The Stuff of Happiness

That happiness is to be attained through limitless acquisition is denied by every religion and philosophy known, but is preached by every American TV set.
– Robert Bellah

---

---

Boy have we all recently received a generous dose of THIS lately!!

We will never find the happiness we seek by acquiring things.  But by finding the happiness already living inside of us, our world on the outside begins to shift in its reflection, and the things we had always wished to acquire become easily accessible because through our acceptance and realized happiness, we have deemed ourselves worthy of receiving.

We find the happiness already living inside of us by singing our song.  How do you know what your song is?  What is it that you can do for hours?  What is it that you could focus on forever if your attention wasn't always pulled elsewhere eventually?

That's your song.  Sing it.

Turn off the TV, let go of the "stuff" you think you're missing, don't allow society to compare you to others.  You are you.  You are special simply by the virtue that you are an original, one of a kind.  Not another being in the Universe looks, thinks, acts, laughs, wants, loves the same as you.  Not ONE!

You are IT baby!  Strut your stuff!  Show the rest of Creation who you ARE!

Sing your song!

---

---

Great Titles by Robert Bellah

Habits of the Heart
Individualism and Commitment in American Life

The Robert Bellah Reader

Beyond Belief
Essays on Religion in a Post-Traditionalist World

---

---

In the Mother Hood

We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
– Joseph Campbell

---

---

Today is the birthday of my middle child, Michael.  He is eleven.

Motherhood isn't at all like I thought it would be.  I think too many people get wrapped up in their role as "mother" and forget to be a friend to their children.

I know some people say you can't be friends with your kids but I beg to differ.

A friend is honest with you, no matter what.  A friend has got your back in any situation and can always be depended on.  A friend is someone you respect and look up to.  A friend is someone who respects and looks up to you.

I wasn't always a friend to my kids.  I used to be pretty uppity.

I was given this vision of motherhood from my mother in which mother has grown up things to do and you as the child are just in the way.  You need to be quieted and made to conform and comply.  You need to follow the rules I set forth for you, regardless of how you feel about them and regardless of whether *I* adhere to the same rules.

I started being a friend to my kids when I realized the very best rule I could implement in our household was, "Do as I do."

Now, I know the standard around the world is "Do as I say, not as I do," which is the big one that got my own mother in a lot of trouble.  You cannot condemn cigarette smoking to your child as you take a drag from your own.  You cannot condemn drinking, partying, sex, and other unsafe behaviors by engaging in them now, and preaching the perils later.

As a mother, I am the example.  I am the life they will live.  I learned a valuable lesson the day I took responsibility for that and began to consciously live a life that I could honor my children with when the habits were passed onto them.

I stopped needing rules and regulations to restrict my children when I stopped presenting them with so many restrictions.  So many "don't do's."

I made my life an example of what TO DO.  How TO BE.

Instead of presenting them with a list of what not to do, I present them with what they should do... with what *I* do.  Then explain why it's good and why it feels good and why it manifests joy in life.

When they slip up and succumb to their little egos, I don't condemn them or their behavior.  I don't shame them or punish them.  I help them to see their creation.  I shine the light upon their actions and the fruits it will bear so that they may choose the good feeling path on their own instead of feeling pushed one way or the other by me.

In my childhood, every time I felt pushed or pulled by my hypocritical parents, I would always seem to naturally meander in the opposite direction with my life.  That's how I ended up so far off the path as a teenager.

It was all about rules and regulations and who I'm SUPPOSED to be and how I'm SUPPOSED to act.... and if that wasn't the "me" I was portraying, then I was wrong.  I was bad.  There was something wrong with me.  But not to worry, it was never anything that couldn't be beaten or humiliated out of me.

I've learned that my kids will be who they are supposed to be and the only guidance they REALLY need from me is for me to simply be who I'm supposed to be.

Sometimes the vision we set out with isn't the vision we end up with, but we can never be who we truly are unless we let go of who we thought we were supposed to be.

Happy Birthday Michael.  You are a beautiful soul and I am so honored to be trusted with your care and I value your influence in my life.  I've learned so much from you and I am so pleased with the wonderful young man you are and the one you are becoming every day.  The world is a brighter place with you in it.

---

---

Great Titles by Joseph Campbell

The Hero with a Thousand Faces

The Power of Myth

Pathways to Bliss
Mythology and Personal Transformation

---

---

Roses

Instead of complaining that the rosebush is full of thorns, be happy that the thorn bush has roses.
- Proverb

---

---

I have been laid up in bed for three days with a wicked cold. It is my goal to have a post here before 11am every morning, and it is currently, as I type this, 10:43am.

Coming here to get a daily dose of depth is the only reason I sat up. Yup, I'm in my bed, with my laptop.

I am trying to be at peace with this virus and I'm having a little trouble :)

The roses.
I have nowhere to be, so no one is missing me, and I can take my time and not worry about it.

The kids are home on vacation, but they're older now and pretty darn self sufficient. They're actually taking care of ME.

The animals keep gathering around to snuggle me with their warm, furriness.

I have Frasier reruns on DVR to watch and a whole box of my favorite tea.

This is really my own fault. This is what I get for eating so so so much sugar over the holidays, not to mention the other unhealthy choices in food. I did a lot of drinking too, which is actually very unlike me, but done just the same.

I guess one can only weaken their body so much before dis-ease creeps in.
sigh*
This too shall pass.

