebrating the harvest, the return of the sun, the springtime of planning and promise.   Giving thanks is one of the most powerful spiritual tools on this planet, if not the most powerful one.  As German Philosopher Meister Eckhart said, “ If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough. ”
         All Life is Sacred.

What more needs be said? This was a belief they held (and hold) into their souls.  You have as much right to be here as I do.  As do the animals and plants that sustain us.   We’re all here for a reason.  We all play a part.

And isn’t it funny when you look over this list, how the Native Americans felt and acted the same way.

Savage heatherns, indeed!

No matter what your spiritual or religious beliefs, if we walked this path, our world would be far different and better.

Because what Pagans knew, believed in, lived, was as Campbell said:

People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning of life.  I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking.  I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.

What misinformation were you given about Pagans?

 

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AND THE MOST PARADOXICAL THING ABOUT THAT?

If I told my younger self many things, I wouldn’t have believed me.

You know that feeling, no?  And how often have you seen interviews where the question is always asked: “What would you tell your younger self?”   I think I’ve seen a hundred of those posed recently.

Or, as Toby Keith sang, “Wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then.”

Have you ever felt that way?  We all have, at some juncture, when a dream of whatever sort didn’t work out, and we wished we could go back to that ignorance-is-bliss state.

But in this case I’m talking more about a reality that you’ve come to know, to understand, and no way in heck would you have believed it when younger.

I set out fairly early in life to chase my writing dreams.  It’s a truly bizarre life, as any artist can tell you.  But one I wouldn’t change for anything and everything.    At the ripe old age of 30 I quit my corporate job, moved to the farm (which is still in the middle of nowhere), gave up financial security, and cleared my mind to write.

Best move I ever made.  It required a ton of courage.  I’m not sure I could make that same decision and carry it out today!  LOL.  But during that sojourn of 7 wonderful years, I honed my voice and craft into something meaningful.  At least for me!  But I sold a novel and 2 works of nonfiction to Traditional publishers while there.

Of course, I thought that was my ticket to bestseller-dom.

I was pretty full of my little self then.  It’s so incredibly difficult to sell a manuscript to a real publisher, the odds at the time one in a million (literally—those were the calculated odds at the time).  So doing so spells incredible success.  The odds after the e-book revolution are much worse these days—one in ten million.

Naturally, authors go in all starry-eyed and think that the sales will just drop in our laps.  We grasped the brass ring, no?  We got in the club (and that’s how authors really do feel about it!).

It takes a while for reality to kick in!  The statistic at the time was that 3% of all published authors (and all we had then was the Traditional route) made their living writing.  Gulp.  And their names ended in Rice and King and, well, you get the picture.  All other published authors kept day jobs.

It’s the same today.  Or perhaps the odds are worse.  I’m not sure there’s a way to calculate them with the preponderance of self-published writers.

But if I’da told my starry-eyed younger self this, she would have laughed at me.

Writing books is a tricky business, all the way around (pursuing any sort of artistic career is, but writing is what I know J  To even attempt it, you have to have a bravado, an arrogance if you will, a sense that you not only have something important to say, but have learned how to say it well.  You just have to.  If you don’t, the business itself will crush you (as it does to 99% of the folks who begin it).  You have to believe in yourself and the work and have this insane idea that you’re going to be doing nothing but penning beautifully crafted stories and characters for the rest of your life.

Otherwise the mountain is too daunting.

So perhaps it’s truly a good thing that in youth, we don’t have the wisdom of age.  Oh, we bemoan that as we learn through our lives.  “If only I knew then . . .”  And we have this idea that we would have sailed through more easily.

But I suspect Toby Keith’s lyric is more on the money!  In our heart of hearts, we really wish that what we believed in youth was the truth.

A funny thing happens on that journey though, if one persists.  If you don’t fall into the abyss of the River Styx and drown, in whatever way that presents itself, and you actually get to the other side, the sun truly is shining.  The vast landscape before you will be quite different from the one you envisioned.

But in many good ways, and with so much more to learn, to add to the skills and lessons you’ve mastered along the way.

And the most paradoxical thing about that?  It fits well into fiction J

I am so blessed to live in this world of words!

