The Circle Of Joy

An old story tells that one day, a countryman knocked hard on a monastery door. When the monk tending the gates opened up, he was given a magnificent bunch of grapes.

- Brother, these are the finest my vineyard has produced. I’ve come to bear them as a gift.

- Thank you! I will take them to the Abbot immediately, he’ll be delighted with this offering.

- No! I brought them for you. For whenever I knock on the door, it is you opens it. When I needed help because the crop was destroyed by drought, you gave me a piece of bread and a cup of wine every day.

The monk held the grapes and spent the entire morning admiring it. And decided to deliver the gift to the Abbot, who had always encouraged him with words of wisdom.

The Abbot was very pleased with the grapes, but he recalled that there was a sick brother in the monastery, and thought:

“I’ll give him the grapes. Who knows, they may bring some joy to his life.”

And that is what he did. But the grapes didn’t stay in the sick monk’s room for long, for he reflected:

“The cook has looked after me for so long, feeding me only the best meals. I’m sure he will enjoy these.”

The cook was amazed at the beauty of the grapes. So perfect that no one would appreciate them more than the sexton; many at the monastery considered him a holy man, he would be best qualified to value this marvel of nature.

The sexton, in turn, gave the grapes as a gift to the youngest novice, that he might understand that the work of God is in the smallest details of Creation. When the novice received them, he remembered the first time he came to the monastery, and of the person who had opened the gates for him; it was that gesture which allowed him to be among this community of people who knew how to value the wonders of life.

And so, just before nightfall, he took the grapes to the monk at the gates.

- Eat and enjoy them – he said. – For you spend most of your time alone here, and these grapes will make you very happy.

The monk understood that the gift had been truly destined for him, and relished each of the grapes, before falling into a pleasant sleep.

Thus the circle was closed; the circle of happiness and joy, which always shines brightly around generous people.

Unknown Author

How To Get What You Want

To assist you in getting started towards your journey of self-improvement I have compiled ten qualities which when developed and while being developed project you on your path to whatever it is you want to attain. Under each quality to attain I have listed several principles aligned to them.

        

1.     Build Confidence

        

(a) Realise that your principal goal in life is to be happy and confidence is a state of happiness. Practise being happy and begin with smiling.

(b) Use your imagination to enthusiastically visualise that you are a positive person.

(c) Each time you initiate action always remember your past successful experiences. When you evoke these feelings, you will feel successful and act with confidence. Each time say: 'I am confident' and this in turn will evoke feelings of confidence instantly.

(d) Accept all your negative feelings as a challenge. Confidence is merely the ability to rise

above negative feelings, failure and mistakes.

(e) Believe in yourself actively not passively. Confidence comes from belief.

        

2.     Overcome Frustration

        

(a)  Begin everything with enthusiasm. Always stop when you are enjoying what you are doing just before it becomes frustration. Return to it with renewed enthusiasm as you will look forward to it beca you left it as a positive point.

(b)  Become involved in a new ~oal. By thinking of a n worthwhile goal you can reach, your frustration disappear.

(c)  Concentrate on one thought at a time, one ach.o~ a time, one goal at a time: the more you concentra the less time you will have for frustration. Eddiso perhaps the greatest inventor who has ever lived, an who patented over 1000 commercial items includin  the light bulb and phonograph, would concentr solely on what he was doing at that particular ti and not do lots of other things at the same time.

        

3. Develop Compassion, Forgiveness and Understanding

        

(a)  Forgive yourself and others. Don't be judgemental.

(b)  Be agreeable with others. Don't argue, try to under stand.

(c)  Compliment others. Be interested in them. Expres don't impress. Express builds a bridge, impress buil a gulf.

(d)  Make others feel important. Don't engage in constructive criticism.

(e)  Love your neighbour as yourself.

        

Always remember that the majority of what you accomplish will be as a direct result of how you get 0 with other people.

4. Develop Communication and Rapport Skills

        

(a)  Seek first to understand before you make yourself understood. Your experiences may not be appropriate for their problem. Try to understand their situation before you advise. Remember the propensity to give advice is as great as the propensity to ignore it is.

(b)  Your listeners won't care what you say until they know that you care.

(c)  Practise internal enthusiastic self-praise continually. Understand that how you think and feel determines how you communicate with others.

(d)  Always remember that the way you perceive and see your world is not through the same

lens that other people will view their world.

        

5. Develop a Major Absorbing Obsession

        

(a)  Anything in life worth having is worth working for. It's not the amount that counts its the philosophy of your plan. If you are totally absorbed with what you really want to achieve the

world will make a path for you.

