Transformation

There’s been a slew of good news surrounding me lately. My one sister landed a major piece of her dream this week. A best friend has decided to get married. Joy abounds.

Happiness is celebrating other people’s joy.

I’ve had my own great news lately, and the one thing that surprised me is that not everyone can fully celebrate my joy sometimes. They feel sad or conflicted about it. It’s been interesting to witness. Of course, I’ve been there too. Someone had something happen to them that I wanted to have happen to me. I was happy for them, but there was the whole “me” piece that prevented a total celebration.

What’s up with that anyway? Are we so focused on ourselves that we can’t get out of our own way to fully support a close one’s new joy?

I’m happy to see how much of a shift I’ve experienced because I don’t feel any of that “me” stuff with these two people. I only feel joy. Yeah. I know and trust good things are coming my way, so I don’t have to feel any lack in this situation.

What about you? When someone shares exciting news with you, are you able to celebrate fully with them? Or is there some part of you holding back because you’re feeling bad about your own space?

We need to be real about how we feel. I’m not saying we deny it. What I am saying is that when we feel this lack we need to ask ourselves why and delve into it so we can clear it from our lives.

Happiness flourishes so much easier that way.

 

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What do we do when we find ourselves and our lives mirroring the season of fall by dying back so new life can emerge this spring? My circle and I seem to be in this cycle right now, and at times, while the knowledge of growth is exciting, the process doesn’t always feel that happy.

With this process facing me and mine, I decided to make another choice. To do as much as I could to surround myself with the things that make me happy as it unfolds. Be present with it, yes, but not wallow in it.

An interesting analogy popped into my mind as I was thinking about it all. I am a writer, you know. We often decorate our homes around this time of year with things that have or were dying away in nature. The pine combs and fall leaves that fall from the trees going dormant become artful centerpieces for our holiday tables. The holly tree outside my house provides beautiful branches for a festive wreath.

Happiness is Repackaging.

Do we look at the gorgeous fall leaves and get all depressed, thinking about that color being a symbol of their impending death? No. We stand in wonder at their glory.

We too are glorious during these cycles. It’s just sometimes harder for us to see because…well, the dying back, the changing of our inner selves, hurts sometimes. We have to fall off the tree.

But we can forge a new path with it all and do our best to be present with the changes and feelings while also repackaging how we think about the whole process.

I won’t kid a kidder. There are times in our lives when we’re not dancing for joy, when happiness feels elusive, when we’re flat out hurting. It’s part of being human.

Yet there are things we can do for ourselves to try and lift us back up, people we can be around who support us.

Repackage these moments. I expect you will find pockets of happiness. Even better, I hope you will break through to greater happiness soon—like I plan to do.

 

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Sometimes we make it harder than it needs to be. We over-think it.

But not today. Not in this moment.

What makes you happy?

Come on, think of just three little things.

Mine?

Writing, Dancing, Cooking.

Okay, now join me. Just do it. Pick a few to have fun with this next week and see how happy you end up becoming.

 

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Are there things in your life you feel like you’ve been waiting for? Working toward? Striving for?

If so, well, I hear you. I have a list of those things too. And I’m tired of it. Tired of thinking I have to wait, work more, strive harder.

Happiness is Saying Now.

I am ready for them. I want them. I deserve them. Now.

I’m done waiting. I’m done trying to earn them. It’s time for them to magically show up.

I had lunch with another writer friend recently, and she said something that really sparked a truth in me. When we were discussing the growth of my books, she said I had decided to be successful and that’s why it happened. And she’s right.

I didn’t leave my old career thinking this wouldn’t work out. Of course, I had fear and bad days and it took some time for things to grow for sure. Sometimes I did wonder what was going to happen. But I never once stopped saying I was going to do what I was doing—no matter what. I was willing to sell my house and find a smaller place. Pick up consulting work from the old career. I wasn’t going to stop being a writer and writing books.

I have a couple of things on my outstanding list I have selected. For the past few weeks, I have been saying Now. I am ready. I’m going to have this no matter what.