What would you tell your younger self?

 

 

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How Do You find Meaning?

The Today Show aired a week-long series called “Do You Believe,” and I watched the segment entitled: “Who Is God?” They interviewed a rabbi, a new-thought minister, and a christian pastor, all of whom spoke of their outreaches, and the numbers of people coming to their congregations.

The newest statistic is that 3 in 4 American adults believe in a higher power of some sort.  Wow, that’s a big number.  And while many of the folks around me walk a spiritual road, whether through organized religion or small congregating groups or a plethora of other paths, that large statistic still surprised me.

Because so many folks I know don’t have any sort of spiritual practice.  Which amazes me as well.

This is an odd life, no?  We’re often scrambling to find meaning, especially when negative events—from having a wreck to losing a child, and everything in between—come calling.  Life can sure throw you for a loop.

And in those rougher times especially, we wonder what the heck this is all for.

And the reason for that is, as psychiatrist Victor Frankl said, “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.” –Man’s Search for Meaning.

So many people have lived through absolute horrors.  But I can’t imagine one more horrible than what Frankl went through.  Few of us (thank God) will lose our entire families and subsist somehow in a German concentration camp.  The best estimates for what percentage survived those camps are less than 10%.

That’s not many folks.  And of course, what Frankl found was that if you can find meaning, no matter what your circumstances, you can survive to then thrive. 

At the core of us, that’s what we seek.

Why are we here?  What’s the purpose?  What does this all mean?

Most folks (referenced by the number of American believers) seek a connection to something bigger than themselves.  Something more than the 9-5 grind.  Something that keeps them going in the face of enormous odds.  Frankl said, “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” 

And you don’t have to find that in whatever you believe God to be.  A psychiatrist I know said to me recently, “There is no God.”   And I have no need to argue with him.  No one ever changed another’s mind by telling him he was wrong anyhow.  One’s beliefs are just that—personal. 

In fact, I have no quibble with where or how one finds meaning, how or where one finds a higher power.  Or whether one finds purpose and meaning elsewhere.   If you go all jihad on me, then I’ll quibble.  But that’s a different issue entirely.

But what I know for true is that purpose and meaning are at the core of what makes us human—however that came to be.  That links us, forever and always.  We truly are, in the end, all in the same boat. 

And it truly is only the lack of purpose and meaning that makes any situation unbearable.

Recently a dear friend suffered two heartbreaking losses, in the same week.  Knocked her legs out from under her.  She couldn’t find her footing.  She wondered what her life was for.

We do that, no?  During those times of terrible loss . . .

And it just so happened that I need her soon.  Truly need her—not just her hands to help, but just to have her here.  Her reaction humbled me to the core: “You have just given me a purpose again.”

We are all so truly connected.  And purpose and meaning is often found in the binds of friendship.

Always reminds me of Frankl’s take on what we share that makes us human:

“For the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth – that Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.” -- Man’s Search for Meaning

How do you find meaning?

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Wallow and then: CHOOSE A HAPPINESS MINDSET TODAY

We know that our thoughts determine our emotions, how we see the world, how we react within it.  We know this.  From just about every source we trust.

All the way back to the origin of printed words, we have sage after sage telling us so.  Proverbs 23:7 (KJV) says: “For as he thinketh in his heart, so he is . . .”   In the 2000 + years since, and into modern day, we have not only this sentiment, but also so much anecdotal evidence to back it up.

Maybe they’re all wrong.  The ducks can all be flying in the wrong direction.  But it’s pretty unlikely.

And even if they are, they right themselves soon enough.

So often I hear from folks saying positive thoughts don’t work for them.  And you know, if you think a few, go right back to all the negative, Prozac won’t help either!

We all struggle at times.  Especially when in the midst of a bad go of things, keeping the mind trained proves pretty danged difficult.  We all wade through that.  Being human can be a minefield, and just like traversing one, the only way through is through; to keep putting one foot in front of the other, with intense focus.

The intense-focus part is the key.  Because sometimes a few positive thoughts to start your day just don’t get you very far.  You know the times—when your gratitude list centers around the electricity still being on!  I’ve had them.  We all have.