(b)  Always seek to learn from your adversity as this is often the doorway to where you want to go. How else can Nature direct you to the path for you? It is one way that she can make you pay attention.

        

6.  Develop Persistence

        

(a)  The more you can persist in the face of all your obstacles the more the belief and confidence in you grows.

(b)  Only through persistence will you become what you want. Affirm to yourself: 'there is always a way - my persistence will find it'.

(c)  Take Winston Churchill's success motto for your own: 'Never give up, never, never give up'. The difference between the ordinary and the extraordinary is that little bit extra. Always keep going.

        

7.  Develop an Expectant Winning Attitude

        

(a) I know someone who always says: 'Expect the worst and hope for the best'. What an absolutely ridiculous statement to affirm. Our expectations almost always become our reality. Always affirm: I expect the best and I always get it.

(b) Always look to create a win:win situation with others. Don't accept that if one wins another one has to lose. With an attitude of positive expectancy you will find that you and all around you enjoy winning results. Project yourself as a winner who creates other winners too.

(c) Project a positive self-image of you being an enthusiastic person. Enthusiasm is incredibly contagious and will affect almost anyone it touches.

        

8.  Accept 100 per cent Responsibility for You

        

(a) Always remember that you are the person responsible for how you feel. It's not the circumstances or conditions that is the problem, it's how you react to the circumstances or conditions of the problem that's the real problem.

(b) Don't look to blame someone or something for whatever has happened or happening, look to find the solution. There are some individuals who spend more time ensuring there is someone to blame in case what they undertake goes wrong than spending time doing what they actually undertake. Blame looks backward and responsibility looks forward.

(c) Your self-responsibility will become stronger in direct relation to eliminating your negative feelings and emotions. Each time one of your negative emotions rises up discard it by saying: 'I am responsible for the way I feel'.

(d) Immediately you stop making excuses you will be on the way to the top as you have taken complete responsibility for yourself.

        

9.  Develop the Courage to Do What It Takes

    

(a) Responsibility and courage go hand in hand. Whatever you fear address the situation that causes it.

Aristotle said:

        

Fear is pain arising from anticipation.

        

So seldom do we do the thing we fear that we never discover if our anticipation was accurate. Fear breeds lack of experience, lack of experience breeds ignorance and ignorance breeds more fear. It is a vicious circle summed up so well in the acronym: False Evidence Appearing Real. I remember walking along the Copacobana in Rio de Janeiro when out of the corner of my eye I saw a snake moving furiously towards me. I jumped the highest jump I had ever jumped and kept jumping until I realised it was a rubber snake on a piece of wire. Now my inbuilt alarm system had gone off appropriately causing the adrenalin to fuel my jump. That false evidence however spawned the beginning of a real fear of snakes. Having experienced this FEAR on various occasions I decided to address it. I read a book on snakes and even went to a place where I could handle them. My fear of them vanished. I understand them, I understand to take care where snakes could be, but I am no longer scared of them. Each time in business when I needed the courage to do something, I found the best way was to do it anyway. Only by doing what it takes will you develop the courage required. It is not the other way around. Courage comes from experiencing the thing that worries you. Courage is not the absence of fear, it is the wisdom to act in spite of fear. The best way to build up courage is to encourage yourself with: 'you can do it!' 'En' is a prefix meaning 'to be at one with'. So don't listen to people who discourage you. Always remember that courage is doing what you are afraid to do and there can be no courage unless you are scared.

(b) The willingness to do creates the courage to do. Just by simply starting to do what you have planned, will create an ability to do which will increase your confidence and courage. So, whatever it is, begin it, make a start. Be willing especially to follow your dream. My favourite training shoes I bought because when I was contemplating which ones to buy and if I would use them, the advertisement above them was: 'just do it'. There is no better advice to develop the courage to do something or make a decision.

        

10.  Develop a Happiness State of Mind

        

(a) Many people believe that happiness is dependent on things and people external to themselves, yet when we look for happiness outside ourselves we make an unhappy mistake. We feel powerless to attain happiness and devote our lives to the pursuit of things that we know won't necessarily bring happiness. Happiness involves having the courage to live the life you choose for yourself. Becoming what you really want to become and doing what you really want to do is available through your freedom of choice. So choose what you want, begin it and your state of mind will be a happy state of mind.

(b) Your capacity for happiness can be increased simply by sharing it with others. Giving to others can be the most rewarding experience of your life, even if you start with giving your smile freely. Practise smiling in front of the mirror every day for at least 30 seconds. After the initial embarrassed feeling you'll feel great about yourself.

