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Happiness or joy – which is better?

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Happiness or joy, which is better? Of course we all want to be happy but joy doesn’t get a mention quite so much. Rather like a pleasant tinkling bell, happiness can rise up quickly but can then fade almost as fast, so we have to keep renewing it. Joy is a much deeper affair, like a very large bell whose resonance continues for a long time.

Happiness and joy are both excellent medicines

Happiness is delicious and thoroughly recommended. It is light, tasty and easily digested. It comes in all sorts of flavours and is available right now in your local universe. All we have to do is select it. If we make the choice to be happy now, the delivery is automatic and completely free of charge. We just have to keep our head up and flick our happiness switch. As we smile, the energy channels in the body open more and allow our vital energy, qi, to flow more easily. The more we smile, the more our vitality improves, which is brilliant for health and our sense of wellbeing. The bonus is if another person sees us and smiles in return, their channels open a little too. When we smile with our face and with our heart, the effect can be quite profound.

Appreciation creates joy, and joy heals

Our world is a very beautiful place and if we choose to appreciate what we have and what is around us, we will see that. Even though we are deluged with messages telling us that everything is wrong, we should not rely on news and social media to create a world picture for us.

Balance is essential and each of us has the ability to choose to see what we have in a positive light. Nothing is what it seems and this world has many dimensions, as do we. If we appreciate and are grateful for everything, we will be a friend of the world. We will generate great joy, whose vibration, like the waves from a resounding bell, will travel far and wide. Everything in the universe is energy, and to love, to vibrate joy and happiness are the most wonderful things we can do.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. There are many short articles on this blog and some books available, too. Some guided meditations are still available – they were put together some time ago but they still work!

Related posts:

  1. Motivation: how using Nature’s power can change your life
  2. Something to smile about
  3. Thoughts: Why we need to think less
  4. Healing energy, the Universe and You

Looking for light is vital for our future

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looking for lightIs there light in a cup of tea, a blade of grass or a butterfly? There is, of course, and it is in everything if we choose to look, even in what we regard as unpleasant. Looking for light, particularly when it seems to be absent, can be very therapeutic. Nature tends to draw us out of darkness. Evolution is concerned with just that – the process of enlightenment.

Everything vibrates, and what we describe as light simply has a faster rate of vibration than darkness. Someone once said that all on our planet, and indeed the planet itself, is solidified sunlight. Between light and dark is where we may think we find ourselves now, in innumerable shades of grey – but, if we look, there is also an incredible spectrum of colour.

Recognising light

Looking for light has to do with recognition. In the human being, light is akin to our higher nature – our better, finer qualities. How we perceive the world around us, from our immediate environment to all that we see or hear, depends on our inner state. If our heart is heavy, everything we see or hear seems miserable, but if we see the good in the world and in other people, a magical change occurs.

Our world may seem to have been turned upside down but there appears to be a shift in the way many people are starting to think. Instead of a desire simply to return to life as it was, there is evidence of a growing desire for change, for goodness to emerge.

Increasing our inner light

Our own inner light, which has its source in our spirit or soul, is always ready to grow. We just need to give it some encouragement. When the world seems a little dark, which it can at times, recognising the inherent goodness in people and in things is vital for our emotional, mental and spiritual wellbeing. As we all contribute to the collective consciousness of humanity, that’s good not just for us but for the whole planet.

Awakening Heart – The Blissful Path to Self Realisation

Related posts:

  1. Something to smile about
  2. How to live softly with ease and help the planet
  3. Love: why cosmic glue stops us falling apart
  4. Clarity: why it’s a vital antidote to this mad world

Chaos? Yes, but there is a way out of this

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Chaos in the worldChaos seems to be the order (or rather disorder) of the day. Wars still carry on, megalomaniacs continue to run nations and in the UK one might be forgiven to think we are governed by headless chickens. The history books of the future will provide much wonderment and amusement about this age of chaos. Perhaps global warming will have been sorted by then. We are not in the future, though, so what can we do now?

Chaos is the result of lost connections

Humanity has gone rogue. Some people go rogue when they stay in a hotel. If they were staying with a friend, they wouldn’t steal the toiletries and the towels, or worse. They feel no connection with the hotel and so their not-so-good human qualities come to the surface. Humanity is rather like that at the moment. We forget we are an integral part of the world. Instead, we behave as though we were staying at Hotel Earth – guests without any responsibility. The result is chaos. We are not guests, though. This is our home.