And during times of roiling seas, it may just seem easier to give up and wallow in sadness, frustration, sorry, anger, self-pity.

Wallow.  Sometimes you just need to.

But once your set time to do that is done, then one key works for how to change your mindset.

Persistence.

The tougher the sledding, the harder you have to work to keep your chin up.  It’s true.  On those days (or weeks—but if it lasts longer than that, seek some therapy), pulling all of your healthy resources together is vital.

Back when I started meditating, I had the hardest time understanding how afterward I felt so peaceful, but then lapsed into negative emotions as the day went on.  “Those gurus were wrong!” my ego has always been good at shouting J

And then it dawned on my wee brain that 30 minutes of spiritual practice would not trump the other 23 and ½ hours through the rest of the day.

Oh!  Now that was a revelation.  I tell ya I can be thick!

And it’s the exact same with thoughts.  There are those times when a mindful practice in the morning just won’t get you through the day.  And that’s quite okay.  During those times, it takes mindful thinking every hour.  Sometimes minute by minute.  And even those days where ‘prayer without ceasing’ is the only remedy.

But work, it does. We all have a few demons still stuffed away in our closets, and oh how gleefully they spring out when our guards are down.  The antidote is to get right back to spiritual practice, to mindful living, to facing head on and knowing that whatever is occurring, this too shall pass.

Because it will.  Nothing is permanent or pervasive—unless you think it is.

And it will pass so much quicker if you have said practice to fall back on.  Once you’ve committed to this journey, to changing your life for the better, your toolbox becomes filled with these practical tools that help you to swim the turbulent seas.

The oddest thing happens as well—if you keep at it, the practice itself becomes as second nature as breathing.

And even in the midst of the true horrors, you can still see that light shining, illuminating your path.

How do you choose happiness?

 

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IS YOUR QUEST IMPORTANT?

I’ve had a lot of people tell me after the Quest series that they didn’t have anything that important in their lives.  That their lives were filled with the mundane, with driving kids to various functions, toiling at their jobs, volunteering, etc., etc., and none of that was worthy of a quest.

Really?  Yes, most days are filled with chopping wood and carrying water, as the Buddhists say.  Both before and after enlightenment J  It’s part and parcel of life.

But when I dig a bit deeper, with everyone who’s spoken to me about this, there is a quest within that lies dormant, waiting to be allowed a voice.

We have this idea that setting out on a hero’s quest is just that—setting out.  Leaving home and hearth and venturing the roiling seas to find whatever one is searching for.  But most of the time, we undertake that journey right where we are.

And often, the very act of living one’s life is a quest in and of itself.

Becoming a mother is a quest.  I know of no more difficult role.  As Joseph Campbell said, “Giving birth is definitely a heroic deed, in that it is the giving over of oneself to the life of another.”

And therein lies the seeds of what this journey is all about.  Because no matter if you’re donning that role, or setting your sights on the cosmos in the sky, the entire point of this quest, and of life itself, is to become the thing that you can be.  And then bring your gifts back to the world.

No matter how different we all appear to be, we’re all in this together.  On a round planet, we can’t really choose sides, can we?  Because in the end and from space, it looks ridiculous when we do so.

Once a reporter ran up to Mahatma Gandhi and asked, “Do you have a message I can take back to my people?”  As this was Gandhi’s day of silence (don’t you love that!  A day of silence.  Ahh!), he scrawled a note and gave it to the reporter.  The note said:

“My life is my message.” 

Don’t you love that?

Now, I can hear the response of, “But that was Gandhi!  He did great things!”

Yes, he did.  But he, too, had to accept the call to do them.  And while we think of heroes in these larger-than-life roles, the fact is that we’re all called to live better lives, to become who we can potentially be.  And potential lives within us all.

The more we can grasp that fact, the more we can live out our own hero’s quest—whatever that looks like—and the better off we’ll all be.

Does it matter if I write this?  Sometimes I do wonder.  And then someone contacts me and says how something I wrote spurred them on.  Made the world make some sort of sense.  How a piece of it was the missing one from their own puzzle.