---

---

Great Titles from Amazon

---

---

Pushing Boundaries

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.
– Ambrose Redmoon

---

---

 Going to a movie by myself seemed silly to be afraid of, but I was. When I got there, my heart was pounding and my palms were sweaty and I felt SO out of place, like everyone was looking at me.

But I knew it was important. I knew I had to do something that was outside of my comfort zone.  I had to push my limits a little to make more space to become who I wanted to be.

The growth was more important than the fear.

The second time I did it, two weeks later, it was almost anxiety free.  I was the teeniest bit apprehensive when I first got there, but it only lasted a couple minutes.  I even ended up being the ONLY person in the whole theater during that movie.  It was weird, but not uncomfortable.

Facing fear head on has been important for me.  And every time I do it, the fear dissipates.  Sometimes a little slower, but each time I stare down fear and refuse to back down, it's always the fear that gives way a little more.

Have faith in yourself and know that you are bigger than any fear.

---

---

Great Titles from Amazon

Love is Letting Go of Fear

Freedom: Letting Go of Anxiety and Fear of the Unknown

Chloe's Gift
A Parable for Teens and Young Adults
A Parable for Letting Go of Fear and Giving Love a Second Chance

---

---

Part of the Plan

It is better for the heart to break than not to break.
– Mary Oliver

---

---

Two days ago as we drove past the church where we were wed, on our way to my mother-in-law's house for Christmas, my husband looks over at me and says, "It's a good thing you loved him (my ex husband I was married to for 5 minutes) first."

Surprised, puzzled, yet intrigued I asked, "Oh yeah? Why's that?"

"Because if you hadn't loved him first, you wouldn't love me the same as you do. Guess it was just all part of the plan."

I'm still not sure how his internal musings lead him to that area of thought, but he's right.  Had I not had that experience, I would have been much more shallow in my feeling.  The pain I experienced drove depth into me and I grew into a new lover.

The perfect lover, in fact.  Perfectly in harmony with Him at least :)

---

---

Great Titles by Mary Oliver

Swan: Poems and Prose Poems

Why I Wake Early: New Poems

Evidence: Poems

---

---

Pain or Paradise

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
– Albert Einstein

---

---

One must admit, if there's ANYONE who might know what they're talking about, it is likely to be Albert Einstein.  Seriously, with an IQ of like, 10 billion (snicker*), you sort of just assume.

Fortunately, I don't have to take Al's word on this one because I live the most miraculous life!

It wasn't always that way, though.  I spent the first twenty-six years of my life behaving as though life were happening TO me, from beyond my control.  And miracles were reserved for people in foreign countries where stone statues of Mother Mary wept blood.

I can understand why Albert would draw such a conclusions about life and miracles though, because when I realized that every moment is a miracle, for myself, it was after I began looking into quantum physics.

Once I realized that every "solid" thing in the Universe is NOT solid, and that the closer you look at something, the more expansive it becomes (looking into matter to find atoms and into atoms to find particles, to find subatomic particles etc..), I recognized that the true miracle of life isn't the forms that we see.  It's the organizing force that holds all these things together, causing them to preform specific functions and movements etc.

When you team up with that organizing force, and treat it as though it is necessary and loved and perfect and there to create WITH you, you begin to see everything around you as a miracle.

This laptop computer upon which I am currently typing these thoughts that I'm having, is a miracle.  How could it NOT be?  What are the chances that some HUMAN could have the thoughts that would lead them to create such an amazing and complex piece of technological machinery?

And that thought I just had, in the above paragraph; Where did that come from?

If I were to lie down in a CAT scan machine, you might be able to see chemical reactions in my brain that signify the processing of a thought, but no one has ever figured out exactly where the thought itself comes from.

It's all miraculous.  Never mind the miracle that IS a CAT scan.

I also look back through my past at people I've met and places I've been and "tragedies" that have occurred, and can see how every single step, no matter how minuscule and insignificant, has lead me somewhere I'd have otherwise not gone.  And had I not gone there, I couldn't have made it HERE.

Something really beautiful happens to your life when everything you see becomes a miracle.  When you contemplate all things in awe and adoration, instead of disgust and irritation.

The more disgust and irritation you observe, the more disgusting and irritating your life will feel to you.
But if what you are observing and convinced of is purpose, miracles, and God (aka. that organizing force/space in between), then the more purpose filled, miraculous, Spiritual your life will feel to you.

How do you want to feel?
The beauty of Life is, it's completely up to you.

---

---

Great Titles by & About Albert Einstein

Ideas and Opinions

The World as I See It

Einstein: His Life and Universe

---

---

New Worlds

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born
until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new
world is born.
– Anais Nin

---

---

God bless each friend who has come into my life, and blessed be the world they brought to me when they arrived.  Especially one in particular :)

Merry Christmas Everyone~ Be blessed.

---

---

Great Titles by Anais Nin

---

---

Joy Indeed

Joy to the World , the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.

Joy to the World, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.

- Isaac Watts

---

---

Amen~

---

---

Great Titles!

FREE DOWNLOAD!!!

FREE DOWNLOAD!!!

---

---

Be the Difference

Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to one.
– Carl Jung

---

---

 The greatest gift you can give someone is to listen to them.  Without judgment, in complete love and acceptance.

To allow someone to express themselves without fear of being judged or ridiculed is a divine act.

The holiday season is so sad for so many people, and everyone knows that suicide rates jump this time of year.

Having just ONE person expressing concern, and willing to listen can make the difference in someone's life.
You can be the difference.

---

---

Great Titles by Carl Jung

The Undiscovered Self

Man and His Symbols

Memories, Dreams, Reflections

---

---