(c)  Don't save up for happiness like so many do. They live under the misconception that you have to earn it. How and when? You are happiness. Happiness is like opportunity, it's always there if you look for it. Seize it in the same way. Being happy means now, making yourself laugh more often, not a chuckle or a grin but a really big belly laugh.

(d)  Remember that unhappiness is the result of old patterns of thinking and feeling. With your new programming and affirmation: 'I feel happy' you will find a new impetus to make you the better you that you can be. The message that all the above give you is plain and simple. Work harder on yourself than you do on anything else and your everything else will follow. Get your internal world how you want it and your external world will be as you want. In other words your outer world is a mirror which reflects what is going on in your inner world. This is the basis of perhaps one of the greatest universal laws. The Great Psychologist in the Bible said: 'As within, so without'. Remember, work on yourself and everything else will fall in place.

         

Happy ... - John Lennon

Dale Carnegie - "How To Win Friends And Influence People!"

Cultivate a Mental Attitude that will
Bring You Peace and Happiness

1. Fill your mind with thoughts of peace,
courage, health and hope.
2. Never try to get even with your
enemies.
3. Expect ingratitude.
4. Count your blessings – not your
troubles.
5. Do not imitate others.
6. Try to profit from your losses.
7. Create happiness for others.

Always Take Chances ....

The 18 Rules Of Happiness

Rule #1 - Stop Feeling Sorry for Yourself! 
Rule #2 – Be Grateful 
Rule #3 – Say Yes More 
Rule #4 – Follow Your Bliss
Rule #5 – Learn to Let Go 
Rule #6 – Do Random Acts of Kindness 
Rule #7 – Happiness Is Only Ever Now
Rule #8 – Experience, Don’t Hoard! 
Rule #9 – Appreciate Both Sides of the Coin 
Rule #10 – Be More Social
Rule #11 – Love More!
Rule #12 – Have a Dream
Rule #13 – Intention Sets Direction
Rule #14 – Enjoy Simple Pleasures 
Rule #15 – Accept What Is
Rule #16 – Exercise and Eat Well
Rule #17 – Zoom Out and Don’t Sweat 
Rule #18 – Laugh, Dance, Smile!

Karl Moore

3 Habits You Must Give Up If You Want Sustained Happiness

You, my friend, were born with a birthright.

You were born with the birthright to be happy every single day.

Everything you need to be happy is given to you from the moment you make your first cry. And you still have those things to this very day.

• You have your primary needs met — food, shelter, clothing.

• You have intelligence that allows you to work, create, observe, feel, and experience.

• You have relationships with people who care for you, who engage with you, and who afford human connection.

• You live on a beautiful, amazing planet free for you to explore and enjoy.

• You have easy access to information, ideas, books, entertainment, music, art, and many other things to heighten the senses and stimulate the mind.

In other words, you truly have everything you need right now to be happy.

Yes, we all have had difficulties, childhood issues, health problems, relationship upheavals, and unexpected tragedies that undermine our feelings of happiness. Many of these things are simply out of our control. And sometimes they create emotional and psychological problems that separate us from happiness for long periods.

Fortunately, most of us have the ability to heal from these unexpected life problems, to learn from them, and to move forward with happy lives. And yet the feeling of sustained happiness, that mixture of underlying contentment and joy, seems to elude most people.

Do you feel sustained happiness yourself?

Do you see it in the people around you?

When you observe someone who lives from that state of happiness, rather than constantly striving for happiness, you recognize that this person has a gift of some kind, a special knowledge or personality trait that lights them up from the inside out.

There are people born with “happier” personalities. But personality alone does not constitute sustained happiness. Achieving that sense of inner contentment and joy is more a matter of releasing things that have become daily habits. These habits separate us from the happiness that is immediately accessible to us every day. And they will continue to do so until we recognize them in ourselves and do the work to let them go.

What are these bad habits? I’ve outlined 3 major culprits below and what you can do to change them.

1. Listening to negative self-talk

If you pay attention, you’ll notice you have a running dialogue in your brain. And quite often that dialogue is negative. You have self-talk that is self-defeating. You think negatively about your appearance, your worthiness, your intelligence, your abilities, your value, and any number of concerns that you’ve trained yourself to believe.  And you believe because you listen.

Perhaps at one point in your life, something happened to make these thoughts appear. But whether there is a little truth or no truth at all in these thoughts, thinking about them and listening to your thoughts only further entrenches you in negativity and separates you from happiness. Your thoughts are far out-of-proportion to the reality.

So what can you do?

The first thing you can do is start paying attention. Put a post-in note on your computer or write a word on the back of your hand to remind you to observe your thoughts. Notice how often negative self-talk is passing through your brain, and notice what you are saying about and to yourself.