That might not seem like a big thing.  But we all have fears and desires, goals and dreams.  All of us.  And if what you do can shine one ray of light into the darkness we all wade through, then womankind is better off for it.  We’re all better off for it.

At times, we all need another to help us up.

What I know for absolute true is that yes, your quest matters to us all.  This is why we’re here—all of us.  To become who we can be, and then bring that to the world.

As author Gertrude Stein said, “Anything one does every day is important and imposing . . .”

What is the message of your life?

 

 

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Stories of What Makes Life Meaningful

I am so blessed to know so many readers!  In this day and digital age when a plethora of ways exist to spend free time, from social media of all sorts to gaming to watching movies on our iPads, and everything in between, readership in this country has declined.

Book sales are down—not just percentages but numbers of sales—in all forms.  While so many folks are downloading e-books, this has had a drastic impact on print books (although they’re now rising, just a hair).

The publishing industry talks a lot about where have all the readers gone.  I’ll leave the analysis to them!  I’m just ecstatic to personally know so many readers 

And while I’m always just glad people are reading, so many folks are looking for good books (I know because they ask me for suggestions!).  And that warms my soul.

We read for so many reasons.  Chiefly, to be entertained.  But to learn new things whether it be history or politics or what makes us humans tick—all reasons folks tell me.

When I dig down deeper, the answers mostly revolve around the stories of the big why and what and how questions.  Why someone would act the way he does.  Why she made those decisions.  What makes him similar to me, and what makes her different.  How can we make this a better world to live in?

Great authors adhere to one creed (okay, so there may be many, but this one sticks out most of all):  A writer’s constant standard is to write the truth.

That may sound really funny about scribes of fiction, who are inherently lying for a living!  But under the made-up tale, under the fictional characters, that author is weaving his play through a tapestry of what he knows to be, in essence, truth.

Especially in harrowing times (and ours are, no?), we need to tell one another stories.  Stories of what makes life meaningful.  Stories of who we are and why we are.  The ones that sort out the wheat from the chafe.  The ones that in times of difficulty in understanding our world, make some sense out of it.

We need to be transported out of a culture where our values aren’t honored, but by immersing ourselves into a fictional world, we can find those who feel the same.

And yep, we need diversion too (reference the NY Times Bestseller list!  LOL).  But that just comes back to entertainment, which a book must be in the end. Else you’ll quit it.

Equally as important, it must impart something of value to you, or you’ll quit it as well.

But for the ones that touch your soul, you’ll read them more than once.

I am always amazed when I reread a book I loved, and on the second or even the third go-round, passages appear that I swear weren’t there before.  Like some little writing elf came in the night and put in a new page.  This happens for me all the time, in both fiction and non, and delights me to the core.  What a gift that author gave!

And that just means the book is textured and layered in a manner that isn’t immediately apparent.

What I know for true is that we need books.  They are our touchstones to the essence of what makes us human.

 

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THE KEY TO THE QUEST How do you keep on keeping on?

Since I posted The Quest series, I’ve had so many women contact me about how freeing it felt to look at their goals in light of a hero’s quest.

Of course, when we were growing up, women weren’t seen as heroic!

We were born into the era of: “Behind every great man there’s a strong woman.”  Which of course we’ve always known J  I had the great benefit of coming of age, however, in an era of truly strong women, blazing trails for all of us in the work place, politics, and culture.  I saw how hard they toiled.  How they kept at it when slammed with being man-haters and everything under that umbrella.  In the face of all of it, they kept on.

Did those women get discouraged?  You bet they did.  Anything you undertake, especially in light of changing history and women’s roles in it, is filled with mountains to climb, lakes to swim, demons to face.  And through it all, a heck of a lot of just garden-variety work.

You know how that is, when planting a literal garden how energizing to till the soil, plant the seeds, water the beds, all in happy anticipation of the harvest to come.  Then the seedlings sprout and begin to grow and watching the fruits of your labors come to fruition is such a rush!

But then what happens?  Yep, somehow it became a lot of work.  Those seedlings still have to be watered, the rows weeded, compost and mulch put down (now, that’s work).  I often laugh at how much more expensive my tomatoes are than the ones I buy in the store!

