Happiness is a Holiday
No Leave, No Life, that is what you have when you work non-stop. There used to be a time when it went “All work and no play, makes Jack and dull boy”. Can you believe that Australians have hoarded 121 million days of annual leave? They must all feel like taking a holiday.
How can it be a happy and joyful thing to work non-stop, hoard your holidays for when? I wonder if there ever comes a time that it is sweet to take those holidays.
Australians are also able to cash out all of their annual leave except two weeks, leaving little opportunity for a happy holiday. So now it is possible to work constantly and receive cash instead of the lovely break of the good old days. Remember that time when families met up at the beach every year, year after year, to experience life in all of it’s glory.
I am here today to make it easy for you to dip into your pool of accumulated leave and join the “take leave, live life” group. Use the think, talk, act plan – the energy of thoughts, build the picture with words and take action.
That is, create your holiday and here are 4 easy steps to help you get your annual break organised:-
- Think about having a holiday, where you would like to go and what you would like to do
- Talk to people about doing it, who is coming with you and so on
- Take action, book your leave, book your holiday
- Then relax, enjoy the anticipation and get into the holiday attitude.
A final word to entice you away from your desk; people who spend some money on experiences rather than possessions are happier!! And is that not what life is about.
The Optimist Creed
According to Joe Vitale, “The Optimist Creed” was first published in 1912 in a book by Christian D Larson – Your Forces and How To Use Them. Optimist International use this creed, in a shortened version today. I am moved to publish it here and hope that you will join up with the group of people, worldwide who are intent on making a positive difference in the world.
Promise Yourself:
To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet.
To make all your friends feel that there is something in them.
To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.
To think only of the best, work only for the best, and to expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.
To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile.
To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticise others.
To be too large to worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.
To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world, not in loud words but in great deeds.
To live in the faith that the whole world is on your side so long as you are true to the best that is in you.
Enjoy your optimism and share it with others.
Develop Your Intuition
Intuition is a precious gift that is used all too infrequently in a world where many people favour left brain activity which is highly logical, rational and reasoned. Yet our predominant activity is in relating to and dealing with people, emotions and creation, all of which is not logical, rational and reasoned.
Many people have allowed their intuition to recede into the background and even when it does pop up like a bright little light saying “see me, look at me, I have an idea”, they pass it over in favour of what seems to be sensible at the time. And yet intuition will offer up wonderfully creative ideas that will provide the very best solutions if only we will listen.
So how do we regenerate our intuition? Try the following tips:-
- Type “develop intuition” into any search engine and do a bit of selective reading. You will find a wealth of material and any number of creative ideas. And this process will help you to know more for yourself, to be well informed.
- Next, but only marginally behind knowing for yourself, is to create a new belief around intuition. One that says it is highly valuable and worth looking out for in every decision that you make.
- To help create that new belief, ask your intuition for help on every matter and then look for the response. Be gentle, because it might take you a while to recognise the response. And more than that, the intuitive response might be so creative that you will not give it any credit. You might just ignore it!
- Finding quiet space will increase the likelihood that you will get your intuitive messages. Your intuition is not at all like your mind chatter, which starts the minute you open your eyes and will happily bombard you until you slip into a deep sleep. Your mind chatter will overpower intuitive ideas at any time unless you still it and find space to let your intuition come through.
- Meditation will help with that, as will any activity in which you still the mind and open yourself. I call it dead brain activity and it includes ironing, cleaning, washing up and other repetitive things. Repetition can be very soothing. So when you are doing any of these things and you get a bright idea, chances are it has come through from your intuition.
- Start to recognise your emotions. Look for them and work out what they are; happiness, sadness, anxiety, contentment, fear, anger. The reason that I say this is that some people mix up a feeling in their gut with their “gut feeling”, another term for intuition. You need to know what your feelings feel like in a physical sense and then when you get a gut feeling, you can check it to see if you recognise a feeling that you are aware shows up in your gut. Many people feel fear in their gut and this then confuses them that it may be a gut feeling. Get in touch with your feelings.
- Intuition feels good!! It may make you go “whoa, what is that? I am not doing that!!” But I can assure you that if you know your feelings and how they effect you, you will find that intuition is entirely different.
