Ray of Sunshine: Be Happy

There’s no need to look around for happiness or to try to buy it. Happiness is available to you free at any time. YOU hold the key to your happiness. There is a bottomless reservoir of it inside of you always.

Blessings for your day and week. Spread sunshine. Be the light.

Sunday Sunshine: Bring Beauty to Your Day

I used to work with someone who frequently brought flowers from her summer garden to place in a pretty vase on her desk or display a beautiful orchid in an attractive container to decorate her office window during the long winter days.

What I learned from my friend was that we each have the opportunity to bring beauty to our day.

Perhaps it’s placing a vase of flowers on your desk. Perhaps it’s writing a note on pretty notepaper. Perhaps it’s knitting a sweater. Perhaps it’s piecing together an intricate quilt. Perhaps it’s creating an attractively garnished, healthy meal.

What it all comes down to is doing what makes your heart sing, what brings a smile to your face, what lifts your spirits, what brings you joy and beauty and meaning.

Today, this week: Bring beauty to your day.

Sunday Sunshine: Choose Wisely

How you view the world and what it does to you, for you and through you is up to you.

Choose wisely.

When you choose to embrace happiness in your life, it's as if you invite the sun to shine on you and to warm your soul.

When you go one step further and share your happiness with others, it's magic! You transfer that sunshine to others and brighten their world and yours.

As you intentionally choose happiness and then generously share it with others, those recipients have the opportunity to share happiness, too.

Today, this week: You choose how you will view this day. Choose wisely.

Sunday Sunshine: Happiness Comes from Within

Human beings hold much more power than we sometimes like to admit. We look to outside activities, purchases, places and relationships to make us feel complete, whole and happy.

But you hold your happiness inside of you. It's there for you all of the time. 

Often your happiness becomes real when you are grateful. When you name your blessings, it's hard to feel fearful, unhappy or incomplete.

Today, this week: Count your blessings. Focus on those aspects of your life that truly make you feel grateful.  You are rich already without having to acquire more.

Sunday Sunshine: Fill in the Blank

A small, hand-printed sign appeared on a tiny table in our church's fellowship hall one Sunday morning. Its message read: "One thing that made me happy was...." If you weren't looking, you might have missed the sign. But how important that fill-in-the-blank is.

Every day, we learn of people who are hurting due to losses, illnesses, relationship stress, work stress, financial stress and other difficulties.

Think about one thing that made you happy yesterday and one thing you did to make someone else's yesterday happy. 

Now consider what will make you happy today and how you might spread that sunshine to someone else. Let the good vibe ripples flow. 

You have the power to make your day one of happiness, joy, gratitude and discovery. It's all in what you choose.

Today, this week: Remember that you have the power to make your day a happy one. 

Sunday Sunshine: YOU Are Sunshine!

During a string of rainy days, I got to the point where I felt as if the sunshine was never going to return again. Although I don't think of myself as being negatively affected by the weather for very long, I have to admit that the day-after-day experience of slate skies and downpours was affecting my happiness.

The rainy days will come--perhaps as just one day of drizzle or perhaps as an extended period of torrents--in your life. But, no matter the weather, no matter the circumstances in your life, you have the ability, you hold the power to rise above the rain to a place of blue skies. 

You hold those blue skies inside of you at all times. You hold a place of sunshine inside of you always. You are light. You can bring that light to yourself at any time. And you can share it with others and be the light for them, too.

Today, this week: Spread sunshine, no matter the weather. Be light.

Sunday Sunshine: Share Happiness

I read a lovely quote recently, attributed to author John Harrigan: "Happiness held is the seed. Happiness shared is the flower." So true!

When we choose to embrace happiness in our lives, it's as if we invite the sun to shine on us and to warm our souls.

But when we go one step further and share our happiness with others, it's magic! We transfer that sunshine to others and brighten the world.

And as we intentionally choose happiness and then generously share it with others, those recipients have the opportunity to share happiness, too.

Today, this week: Lift your day and that of another. Choose happiness and generously share it.

Sunday Sunshine: Smile and Be Glad!

When Sunday night rolls around, our minds start to get ready for the week ahead. By the time Monday morning arrives, we may feel sad that the precious weekend has ended and we have to face the chore of getting up out of bed and getting into the groove of the work week. 

You have a choice!

You can decide to feel energized when the Monday morning alarm clock chimes. You can jump out of bed, ready to take on the new week with a spirit of adventure, curiosity and blessing.

You have been given the gift of this new day and this new week!

How do you want to enter that week? Regretting that the weekend is done? Or in anticipation that the new day and week will bring possibilities to you and opportunities for you to serve?

You have a choice.

Today, this week: Smile and Be Glad!

Sunday Sunshine: Shine On!

Some March days are rainy and dreary. Some March days might even be snowy and stormy. 

Seeing as you can't control the weather, you may as well focus on what you can control and that would be your attitude.

Even when things seem difficult or challenging or rainy or dreary or snowy or stormy, you have the power to carry sunshine in your heart and allow its bright rays to cast out to others wherever you go. 

Choose sunshine today, no matter the March weather. Shine on!

Today, this week: Bring sunshine wherever you go.

Fresh Thoughts for Your Monday: Fuel Your Happiness

It’s natural to occasionally have a bad day or succumb to a sour mood. The good thing is that you don’t have to remain stuck there. Happiness is an inside job that you can manage at any time.

How might you adopt a happier mindset? It doesn’t take much—just a shift in your focus and energy. Fuel your happiness through kind words, a grateful heart and a joyful spirit.