Then again, those aren’t completely organic and not picked until exactly ripe, then eaten with gusto, the vegetable being so different from what you buy in the grocery as to be of a different genome.

For months in between the rush of beginning, however, and the joy of harvest, just comes literal toil.  And gardening is a microcosm of what it takes to change perceptions of a woman’s place in society.

Your quest may be as “backyard” as gardening, or as “global” as women’s rights, or anything in between.  But all quests worth taking are meaningful.

It’s in that middle part, however, where most folks get tripped up.  And that’s where I’ve heard from so many women.  Because with all that work (and though in gardening you get to literally “see” the fruits of your labors, most things don’t present in such a manner until way late in the game) comes questioning.

Am I on the right path?  Am I really supposed to be doing this or is it all folly?

Who knows.  And I mean that in the best sense.  At this point, you can’t possible “know” if you’re going to be successful.  If it’s your calling.  Even though you thought you were called, and weighed all the options to jump in, unless your crystal ball works better than mine, nobody can say with absolute certainty.

The point being, it doesn’t matter at this point.  Because you can’t see the finish line, no matter how hard you try.

The only thing you can do—and this is the key to the kingdom—is keep at it.

It is so easy to quit here.  And, it’s where most folks do.  Who would fault you if you did? Certainly not me.  I know how difficult the slogging can be.  I know the toll it can take on, well, just about everything in your life.  Believe me—I know.

But if you quit, you are guaranteed to fail.  At least in this Quest.  Because there is no way on earth you can win if you’re not in the game.

And I can also guarantee that if you continue, you might not be first place in the race, but in the persistence, in the finishing of your quest, you will have learned things about yourself and this universe that simply cannot be gleaned elsewhere.  It’s what life’s about.  And that is “winning” in the most meaningful sense.

This is the place to dig deep.  To marshal all your forces to keep going.  To find the hidden assets in your very being you had no clue existed. That’s the boon—the Holy Grail.  Because it’s those very things that make life rich, both for you and everyone on the planet.

The key to the Quest is persistence.  It’s what your world needs.  It’s what our world needs.

As Calvin Coolidge tells us: “The most common commodity in this country is unrealized potential. Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”

How do you keep on keeping on?

 

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4 WAYS TO DEAL WITH ANGER

It’s a normal human emotion.  No matter how spiritual one is (or professes to be!), anger will come calling.  It’s just part and parcel of what makes us human.

Some folks just hate it.  And will do almost anything not to feel it.  But all that does is stuff it down, ensuring it will stay percolating in the dark to arise when you least expect it.  We know what stuffing emotions does—it causes anything from lowered immune systems to full-blown inflammatory effects such as heart attacks and strokes.  Eeeekk!

And other people seem to get off on it, you know?  All those adrenaline-producing hormones flooding through.  Not to mention feeling somewhat righteous.  I mean, that ego will say, “I’m right, damn it!”  And we like to be right J  But staying in that flood of hormones causes the same things that stuffing it does.

So whichever path your inclination tends to take, you still have to deal with anger, up front and center.  Or it’ll eat your lunch.

Here are 4 foolproof ways to slay that demon:

1).               Feelings.  Giving full attention to the feelings involved lets those little buggers out.  Whether you love the surges of anger or hate them, the first part of this process is feeling the emotions involved.  Let them scream like a two-year-old in full voice.  I’m a big proponent of Right Use of Will , which recommends going out and literally shaking your fist at the sky, if that’s what it takes.  See the anger in red.  Taste the bitter metallic spice.  Hear its roar.  Let it out.

2).               Thoughts.  Wallow in all the reasons why your anger is justified.  Of course it is!  Whether that’s about someone’s actions, something laid at your doorstep, a malignant action by the gods—whatever caused it, piece it all out.

But give yourself a set amount of time to do so.  Otherwise you’ll be mad all day!  Because the funny thing about this particular emotion: In order to stay mad, you have to keep feeding the anger.  It’s a physical impossibility to remain in that state without continuing to hash out all the reasons your anger is justified.  And after awhile, you’re just giving voice to the same thoughts over and over.  That’s when you know you’re becoming insane and it’s time to move on.