What’s on your list?

Join me. Pick a couple of things and really set the intention with me to receive it now. Leave aside how it will show up or in what form. Then open your arms to receive.

We deserve it.

 

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Enlightenment can come anywhere. I am always open to it showing up either in the most obvious places, the most mundane, or the most unexpected.

It showed up in a paragraph in a historical romance novel by Sherry Thomas, my new Iris Johansen. Her book, Not Quite A Husband, is an excellent read and one I re-read often late at night.

The hero says he’s going to trust the heroine in the pivotal moment of decision in the book. And it hit me. That aha moment we all crave.

Trust is a choice.

Just like happiness.

The two choices seemed to merge like the strands of a double helix. If you trust, you’re happy. If you’re happy, you trust.

Voila.

Trust is territory I am still gaining headway in after some disappointments and betrayals. You probably have your own. Instead of saying, “I want to trust,” I’m going to say, “I trust.” Period.

How are you with trust? Is it easy for you?

Join me today. Make the choice. Trust.

Let’s all be happy.

 

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Six years ago when I decided my entire life needed to head in a new direction due to some chronic physical injuries and overall unhappiness in my life, I was guided by someone I trusted to a wise woman. In one of our first meetings, she asked me this earth-shattering question:

Can you imagine living your life and not caring what anyone thought about you?

My immediate response after my stunned shock was: “No, but I really, really want that life.”

That day I set the intention to start letting go of approval from others. I said I had no idea what it looked like or how it could happen, but I knew the help would come to show me how to do it.  I’ve been really happy I made this choice even though there are still times when I can feel I’m back in approval-seeking mode with my family (this pattern seems to be the hardest one to break for me and my closest confidants), my friends, colleagues, readers, and heck, even sometimes new people I meet.

What I realized is that I am hurt when I don’t feel like people “approve” of me because it means they don’t love me or like me—that some part of me is either unwanted or not valued. That I am somehow wrong.

This approval stuff is some of the toughest transformational groundwork we can find ourselves in. Honestly, I don’t know that I was even aware I was participating in all of the approval-seeking madness until six years ago when I heard that pivotal question. I just thought “this is the way things worked.” The pattern was straightforward: I do X like this person wanted, and I get back what I thought I needed (love and approval).

What a trap.

Happiness is letting go of approval.

Now, I won’t BS this one. It’s hard. We’re conditioned at such a young age by this. We’re told we’re a “good girl” or “big girl” when we do something right according to X person and a “bad girl” or “baby” when we do something X doesn’t like. Flip the pronouns if you’re a guy (I know you get this stuff too).

We can’t escape other people having judgments of us, but we can free ourselves from them. How do I do this? Well, first I have to realize it’s happening. Okay, here I am again, being hurt and upset or trying to jump through hoops because I want someone’s approval or they don’t approve of me, and I’m trying to earn it. Then I have to be willing to release my need for it. To tell myself, there is NOTHING wrong with me. I am whole and complete as I am regardless of what they say or think of me.

Sound hard? It is. But perhaps if we all join together to free ourselves more, it will become easier. We can laugh in the face of a nasty book review by someone who didn’t get the message. We can stay at peace when a coworker or boss takes us to task. We can still love ourselves and know we have worth when a family member tries to shame us for behavior they don’t approve of.

You have worth. I have worth.

Don’t let anyone else tell you differently.

 

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Perhaps since my heroine in my latest novel, THE CHOCOLATE GARDEN, found her true voice, it’s been on my mind. I’ve been in the process of finding my own as well over the past couple of years, and like my character, Tammy Hollins, it is a beautiful and sometimes messy process.

At first, it’s rather strange to realize you don’t have a voice, and what the heck do I mean by that? Well, what you were saying and expressing wasn’t how you truly felt. No, those things were held in a private place inside either because they weren’t allowed to be said or when you did say them, they were shut down or not acknowledged by the person you said them to.

