Transformation

Just this week, I came across a saying that gave me pause.

You don’t get what you want.

You get what you believe.

My first thought was holy moly. I’d better check my beliefs.

I’ll admit I sometimes fall back into old negative habits where I get frustrated when I don’t get what I want. What about you? Platitudes like—You don’t get what you want. You get what you need—never worked for me. I’d scratch my head and ask myself, “Why in the world did I need this?” It was painful or really hard. And don’t even get me started on platitudes that say: It was meant to be or It will all work out like it’s meant to.

I have finally learned that I’m the co-creator of my life. I am not a victim or circumstance or fate. When I started acting this way, e.g. believing it, my life really started to become happier.

Happiness is believing it.

What do you believe? About yourself and your life? This week I am writing down my ten core beliefs about myself and my life and deleting the ones I don’t like. Here’s a preview.

I am lovable. Keep.

I am powerful. Keep.

Great things happen to me all the time. Keep.

I’m still having to work way too hard for the good stuff. Delete.

I sometimes don’t know what to do. Delete.

What does your list look like? Join with me to take inventory and believe your way to a happier life. Every day my happiness percentage increases, and because of that, I know yours can too.

 

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For a long while, I thought home was a place outside myself, a place where I could feel safe and happy and comfortable. It’s taken me some time to realize that my true home is inside of me. It’s that quiet center where everything settles into peace, joy, and contentment. It’s the sanctuary from the busy, chatty mind who wants to tell me all the reasons something won’t work or all the ways that I’m wrong.

Happiness is making a home inside yourself.

It seems so obvious now, but it wasn’t. I thought home was a place, the building I lived in. I even thought it was my family. But it’s none of those things. All of them are impermanent. All of them can’t fully be everything to me. I am the only one who can be everything to me. I am the only one who can truly see to all my needs.

So, I’m keeping it simple this week. I’m seeking that special place inside me more and more as I surrender to the unknown, to a future that sometimes seems less than clear. I am home. I always have a home. I can always find that home. It’s inside of me.

Are you at home inside yourself? Are you giving your power away to a person or a building? Join me and find that sanctuary inside yourself. Watch the happiness pour in like sunlight when you find it. It’s well worth the trip—and the stay.

 

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Do you love yourself? It took a long time for me to feel real love for myself, and there are still times when I feel shame over the shadows inside me.

Do you remember when you stopped loving yourself? I’m not sure it happens in one moment. We come into this world thinking we’re wonderful, knowing how beautiful we truly are. But that gets eroded, like the sea buffeting the coastline over time and changing its landscape.

My mom reminded me of a story last night, one I hadn’t thought of for some time. She always made our birthday cakes into shapes, sometimes an elephant, sometimes a giraffe. This particular birthday cake, she made a girl. My mom said I cried over this cake, and she was right I did, but I’m not sure she ever understood why. My mom had used yellow frosting for hair instead of brown, like my own. And she’d painted bright-blue freckles on her face, which stood out so starkly against the white cake that the girl looked like she had measles. I’m sure my mom made these choices unconsciously. She was only trying to make a beautiful cake. But I cried because I didn’t have blond hair, and I was ashamed of my freckles. That cake represented me not being good enough as I was. And when you aren’t told you’re pretty or special, there’s little to reinforce the newly sprung lie in your own consciousness. And so it begins.

I remember watching “The Help” and was simply revolutionized by the scene where Aibileen is rocking her blond little charge and having her repeat, “You is kind. You is smart. You is important.” She is reminding that little girl who she is. In that moment, I wished someone had done that for me, and then I realized I had to do that for me and my children and every other person on the planet. And I needed to add: “You is beautiful.”

Happiness is loving yourself.

Sometimes we get lucky and start out with people who love us for who we truly are and don’t try and change us into their image of them. For the rest of us, we have to find the love we have inside us for ourselves and nurture it and grow it, ever fanning the flames.

Take a moment to call up one of your first memories when you felt wrong or ugly or stupid. Bless that little child you were. Hold him or her and say with me: You are kind. You are smart. You are important. You are beautiful. But most of all, my dear ones, you are loveable.

 

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I pretty much feel like one of my perennials bursting through the cold, hard ground. It’s been dark for many months, but I have taken care of my roots. Now it’s time to see how much I can grow after all this fertilizing and resting.

I’m ready to burst past limitations. I’m ready to burst past other plants around me who want to stay the same. I’m ready to rise as high as I can to feel the sun on my body as I unfold more and more.

There’s an urgency in me right now, one that’s driving me past all the old darkness and coldness to fresh air and more space. Expansion. Yes, expansion. I can’t wait to see where it’s going, but I know there’s only one direction I am going and that’s up.

Sure, I don’t mind a little healthy pruning, but this plant, this new me is ready to burst out.

Happiness is bursting out.