- You may experience your intuition as a bright light idea, or a whole of body experience that you just know is right. Or it might be an idea that will not go away or one that comes to you out of the blue while your brain is quiet. For some people, they get tingling or other physical sensations with their intuitive ideas. Some people have no experience at all, they just use their intuition and enjoy great decision-making.
- But the very best way to get your intuition back in the driving seat is to ask your higher self for answers. In your quiet time or before you sleep, just pose the question that you have and ask for the answer. The next morning, or after your meditation or any time over the next day or so, be alert to a response coming through.
- For this reason, start to work with your dreams. Dreams can be your intuition in action. Again, there is plenty of material available on dreams. Just pick a reputable source.
Your intuition is a lovely thing so go forth and play, have fun and enjoy giving it more life. You and our whole community can only benefit.
Start From Where You Are – Personal Development In Action
There are many teachings that underpin the raft of personal development opportunities available to you. The teachings of Eckhart Tolle around being in the now, among other things. Those of Buddha about how you interact with others or the Dalai Lama on compassion, harmony and peace. Or you can look to the Abraham-Hicks interpretation of the Universal Laws, particularly the Law of Attraction. All of this can be a little overwhelming to the new-comer, however, to make it easy, each teacher always says “start from where you are right now”.
That alone can be difficult to interpret but the meaning is as simple as the words. You just start right now, from where you are, from what you are doing and who you are being and take a step to where you would like to be. Just do one thing that will help you on that path and you can be sure that taking one step after another will open up a whole new world to you.
It does not matter what it is about self development that you would like to achieve. It may be that you want to have more money, get that amazing promotion that you have been after for so long or become a better person giving back as well as taking. You will not make an almighty leap without making a start and that start comes right now from this place that you are in.
Lets say that one of your aims in life is to have money and the freedom to travel anywhere that you want to. Right now, you are surrounded by small children and a mortgage is big as the ocean. How can you possibly see a time when you will have excess money and freedom. So you pick up the latest best seller on making a million dollars and read it avidly but it does not give you any clear idea on how to get started. My advice is to do something. If you loved the book, read it again or go and get another by the same author or another author who takes your fancy.
Keep going, start to talk to people about what you want in life, listen to what they are saying about their dreams and before you know it, you will be thinking more about what you want than what you have. Now is the time to get really active about the Law of Attraction and I recommend “Law of Attraction – The Science of Attracting More of What You Want and Less of What You Don’t Want” by Michael Losier. It is a small and easy read filled with exercises that you can really use. And it helps you to start from where you are at just as you would for any journey.
Key to getting started is to take action in the direction that you want to go. So apart from learning more about how to get onto a self development plan of your own, you must also be prepared to do something yourself to get you there. Dreaming helps and action is the vehicle for having the dream in your hands. For more on getting started see my blog about working out your life path.
Laugh, Play and Enjoy Your Life
Laugh, play and enjoy your life is the content of an inspirational message that I received today from www.EnlightenedMessages.com. Subscribing to such sites and receiving a daily offering is just one of the ways that I keep abundance, love and inspiration at the forefront of my mind. Now it happens that being too serious is a bit of a problem to me and in the past I have worked to be playful.
So just for fun, last night I commenced Ukulele lessons because in July this year the Uke Festival – an International Event is to be held right here in Cairns where I live. Wow, what fun that was, learning to play with around 30 other keen Uke fans. Best play time that I have had in ages and I will be going back for more.
So, laugh, play, and enjoy your life my friends, I highly recommend it.
“When you are seeing the grand scheme,
the bigger picture of it all, you understand that
life is the funnest game you’ll ever get to play!
Seriousness is a disease to your soul.
Your overly serious self wants to be free,
so give yourself permission to have a big belly laugh today.
Let a little more lightness into your heart and drop whatever
weight you’ve been carrying on your shoulders right now.
Just take a glimpse of this infinite path your soul is on
and remember your only job is to enjoy your life.
A relaxed playful heart always serves as the best guide…”
reprinted from Enlightened Messages.
For those of you who would love to join us all here in Cairns for the Ukulele Festival, please get yourself a Uke and take some lessons because there is going to be a Guiness Book of Records attempt made for the largest group of Uke players. What a great time for laughing and playing that is going to be.