Tammy doesn’t find it easy to express her true feelings, and I get that. It’s hard. We’re so scared we won’t be loved if we do, but the truth is, we’re only harming ourselves. Stuffing our feelings more and more inside ourselves, refusing to acknowledge them makes people sick, depressed, and lonely. We’re not exactly being honest with the other person either, are we? Oh, the tangled webs… Worse, what I realized and what Tammy realized is that we are betraying ourselves—the worst betrayal of all.

The truth is that when we find our voice, we return to happiness.

Sure, some of the conversations at first might be tough, and continue to be, until the people around us start to listen and see who we truly are, but we must press on. There’s liberation here, and it’s the Holy Grail as far as I am concerned.

Katy Perry’s song “Love Me” has been an insightful masterpiece into this journey of finding our voice again. The lyrics are the mantra I want to live my life by:

No more second guessing
No, there’s no more questioning
I’ll be the one defining who I’m gonna be
No concealing feelings, or changing seasonally
I’m gonna love myself, the way I want you to love me

And that’s it, right? We all want to be loved, but is it really love when we stop speaking with our true voice and instead speak with the voice that the one we love wants to hear? My heroine ends up in an abusive marriage with destructive family patterns because of the loss of her voice.

But she breaks free. The pressure of being miserable is too much. She doesn’t want her kids to end up like she did. She makes the choice to be happy again. Just like I did.

So, if you’re afraid to speak with your true voice, know you’re not alone. Everyone is at first, and sometimes there are moments when it doesn’t seem worth it. But if you silence yourself, in some ways, you are killing the person you truly are. And how will any of us ever be happy doing that?

Loving ourselves means being willing to stop concealing feelings and speak with our true voice—no matter what.

Be brave. Take the leap. Everything inside you will be cheering, even as you may stand on the edge of the cliff with your knees quaking. Happiness is only a few steps away.

 

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Limits, you ask? Why in the world am I talking about honoring limits when I have written at length about being limitless?

Perhaps it was sitting in jury duty recently for a DUI case (for which I was not selected as a juror). Or perhaps it was coming back from my annual writing conference with thousands of other writers.

Let’s face it. The body has its limits. It’s the sensing mechanism of our moods, our energy levels, even our own toxicity as in the case of the DUI I just noted.

We are unlimited in the mind. Yes, unlimited. There isn’t anything we can’t do or perceive or imagine in the mind. So too are our emotions. We can love and feel joy without any limits. And our spirit, well, if you have ever prayed or meditated or just taken a moment to appreciate the sacred, you know there are no limits there too.

But the body? Well, I treat mine as a sacred vessel now after all of the poor hardships it experienced for many years. This week I ran smack dab into the brick wall of reality. I was exhausted after non-stop workshops, parties, and late-night chats with girlfriends. The brain was also over-loaded, crammed with all sorts of goodies from the workshops. Like unpacking a bag when you come home from a trip, I needed to unpack my mind, my body, my emotions—even my spirit.

I wanted to start writing the new book right away when I returned. How often have we heard that the mind is willing but the body…

For a long time, I didn’t listen to my body. I didn’t honor its limits. I ignored them, denied them, ran away from them. Heck I even pretended that I didn’t know about them. And it all caught up with me.

Is any of this sounding familiar?

So I had to take a break this week. Lighten up my schedule to re-energize. And while I am not completely restored yet, able to do cartwheels without grim resignation, I am getting closer.

Happiness is honoring our limits.

What are your limits? Do you listen to your body when it sounds the alerts? Like falling asleep on the way to work—as you are driving—or not being able to concentrate in a meeting or even remember what your spouse or kids just said to you?

When we take care of ourselves and listen to those limits, we honor the sacred in each of us. I had to ask myself the last few days, does this task really need to be done today or this week? Can I shift anything to next week? Will the world end if I don’t do this task just this minute?

When your body is giving you a nice smack in the face about your limits, don’t ignore it. Take that nap. Sit for a moment. Go to bed earlier. Put off doing the laundry or even cleaning up the kitchen. Order take-out.