Today the bursting out came in speaking my truth to someone trying to trample on me and my desire for growth. She told me to wait to pursue my dreams, the one I have been doggedly pursuing for some time now. I told her that if I had taken that advice I would never had quit my old successful career to publish books as a writer. Playing it safe isn’t my nature. I am radical that way perhaps, but I have to follow the call in my soul.

What is the call in your soul right now? Are you bursting out into something? Don’t worry if you don’t know what. I’m still not sure where it’s all going to go either.

But just remember what I do. It’s only going to lead to one thing. More time in the beautiful, magical sunlight. And that thought keeps me going. It makes me happy because I know I am going to get there. I plan to enjoy the climb.

 

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My niece’s pigtails were uneven today when I saw her. Even my brother commented on it, saying he needed to do them again. They just weren’t even. Drew attention to them rather than her sweet, smiling, drooling face. Her head looked off -balance, almost like she was listing to the right.

Sometimes we feel like that. A little uneven. A little off center. I tweaked my back this week, and everything has felt like that. Actions I used to take without a thought like getting out of bed have become a hardship. Pain has become a teacher, and I reluctantly bid him welcome again.

Sometimes we need take break down before we can be re-knit into a higher version of our selves.

Happiness is unraveling.

This is the time when we hold onto the promise of happiness, the knowing that if we just take a the time to unravel those uneven pigtails and redo them again, so to speak, then we’re going to be better off. We’re going to be happier.

When we are uneven and unbalanced, we simply aren’t happy, are we? We can’t be. It’s not how we are made.

So, I let myself unravel more. Slow down. Give more attention to what my body and heart are telling me. I rest. I listen.

And when it’s time, I start braiding the pieces back together again, this time with more clarity, with more attention.

When I am finished, I’ll be happier than I imagined.

What needs to unravel for you right now?

 

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Recently I wrote about going after your dreams once again when you didn’t achieve them the first or second time. Well, I made another go at mine this past weekend, and I have to tell you: I didn’t reach them.

Sure, there were other wonderful moments. New people encountered. Signs that I am on the right path. Encouragement to keep going. And I will…

But.

It’s time to surrender.

I’m learning, albeit slowly, how to keep moving forward while surrendering the situation. It sometimes seems like I’m living in a cloud as I attempt to keep my feet on the ground I know while my head is filled with this imagined reality.

So, it hasn’t happened yet. I don’t know how it’s going to happen. I just know it will.

The burning in our hearts for our dreams is a sign we are on the right track. Perhaps the puzzle pieces haven’t lined up. Heck, some of the puzzle pieces may not have arrived yet. But it’s coming together.

Right now though it’s about surrendering it once again. Being willing to hand the pieces I have in my fist that don’t fit right now to something bigger, someone bigger than my human self.

Have you ever felt the same?

Surrendering is a tough term for me. It used to mean a powerless state. Now I see it as the place I come to when I have to trust there’s something more guiding me, which I believe. I can’t do it all myself, even though I sometimes forget that. I have to surrender to something more to bring my dreams about.

How do you feel about surrender? What does it look like for you? Is there something you need to surrender, even for a time? Join me. Let’s see what happens.

Right now it’s the only happiness I see.

 

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Sometimes it’s easy to forget the building blocks of happiness. I had a wake-up call this week as I was reading Michael Singer’s book, The Untethered Soul. He talked about complaining.

Ugh. Complaining.

I realized I’d slipped back into some more passive forms of complaining. It’s so busy right now. I have so much on my plate. Can’t seem to fit it all in. I’m tired.

Fill in your own blank.

Talk about taking away the energy of happiness. I love what I do, but when I feel busy, I’m draining that joy away, leeching it with the worry of stress.

And there’s stuff in my personal life too I’ve been assigning a less than beautiful blue ribbon.

So, I decided to stop complaining—really watch how I talked inside my head (super important too) as well as to others. For thirty days.

Happiness is Taking The Thirty Day Challenge.

Why thirty days? Who not sixty? Why not a lifetime? Well, when we’re doing something like this, we need to start small. And thirty days is the time it takes the brain to (re)learn something and set a habit.

Here’s an example. When I had to take the car into the mechanic yesterday unexpectedly, I didn’t complain. I stopped the blah, blah from starting and said instead, How lucky am I to have the most wonderful, honest mechanic who will fix this for me and make things new.

Did I wince a little at the unexpected outlay? Sure. We have to be real, but I didn’t go into the blah, blah. I didn’t let it ruin my day.

I chose to remain happy—no matter what. Am I really going to let my car steal that from me? No.

Are you up to The Thirty Day Challenge? If thirty days seems like too much, start smaller and then extend it. Be patient with yourself like I am when you start the old talk. Just stop. Start over. You can always make a new choice. Then watch how more happiness you have in your daily bank, lightening your mood.

