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.
More Ideas To Make Your Daily Journal Easy
I am, as you know, a devotee of the daily journal habit. Apart from the fact that the development of daily habits is a contributor to happiness (and who does not want happiness?), it is also pretty amazing to read back over your journal at the same time of the year, from time to time, and see the changes that you have made in your life, for yourself and/or they way that you are feeling. Writing down some of your daily thoughts and ideas can be fulfilling in many other ways as hand writing, which some say it is becoming a lost art, can help you to make sense of what is happening, how you are reacting and why and actions that you can take to make changes where you want them. And it will definitely help you on your journey to success.
Sure, it can be a confronting process at times as you may start to explore some parts of yourself that you prefer not to face but that is where the real value if this lovely process comes in. You are exploring these things just with yourself!! No-one else unless you chose to. And then you can look at them in wonder, at a later date, and laugh about your fears. Some of the things that I have been afraid of in the past have proven to be just nothing later, because I took charge of them.
How does it get any better than that?
So recently, in my quest for more content to help people to work with their daily journal, I was delighted to read “Your Pocket Life Coach” – seriously recommend that you get this one. Carole Gaskell, Author, outlines some of her ideas for the daily “inspirational” journal. So test these out and see a previous blog of mine, 10 Ideas To Get You Started With A Daily Journal, for even more ideas.
From Carole Gaskell:-
- Use your daily inspirational journal to record your thoughts, insights, intuitive ideas and actions
- Write about things that make you happy, confident, excited
- Record your achievements and what you are committed to doing next
- Note the people you love and why
- Outline your plans for the next day, week, month etc
- Put down what you have learned that day or things that have helped you in your development.
Oh, and have fun!! And my congratulations to Carole for such a smashing little book.
10 Ideas To Get You Started With A Daily Journal
There are a number of factors that contribute to overall happiness and one is the development of habits. The very best and most useful habit is that of daily journaling. Back in the day, it used to be called a diary and started with the words “Dear Diary”. Today, it is used to record one’s self improvement and journey towards enlightenment or that place where one is at their very best. A daily journal can be a great tool to use on the path to achieve success.
A daily entry to your journal can be a simple account of the events that have had an impact or it can be a complex entry of self-discovery. To help you get started, if you have not already done so, try the following tips:-
- Record 6 things for which you are grateful, appreciative or thankful that are occurring right now.
- Record another 6 that are coming to you in the future.
- Keep a daily list of the prosperity or abundance in your life. This might be a simple as having a friend shout you a coffee or another driver graciously letting you change lanes. Keep tabs on them all and let your abundance grow before your eyes.
- Write about what you have done over the day, action that you have taken towards your life goal.
- List what you intend to do the next day, week or month and check back later to see how you went.
- Spend some time writing what you believe are your strengths and weaknesses and then write about how you intend to grow your strengths to outweigh your weaknesses.
- Record the occasions during the day when you have successfully shifted your feelings from not so good to better by recognising your not so good feelings and changing your thoughts at that time.
- Work out a set of questions that will help you to challenge yourself around your limiting beliefs. For example – “What am I doing when I find myself having an argument with my partner?” “How do I get into the argument in the first place?” “How can I avoid it?” This is just an example; you can use anything that you like. Just make sure that you do not let yourself off the hook.
- Use your journal to help you to visualise where you intend to be in life, in the next year, next five years, next ten years. Write in detail about how your life will be, how that will benefit you and the community and why you need to have this life. Regularly check back to see how you are going on your journey.
- List the random acts of kindness that you intend to perform in the next 24 hours and then check back each day to see if you did them.
Above all, have fun with this wonderful daily habit.
Get Ready For 2010
With Christmas upon us and the New Year fast approaching, are you stuck in the same old rut? New Year’s resolutions made and broken, job changed and yet still life is not what you want. Not enough of anything; time, friends, money, love. Well, get ready for 2010 and change all of that. Create the life that you have always wanted, take charge and cause things to happen and don’t let life happen to you while you were busy making other plans.
In the lead up to Christmas, do everything possible to experience enjoyment and happiness, no matter who you are with, what you are doing or where you are. Make your experience pleasurable rather than a grind. Life is meant to be fun, watch out for fun and just enjoy each moment.
Start to think about what you want from life next year. Seriously, think about what you want, not what you have and get ready for 2010 with that in mind. Ponder the prosperity that you want to achieve in your finances, relationships, physically, emotionally, lifestyle and time. Prosperity is about more than money, it is about every part of your life.
And while you are having fun and shamelessly enjoying yourself, dream a little about what life could be like and get ready to make it happen.
Get Some Work Life Balance
Some people find balancing work and other life commitments is like walking on a tightrope over the raging Niagara Falls – one false move and you drown. For others work life balance is easy, they are satisfied with their commitments and feel they have control over their lives. It is a fact though, that there has been a shift over the last 20 years with Australians now working longer hours, more women joining the workforce and on average, we are working 350 more hours per year than our peers in the Netherlands! No doubt other countries have seen similar shifts.
Although many women now work more than 45 hours per week, men continue to shoulder the largest burden of very long work hours.
Often with longer and longer working hours people become absent from relationships either with their partners, their children or other family members to whom they have loving obligations. Friendships, a great source of debriefing, can be diminished or lost altogether and people who experience a life imbalance are also often lonely and isolated. While relationships can and do breakdown, there is also the risk of waking up one day and realising that there is no-one with whom you have shared the recent trials and tribulations of life. No-one to whom you are genuinely connected. Relationships of all kinds may have become surface and business-like leaving only loneliness and emptiness.
There is no doubt that joy in life can be found in relationships and connection with others. Material possessions obtained through the high incomes associated with gruelling hours may bring only temporary pleasure and happiness – even though they are fun at the time. In fact, studies have shown that fathers’ relationships’ with their children is directly related to the hours that they work – more hours equals poorer relationships.
A work life imbalance occurs when one is overtaking the other to the extent that it is impossible to meet the time and energy demands in all of your life roles. It may be that you simply have too much to do; either at work or at home or both. Commonly work gets in the way of family and at other times, family gets in the way of work. Many people who are caring for children, particularly children with special needs or those who are caring for elders often find that those family needs make it very difficult to fulfil their work demands.
Additionally, there are people in our communities who play a number of significant roles that make life for the whole community what it is. These are the volunteers with clubs, service organisations and charities who often rack up many hours per week. Usually very busy people with a multitude of other caring roles, sometimes they burn out due to their multiple commitments and inability to achieve that balance within their lives and they are lost to this special work forever.
So take charge of your life and relationships and see if the following three tips help get your work life balance back:-
1. All Australian Governments have policies that support workers to achieve balance. Check out your employers policies and try to negotiate reasonable work hours.
2. Ask for help, even of you find that difficult to do. There are always people who want to help – give it a go.
3. Take care of yourself. It all starts and ends with you. If you are strong and looking after yourself, you have more energy available to help and support others. Do something nice for yourself every day.