Honor your limits. When you do, you honor yourself.

You’ll find you’re a heck of a lot happier.

 

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You may or may not know that I used to travel the world to distant lands to help people overcome poverty, corruption, human rights abuses, conflict, genocide, illiteracy, gender discrimination, government oppression, health concerns like HIV/AIDS and malaria, and a whole host of other problems. That was the “old” job, and when I left it to launch into writing full-time, I knew I was following my calling, but there was a piece of me who missed being connected to people from other cultures and empowering them as best as I could.

After some major new interest from foreign publishers and readers from across the globe, it’s struck me that I am global—again—but as a writer, one of my highest expressions in the world.

This has brought tears to my eyes more than once, but there’s one story in particular I want to share. I learned through a sales channel called Kobo that I had sold some books in Saudi Arabia. Now I used to work exclusively on the Middle East for almost six years and then continued to do so when my portfolio expanded to include Africa, Asia, and Latin America again. This part of the world, especially Saudi Arabia, isn’t what I would call a friendly market for romance/women’s fiction novels like mine. These countries have censors, and there are many active controls that limit artistic expression and consumption.

When I learned of these sales, all I could wonder was whether these women (I couldn’t imagine a Saudi man reading my books, but if so, awesome) were garbed in solid black, as is the custom. Were they completely veiled with only their eyes showing? Were they buying my books and reading them with their husband’s knowledge? How had they even gotten a device? Where had they learned English? And what in the world did they think when they’d finished reading?

Now, my first book, NORA ROBERTS LAND, is about a divorced woman finding true love again. You have to understand, women in Saudi Arabia can’t get divorced, so even reading about this story is…well, a bit forbidden and a bit foreign. This is not their sphere of influence.

My books are all about empowerment and breaking free of the things that bind you to unhappiness. With this new knowledge of my global reach, I realized I am still touching people overseas—just with my books. Who knows what might have changed in these women as they read about my divorced heroine’s journey?

Happiness is being global again.

Sometimes you think you are giving up something, only to discover it comes back to you even better. I heard a wonderful Buddhist phrase this week on TV of all places that I loved: when a leaf falls, it’s always replaced by another leaf. That’s where I am. I thought I was leaving behind a part of myself that I valued only to reclaim it in the best way possible—from my highest place.

It’s humbling and magnificent and awe-inspiring, all at the same time.

So, if you’re considering giving up something because you know deep down it’s not what you are meant to do, never fear. I bet you’ll find it returned to you a million times better than you ever imagined it, like I have.

 

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Times have been busy lately, so much hustle and bustle on so many new fronts. Today I made a concerted effort to stop and not go in every little direction that popped up. This week especially I have not felt very grounded, running faster than I know is best for me.

How do I know?

I’m not as happy. It takes more effort to smile and laugh and simply shrug things off. You know, things like your washing machine breaking mid-cycle or being called to jury duty.

As I am fond of saying, happiness is a choice, and even I have to practice keeping it at the top of my list of choices so my day looks like this:

1. Being Happy

2. Feeling balanced

3. Finishing x, y, z with grace

4. Refusing to stay busy, busy, busy

5. Releasing fear when it overwhelms me

What’s your list look like?

The other times I know when I am not grounded is when I’m not really looking at the person talking to me. I can’t actually remember five minutes after we part what they were wearing. It’s like I wasn’t even there.

Happiness is Staying Grounded.

How do we do this? Well, how I do it is to realize what’s really important right now. Can I drain the water with the ShopVac out of the washing machine tomorrow since it’s late? Can I write this post a day late since again, I chose to connect with a friend over writing it at midnight? Do I have to do everything on my “list” today?

Then I take a moment to be present for everything I am doing. I look at my hands when they are picking something up or even typing. I really look at and listen to the person I am talking to. I allow myself to feel whatever it is I am feeling in that moment without judgment.

See what staying grounded feels like for you, but I can promise you that when you are feeling that way you are also feeling happy.

Let that feeling guide you!

 

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