A paradigm shift is essential, but how?

As the chaos is the result of humanity’s collective consciousness, how we think must change. Education, both formal and informal, is a major player, then. But there is something else. We have to restore our energetic connection to Earth. Our minds are too Yang and we need the calming effect of Earth’s Yin energy. When we allow that to happen, how we think changes and so our behaviour does, too. Standing Like a Mountain is one of the simplest ways of reconnecting to Earth Qi. Just a few minutes, or even a minute, can help to restore balance. Meditation is also enormously helpful. We may think we don’t need to for ourselves but the effect isn’t just for us. It’s for the world. And we need to do it now.

Learning how to stop overthinking

Free guided meditations

Related posts:

  1. Motivation: how using Nature’s power can change your life
  2. Qi power – secrets of internal energy for health and stability
  3. Thinking too much? Why it can make you ill
  4. It’s not all bad news – love heals, both inside and out

Motivation: how using Nature’s power can change your life

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Motivation Motivation? We just can’t do without it. It is the driving force of change, whether for good or bad. The current chaos in society is caused by conflicting pressures from those with vested interests, political or otherwise. The one thing they all have in common is motivation. As individuals, we become driven by pressure, too – when we feel strongly that something in us needs to change.

Motivation for good

Some people are very good at self-motivation. Others, like me, need to work at it. However, the best type of motivation is not something we should need to think about very much. Rather, it comes from within. Most of the things that drive us to action are desires for the pleasures and necessities of life. At one level or another, we seek satisfaction. Once we have found it, we soon look elsewhere for fulfilment. But if we let the mind become calm and open, the fripperies of life lose their attraction. Then all motivation for action comes from inside, from what some call the soul or inner spirit. What term we use doesn’t matter. What does matter is that we start to reconnect with our true nature and, in turn, Nature’s power grid.

Motivation nature power

The source of boundless energy and intelligence

When we become still, through relaxation and meditation, we become more open. Our natural state is one of openness, where intuition rather than calculation has its home. Instead of thinking, “I want to be like this,” or “I ought to do that,” we simply know the right thing to do. As a result, we stop wasting energy on things that don’t matter and have plenty for those that do. Nature provides us with the energy we need and our boundless field of intelligence, consciousness, gives us all necessary motivation. It really is a life-changer. And all we have to do is stop – just stop and be still.

Releasing the things that hold us back is the subject of our next evening workshop, Letting Go, on the 11th March 2019. More details and booking.

My third book, The Art of Not Doing shows how we can re-train our minds to find clarity and inner peace.

Related posts:

  1. Habits – when and how to manage them
  2. Stop the world? You can’t, but you can stop yourself
  3. Taste with your ears? It makes sense
  4. Life: sometimes we can forget why we’re here

Change is brilliant, no matter how bad it is – possibly

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Change season

Change is in the air

Autumn and winter are periods of retreat in the world of nature. Growth seems to be at a standstill and animals have to forage or hunt with greater skill and determination until the spring comes. We, too, have our periods of less activity, when our earth element predominates more. Then gradually, or sometimes with a burst, our creativity emerges from its rest. We become the instruments of change, which can be very exciting – or maybe a little frightening.

Things cannot stay the same

Change is inevitable. That’s a good thing in some ways because when the days are dark, we know that they will eventually get lighter. Nothing stays the same because change is inherent in absolutely everything. Even the mountains are gradually changing. But this can create a tendency in us to hang onto the good times, to the days of laughter and pleasure. Change is everywhere. Sometimes the prospect of it seems like fun but often we resist. I should know – I’m an expert at resisting.

Act or accept?

When circumstances are bad and there is something constructive we can do, of course we should act. At other times, though, not accepting what life is presenting to us simply makes us unhappy. If it’s raining, we can blame the weather forecaster who promised sunshine. But what a waste of energy that is, and it actually makes life harder and the day more miserable. Alternatively, we can choose to be happy – marvel at the miracle of rain and enjoy life as it is now.

Accepting the present moment and what it brings actually makes us feel safe. Then we can smile and be free of the fear of losing anything.

More on this in The Art of Not Doing

Upcoming workshop in Staffordshire: Longevity – A Case for Leading a Long and Happy Life. Details here.

Related posts:

  1. Mortality: why our own impermanence is such a wonderful gift
  2. Time: why keeping an eye on the clock shortens your life
  3. Feeling stressed by Christmas? It’s largely a matter of choice
  4. Action: Why everything you do and say is more important than you think