Your happy, joyful, grateful, kind energy will automatically be shared with those around you. Lift your day and that of another.

Today, this week: Choose happiness.

Going with Flow

I had a particularly busy time several months ago when I was over-committed and overdoing. I knew it, but I had made a promise and the dutiful part of me wanted to see my responsibilities through. By the time I was done with my obligations, I was overtired in mind, body and spirit, and it took me quite a while to rebuild my strength and find my groove again. In retrospect, I see that putting myself in such a state was not exercising my best judgment and it took away something that has become a precious commodity to me: Flow. When I'm "going with Flow," I am using my energies wisely. I'm able to get things done with ease. Life is more enjoyable. I am in a happier mood. I feel less stress. I am my better self. It seems so easy, too easy to say Yes, when perhaps the greatest response of self-respect may be saying No. Setting limits for the use of my energies allows me to better utilize those energies and to do something that is satisfying. It also opens up Flow. I saw a tweet not too long ago that read: "Always take care of yourself first." That means setting limits, devoting time each day to self-care, hearing the voice of self-compassion. It means saying No in order to leave room for all of the right Yes things in life. Such self-care is essential, vital to health and well-being. So, with each decision going forward, I will ask myself if saying Yes will help or hamper. It's all about going with Flow. 

Awesome

"Oh Lord, my God, when I in awesome wonder consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made," are familiar lyrics from the old-time hymn "How Great Thou Art." I've always loved that hymn for its lyrics because they speak to me and to my appreciation for the beauty of nature. However, they became even richer after reading the cover story of the October 9, 2016 edition of the "Parade" newspaper supplement, an article by Paula Spencer Scott about Awe and the therapeutic effects from feeling it. According to Merriam-Webster, awe is a "strong feeling of fear or respect and also wonder." I don't particularly resonate with the fear aspect of that definition, but I do feel the respect and wonder aspects to my core, particularly when in the magnificence and majesty of nature. On my daily walks, I allow myself to become immersed in my environment, becoming alert to things that pass by too quickly for complete observation when driving. It is then that I see falling leaves swirling in an intricate dance to the ground. I smell the spicy, heady scent of flowering crab trees in the spring. I view the riot of vibrant, cheerful color that a summer garden offers. I get the same sensation of awe when hearing music. There is nothing so wonderful as to listen to the complex, jubilant and amazing Charles-Marie Widor's Toccata from the Fifth Organ Symphony in F, Opus 42, No. 1. I occasionally listen to it just to get that sensation of awe. At a time when we tend to hear more messages from the fear side of awe, which only compounds our stress levels, I feel that our everyday lives hold the potential for wonder. We just have to step outside or listen to a great piece of music, get our eyes off of our handheld devices and move away from our increasing propensity to a sedentary and, sadly, isolating lifestyle. Doing so will open our eyes, ears and hearts to the glorious things all around us. If we could only concentrate on those glorious, wondrous moments a bit more, what an awesome world it would be.

Bad Memory

I recently read a quote attributed to Albert Schweitzer: "Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory."  I had to laugh.  Isn't it the truth that we look back on life through rose-colored glasses, our memories skewed so that we recall the happier times and perhaps not the real times.  But, more seriously, I agree wholeheartedly that happiness and health are closely linked.  In the January 2013 edition of "Natural Awakenings" magazine, the Madison, Wisconsin edition's publisher, Danelle Pretasky, reminds readers that our happiness depends mostly on our health.  "There are so many health issues that can keep us from living productive and vibrant lives," she writes.  So, as I near the end of the first month of the new year, I continue to refine my health and wellness goals so that I can embrace my life with optimum health and the greatest degree of happiness.

Be Happy

Our pastor and her husband showed a movie after worship service a couple of Sundays ago, a documentary called "Happy."  The movie features interviews with people from around the globe as they define what happiness means in their lives.  Laced with other interviews with researchers, the documentary reminds us that it isn't what we own, it isn't what we do for a living, it isn't the trappings of our society's definition of success that make you happy.  Happiness is attainable simply by looking at our lives through a lens of gratitude.  Taking care of oneself.  Finding meaning as you work to make the world a better place. Having deep, lasting relationships with family and/or friends.  Many of the people in the film who described themselves as happy had very few personal belongings.  Some of them lived, in fact, in what I would normally describe as poverty.  Yet, these same people who I would describe as outwardly poor saw their lives to be inwardly rich.  Even those who had had something precious taken away from them or abandoned a former lifestyle of comfort and wealth saw happiness in their newfound lives.  I hadn't realized quite how much I needed to see that movie in order to bring balance and perspective into my life.  Being happy.  What a concept.

Cultivating Happiness

I've been rather sad lately, and it's all about change. Some change is exhilarating while some is disconcerting at best.  I've been surrounded by a shroud of the grayness that comes with not wanting to accept change.  So when I heard a gardening expert say that happy plants make productive plants, I took it as a personal wake-up call.  I realized that the expert's statement was true of people, as well as plants.  When people (and plants) are happy, they are often at their most productive.  Such productivity can make change more manageable, positive, even empowering.  The cultivation of one's happiness rests within them, not with external forces.  Realizing that made all of the difference in my outlook and lifted the cloud of sadness.  As with the evolving seasons, change is inevitable.  Sometimes we instigate the change and at other times it is instigated for us.  The ability to cultivate happiness, however, is unchanging because it resides in me.