When you catch yourself in the negative thoughts, first just say the word “STOP” — either out loud if you are alone (the spoken word has power) or to yourself if you aren’t. Then take action. If the negative self-talk is something you can and/or should do something about, then do it. For example, if you are thinking, “I’m so fat,” and you really need to lose a few, then run up and down the stairs a few times or prepare something healthy to eat. Positive action makes you feel better.

Even if your thoughts have no basis in reality, take some positive, forward moving, or enjoyable action anyway. This will both distract you from the negative thoughts andbuild your self-esteem.

So in general, get out of your head and do something! Eventually you will break the habit of negative self-talk as you continue to replace it with positive action. You might create a list of positive actions you can take to have handy when you catch yourself in negative thinking.

2. Worrying what other people think

So much of our angst and unhappiness in life comes from worrying what other people will think.

• We hold ourselves back.

• We say yes when we mean no and no when we mean yes.

• We give up on dreams or chase the wrong ones.

All because we worry about the judgments and opinions of others. We worry about hurting their feelings or letting them down, while abusing our own feelings and letting ourselves down.

Once you are able to disengage from concern about what others think, it will be the greatest liberation of your life. When you give up on trying to make others happy or trying to prevent them from thinking poorly of you, then you are free to be yourself completely and unreservedly.

That’s not to say you can’t make conscious choices about how you wish to accommodate or show respect and kindness to others. You can do that within the framework of putting your own needs and desires first most of the time.

The people you want in your life are those who love and respect you for who you are and how you choose to live — not those who reject or diminish you because you make certain choices in life.

Most of the time, when we stop worrying about what others think and start living life on our own terms, we actually become more attractive people. Yes, you may lose a few people in your life as a result, but are these really people you want in your life anyway?

So what can you do?

If you have been one who constantly worries about what others might think, it will take a bit of time to retrain yourself and release this bad habit. Start by defining what YOU really want from life, who you really want to be. Write down all of the things you are afraid to do or be because you worry about what others might think.

Then write down the list of people who might be offended by your choices or actions.

• How many of these people do you really value?

• Of the people you value, do you really believe they will reject you because of your choices?

• How could you communicate your desires to them in a kind and loving way?

If you are worried about the general masses of people (ie: neighbors, Facebook friends, casual acquaintances) and what they might think or say — let that go. Simply stop caring. You will never please all people all the time. There should be just a handful of people in your life whose good opinion matters to you enough to consider their feelings or thoughts before you act.

In general, practice making choices in spite of your concern about what others might think. The more you practice, the more you realize that you won’t die, people who love you won’t reject you, and they might actually like the “real you” even better.

3. Longing for more

If you are really honest with yourself, you must admit that you have everything you need in life and much of what you want. And between the demands of work and life responsibilities, how much time do you have to really enjoy more than what you have right now?

There is a difference between wanting to improve your quality of life and longing for more. When you long for more, your happiness hinges on achieving or attaining the thing you long for. So you postpone happiness until you get the thing you want. But sometimes you don’t get the thing you long for. And sometimes you get it, but the happiness it brings is fleeting. So you long for something else.

So life becomes a cycle of long periods of longing followed by brief encounters with happiness.

But it is possible to work to improve your quality of life and remain happy in the present moment. You improve your quality of life through . . .

• improved relationships

• passionate and fulfilling work

• positive and fun experiences (ie: travel, adventure, culture, etc.)

• financial stability

• good health

These are things you should continue to improve throughout your life, but they don’t require you to postpone happiness until you do. You can continue to be happy with the life you have right now while you find new ways to improve these “happiness fostering” circumstances.

So what can you do?

Begin by focusing with gratitude on what you have right now that is rewarding, fulfilling, and that brings you joy. Write a list of these things and keep it handy where you can read it every day. Sometimes we forget how much we have when we get caught up in longing for more.

When you catch yourself longing, feeling anxious or frustrated that you don’t have what you think you want or need, refer to this list as a reminder of all of your blessings. Remember that material things rarely bring sustained happiness. We can get momentary pleasure from new clothes, a fancy car, or a big screen TV, but those things don’t provide sustained happiness.

If you want to quickly move past the feelings of longing, there are three things you can do immediately to help:

• find someone to serve

• finding something to create

• do something to improve yourself or to further your quality of life goals

Sustained happiness isn’t really so hard to achieve. Once you release listening to negative self-talk, worrying what others think, and longing for more, you will see that happiness is sitting on your doorstep, just waiting for you to come home.

http://liveboldandbloom.com/03/habits/3-habits-you-must-give-up-if-you-want-sustained-happiness