 

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It’s been over a month since I’ve written about happiness you might have noticed. The holidays brought a bad cold that lingered. Coupled with a book to finish, life became simple.

Take care of me.

Get healthy.

Write.

Happiness is taking a break.

Sometimes that’s all we can do when we’re feeling depleted or stretched. I didn’t feel lots of happiness as I was sick, let me tell you, but I was honoring where I was and not trying to force myself to be where I couldn’t be.

Things slowed down. And that’s okay. There are times when we need to take a break. I find we’ve usually spent so much of our energy with the holidays, traveling, shopping, and then managing family dynamics that we’re all pretty much spent by the time the new year rolls around.

So, this is a simple post. A footstep back to the road of bliss and joy. It’s a quiet intention.

I hope it touches your heart where you are.

A wise friend recently told me something I’ve heard (even said myself) a thousand times, but this time I really heard it. You know. The light bulb went on big time.

I’ve talked about happiness being a choice. Heck, I’ve talked about trust being a choice.

The truth is everything is a choice.

In talking about a current life lesson I was going through, my friend said I needed to decide. She’d just done a similar thing in her situation. Later I was reading some inspiring reflections, and I came across the same words. It said I need to decide what I wanted and what I didn’t want.

That evening I spent over an hour simply saying, “I decide X,” and “I choose Y.” It was empowering. I highly recommend it.

Happiness is hearing it.

I’ve grown up enough to know blaming others for something I don’t have simply isn’t the truth. I am responsible for my life and my feelings. I also know I’m not the victim of anything. I choose how I want to view my experience, how I live my life.

So, I’m keeping it simple again. Life is a matter of choice. As we crest into the new year, I can’t think of a more appropriate exercise. Choose the life you want. Review all the places you don’t feel like you’re choosing something (this is usually the junky stuff we need to let go of). I’ve made an inventory of my life, and I feel ready and able to take the next step into manifesting more of the life I truly want, the life I deserve.

Decide for yourself and let the support come in. Boldly move forward in the direction of your dreams. Claim your prize. Life is yours. It always has been and always will be. The more I change mine based on my choices, the more I realize how truly powerful we are. How absolutely limitless our possibilities.

My oldest friend from high school and college says she simply can’t believe how much I have changed since I was that fourteen-year-old girl she first met.

Anything is possible.

Choose possible.

I am.

 

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There have been times in my life when I felt stuck or disillusioned. One of the best antidotes I’ve found to this problem is to change things up. Do things differently.

This past US holiday of Thanksgiving, I journeyed to Paris. I’ve never been away from my family of origin for the holidays, but my siblings decided to make Christmas our main gathering time this year. Instead of staying home and doing something less than inspired, I asked myself what would be the most fun thing I could do for the holiday. The answer was clear. Go to Paris.

I love Paris. There’s a magic there, a beauty both grandiose and simple if you pay attention. Of course, the food boggles this chef’s mind, and I savored many of their finest delicacies.

But there was a reckoning as well, one I had planted the seeds some time past. A number of years ago, I was headed to Paris and working on my first novel, Nora Roberts Land. I was in the process of trying to be published, so I brought the manuscript to a magical location once frequented by great authors like Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald: Brasserie Lipp. With reverence, I rested my manuscript on the table, and at times during a break in courses, I would read from the novel to my companion. And dreamed about being published. I noticed an empty table in a prime location in the restaurant, and my heart told me it was Hemingway’s table.

When I asked the maître d about the table, he confirmed my feeling. I told him about my novel and asked if we could sit at that table for dessert. He said it was reserved for special guests only, but that when I got published, I could sit at Hemingway’s table for a drink.

On this trip, a cool Friday night, I dressed to the nines and headed out with my companion to Brasserie Lipp carrying my newest novel. I’ve published thirteen titles including NORA ROBERTS LAND, and it wasn’t hard to see how far I’d come as a writer since I’d crossed the hallowed threshold of this special place a while back.

When I asked to see the maitre d, he was kind to me. Of course, he didn’t remember our conversation, but he immediately showed us to Hemingway’s table after hearing my story and seeing the published book in my hands. We had champagne and toasted how far I’ve come. I smiled from ear-to-ear. I cried too, thinking about all of the challenges I had surmounted to reach this beautiful moment. And I was in awe too because I could feel Hemingway’s spirit shining down on another writer who’s picked up the magical mantle of words. Even better, when we asked about having dinner, the maître d said we didn’t have to move anywhere. We could eat at Hemingway’s table. Talk about abundance.

Happiness is doing things differently. Big time.

Doing things differently has led me to nearly every wonderful change in my life. This trip was no exception. And it confirmed the other thing I have learned, which was hard to overcome as a young woman: Ask for what you want. Always.

You might just be surprised by how easily you get it.