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I’m keeping it simple this week and focusing on how certain sounds make me happy. I love hearing them, and they never fail to make me smile.

Champagne popping.

A train whistle.

The sizzling of fajita meat.

Wind rustling the trees.

My name being called in a loving tone.

The voices of the ones I love.

Kids making car noises.

Dance music.

Happiness is sounds.

What are your favorite sounds? Quick. Just think of three. I’ll bet you’re already smiling.

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Having just watched an interview with Paulo Coehlo, the author of the acclaimed book, THE ALCHEMIST, I can attest that I agree with him that the universe has its own language, which it is all too eager to share with each of us.

How else are we supposed to know where to go and what to do next?

I’ve always believed in signs. You know what I’m talking about. You see a certain word on a billboard, on a bumper sticker, or even on TV that confirms something you’ve been thinking about. Or you have a conversation with someone who just happens to have information about things you’ve been wondering about. This just happened to a friend of mine. The minute she decided to go to Paris, she encountered three strangers in three days who all had just been there.

Among my friends, we say, “You can’t make that sh## up.”

Today I was grocery shopping, and I had another sign that happiness is a choice—and one of the most important ones I can make. I asked the checker how her day was going. She immediately responded with a smile and told me it was wonderful. She woke up. She’s here. She’s doing what she’s supposed to do. She’s happy.

Simple, right?

We started talking, and without knowing I write about happiness every week, she starts to tell me she’s made the choice to be happy. Every day. That it’s one of the most important decisions she’s ever made. She also went onto say some people don’t understand that.

I was listening to someone confirm everything I am writing about here.

A sign.

Recently, things haven’t been all daisies and buttercups. There’s been some family drama, some painful conversations, and again the search for love through it all. Oh, and yeah, choosing happiness even though I didn’t want to jump up and down every moment of the day like usual.

That’s okay. We honor where we are, but we can also choose to rise above it. We can’t control other people’s feelings, words, or even actions, but we can choose how we will respond and how we will live our lives.

I’m so grateful to this woman today. She was heaven-sent for sure, another sign I am on the right track, choosing happiness.

What signs are you seeing right now? Who is bringing them to you? If you don’t feel like you know, just choose your own intention: I am willing to start seeing signs right now.

Now, step back and wait for it. Big things are about ready to happen that will lift you up and take you to new shores, happy shores. How great is that?

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You may not be surprised to discover that I consider myself an artist. This isn’t from the mere fact of being a writer. No, I also love to draw, paint, sculpt, and throw on the pottery wheel. Oh, and let’s not forget about cooking (that’s a big one for this former chef).

I love hanging out with artistic people, and I love being creative.

There’s a great joy that comes when I make a connection with another artist. A few years ago, I bought a beautiful Celtic necklace to wear at my first Nora Roberts’ party from an artist named Karen who lives in Washington State. You can understand how I wanted something special for such an event, since Nora had given me her blessing for NORA ROBERTS LAND. Well, I found a special dress for the party as well, a fabulous one-shoulder number, and I had a moment of inspiration. I wanted an arm band. You know, something like a Roman woman would have worn when Julius Caesar was alive. I contacted Karen and asked if she could make me a matching arm band, and we got to talking.

She was also pursuing her dream of making beautifully inspiring jewelry and trying to phase out her day job. I was on a similar path with my writing at the time. Our spirits clicked, and we talked about our divine purpose and how magical things become when we start living our highest expression.

She ended up offering me the arm band in exchange for promotion, and that piece has been on my website under my favorite things ever sense.

Happiness is making artistic connections.

But it didn’t end there. She said she’d make me a special necklace when I became published, and she made something so magical that I had to wait for the most perfect occasion: a major publishing party with other bestselling authors and my favorite gents from Apple’s iBooks. I found another fabulous one-shoulder dress pictured with this post—something hard to find—but the style of which I adore. The combination was perfect.

For me, supporting other artists is fun. Readers and other authors support me, and I’m grateful for the connection. Yet supporting Karen,
this talented artist, and seeing what she can create…well, it makes me so happy. And of course, people always ask about jewelry like this. It’s so far from anything I ever imagined wearing when I was growing up in the Midwest. And of course, Karen supported me too. I sent her an autographed book and some postcards, which she left with some local galleries, spreading the word.

Is there someone you could support who is artistic? Is there a trade you might do to help each other out? Be creative. Something might surprise you. And you’ll make an artistic connection of the happiest sort.

For more information about Karen’s magical jewelry, visit her website at http://www.mysticmetaldesigns.com/.

You may remember how I wrote about letting go of relationships that just weren’t working. You know, the kind where things just aren’t gelling between the two of you—or worse, you feel like you’re giving more than receiving.