3).               Resolution.  Take that anger and turn it on its head into energy. Anger is quite energizing, no?  It’s one of those emotions that take you from calm seas into roiling ones, and that requires tons of energy to white-cap the water.

I think of this as a yin-yang circle.  You might have been really in the yin when that thing occurs that turns you all yang.  But instead of feeding the anger with thoughts that keep you there, spin that circle sideways until you can just feel the pure energy.  Ah, that’s better!

4).               Action.  Do something.  Taking some sort of action gets the rest of that energy moving in the right direction. Whether it’s about the cause of your anger or not doesn’t really matter, although that usually helps.  Write that letter to the transgressor (you don’t have to mail it, and absolutely don’t do so while you’re still mad!).  Talk to a friend.  Go for a run.  Chop that tree into firewood that you’ve been putting off for so long.  Clean out the cupboard.

Just do something.   That gives outlet to the remaining hormones and their emotional impact.

And breathe.  Never forget to breathe.  By that time you feel the cleansing waves of calm roll over you, and you can get back to the important parts of your day.

It always helps me to remember author Napoleon Hill’s words:  “Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.”

So see, even that pesky old anger comes with a boon!

How do you deal with anger?

 

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A STORY THAT WILL MAKE YOU HAPPY

I swear I used to think I knew which way life was going.  Isn’t that just a hoot?  Because about the time you think something is one way, can’t change, doesn’t deviate, wham!  A wrecking ball swoops in and smashes your preconceived notions.

And this one did, in a great way!

I got the best news from a dear friend of mine.  We met nearly fifteen years ago, when she came to me through a literary agent about editing her book. As time went on, we became close friends.  Love when that happens!

Throughout all these years, her writing has gotten better and better, and now she crafts the most exquisite stories, with quirky and wonderful characters, through a delicious turn of prose.  She’s never given up on that dream, and although living a happy life all this time, her eye was on the publishing prize.

She’s had success along the way as well, but that brass ring had escaped her grasp.

Publishing is a brutal business. Although we now have this idea in our culture that anyone can write and publish a book.  Which they can of course as now self-publishing is so cheap.  But what the self-publishing e-book craze has done is to narrow the Traditional-publishing window even more.  What once was a one-in-a-million shot is now one in ten million.  Yep.  A brass ring indeed.

And oh, I forgot to tell you—my friend writes Literary Fiction, the true tiny top-spot on the pyramid.  Making the odds even greater.

Not only in the face of this has she continued to write, continued to improve, continued to seek that tiny portal to break in, but she’s kept up her spiritual walk in stellar fashion.  For all these years, she’s “seen” the success she seeks, visioning it, never giving up.

Boy, it’s easy to give up on this dream.  Any writer can tell you that.  Refer back to the odds above.  I’ve seen far more writers quit than stick with it—ninety percent.  Fighting this fight will just humble you to your knees.  And then some.

Not so long ago, my writer friend stumbled upon (although anyone walking a spiritual path will grin here   a different path for approaching agents.  A unique way.  One I hadn’t heard of.

It was an expensive way as well.

And for a starving writer, money is always an issue!

But she ponied up—her intuition told her to.  She’d been walking through the open doors for a while now, and knew how to follow her guidance.

And, wham!  Doors opened, indeed.  She received I don’t remember how many offers to represent her book.  She settled on an agent who regularly inks mid-six-figure deals.  And who believes entirely in my friend, her writing, and that she will sell the book in a very big deal.

As soon as she told me, I thought my heart would surge out of my chest!  Electricity zinged up my spine and I could only cry with joy!  I’m happier for her than I can begin to convey.

I talk often about happiness in life, and how that’s an inside job. And it is.  We choose to be happy.  Or not.  By how we see life, how we face it.  The emotional value we put on events.

But sometimes, great joy comes from something external.  Especially when it involves so many things you love, and especially someone you love.

My friend is about to be very famous—I’ll yell it from the rooftops when the deal is inked!

Kudos to her for keeping the faith.  For continuing through the grind when so many before her have given up.  For keeping on keeping on.

And for becoming a simply breathtaking writer.

What story makes you happy?

 

 

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