I was in this situation with someone who had been one of my best friends a year and some back. I decided to let go. So did she. We went our separate ways.

A few days ago, I received a call from a number I didn’t recognize and let it go to voicemail since I had just gotten home. When I listened to it, boy was I surprised to hear the voice of my friend. Her message was filled with love and kindness and a desire for a reconnection.

In my heart, I knew we were receiving a blessing—a second chance—and called her back. Whatever hadn’t gelled between us before was gone. As I told her, we aren’t the same people we were then. We talked for almost an hour, catching up on each other’s lives.

Happiness is reconnecting with old friends.

It struck me how this lovely surprise was part of an ongoing theme recently. When I have let go of something, I am receiving it often in a version that is a thousand times better.

And the key? I have to let go.

That was always hard for the old me, but the new me sees the blessing in it. I appreciate the freedom it gives me. And since I trust it to Spirit, the Universe, whatever you call it, I know it’s in good hands.

I always say people can surprise me. I especially love when I surprise myself. People can change, and so can we.

We can reconnect with people we thought gone from our material lives.

How cool is that?

So if you need to let go of someone right now, take heart. You may be reconnecting with them in the future in a more wonderful way than you could ever have imagined.

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It’s no secret that I love what I do. Only a love like this could have me continue to write after each rejection or well into the night after a long day at the office. Only a love this strong could make me walk away from a well-established, successful career to become a full-time writer.

“Follow your bliss,” the wise Joseph Campbell said, and following mine has changed my life for the better.

Yet for a long time, I thought I was the only one who loved what I did. Then there was my incredible family, whose support means the world. A few people started to be added into the mix here and there, but still not a lot of people.

I write because it makes me happy. If you’re looking for your life purpose, trust that feeling and run with it.

After working for a number of years as a writer, I have come to a place where other people love my work. More readers show up each day, talking about how much they love my books and how it’s changing their lives.

Happiness is having other people love your work.

The glow in my heart when I receive a delightful review or a heartfelt email from a reader rivals a million fireflies. Having people love your work makes them part of your community, part of your family in some ways. We’re connecting around characters, their journeys, their emotions, and the deeper message that holds it all together (what my old writing professors called themes).

This is a sacred space, this nexus of mutual love for one’s work. And I’m grateful for it.

When you look at your work, do other people love what you do as much as you do? Or perhaps we need to back up and ask, “Do you love what you do?”

When you start asking those questions and find yourself filled with happiness, you know you are on the path to glory. Not the material kind, although that is a lovely outcome, but the one where you are in full alignment with your purpose in the world and are attracting all of the right people to enjoy and support it.

Friends, that place is a kind of paradise, and I am happy to be residing in it after so many cold winters. My prayer and wish is that you will all find your own soul-nurturing paradises through you life purpose if you haven’t already.

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I used to be afraid of surprises. In my old way of thinking, surprises meant something bad: change for the worse, a deviation from my plans, or a new player in my life who was going to cause me trouble.

Now I call in wonderful surprises every morning before I get out of bed. Bring them on, I say. The more magical, the more miraculous the better.

Recently, my circle has been growing again on the business front. I’ve had a good feeling about someone, what I call a God feeling (good feeling, god feeling, get it?), and I run with it. We start out talking business, and then the magic happens. One comment or question during a business conversation blows the door open to an unexpected connection. I’ve discovered connections to my old career of rebuilding war zones to spiritual connections, and it’s made me say, aha!, I knew there was something about that person. We were brought together for a reason.

Happiness is unexpected connections.

How often have we heard someone say they felt a person was a kindred spirit? I know I have felt it many times and hope to feel it many more. In the beginning, you may not know why the person strikes you so, but as you come to know the person better, you realize what you’d been sensing: commonality, similar ways of thinking, and a mutual sharing of a particular experience.

Nothing makes me happier than when I discover this kind of unexpected connection in my business circles because let’s face it, there’s no need to put business in a small box of rules and “unfun” where nothing special and magical can enter. I want all my relationships to have fullness of life and meaning. They make me happy.

What have been those unexpected connections for you? Have they lasted forever or only for a season or a day? How happy were you when you discovered all that you had in common?

I met a man on a trip to Istanbul many years ago, and with him, I felt that special spark of connection. I don’t even remember his name now, but I remember our connection. And in case you are thinking it was romantic, you’d be wrong. We both took a boat ride together on the Bosphoros and talked about traveling and other things I can’t recall anymore. But I’ve never forgotten him. He was an unexpected connection in a place very far away from home. He said that meeting people on the road is like eating an ice cream cone: marvelous while it lasts. I’ve loved that image ever sense.

So, call in with me more of those ice-cream-cone moments or those forever moments through unexpected connections. They’ll add to your happiness factor, I promise.

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