What Does Happiness Mean To You? #MondayBlogs

I was invited to do a talk for a motivational group recently on the theme of ‘Heaven on Earth.' I spent a long time thinking about what that meant to me.

Eventually, I decided that happiness was the one thing that gave me contentment. But sometimes we think that happiness is out of our reach – it’s something to work towards – a goal if you like.

When I’m at home, and I talk about setting goals, I can see my kid’s eyes begin to glaze over. ‘Oh god, she's off on one of her hippie trips again!’

That’s okay; they’re young. Goals aren’t as important to them. For them, happiness is already a huge part of their life; they don’t need to think about setting goals to achieve it.

Mindfulness in 3 Easy Steps #wwwBlogs

When I tell people how much I enjoy mindfulness, I am often met with a slight resistance. Occasionally, people will be positive about the benefits of mindfulness in their lives. However, far too many people believe it to be too difficult, or worse, time-consuming.

I can’t emphasis enough the importance of being in the moment. That means, not stressing about the past, or worrying about what’s in the future. Anxiety increases when we live in a constant turmoil of ‘why did I say that last week?’ or ‘will I be able to make that speech next month?’

Being mindful helps us in so many ways:

I'm Enjoying Not Living In The Now

My topic for this week was going to be about living in the now.  However, I can’t stop thinking about at an exciting future event, or the past event that allowed this future event to happen – you still with me?  To summarise - I haven’t got a hope in hell of living in the moment, at the moment.

Is that a bad thing?  I don’t think so.  When time allows, I enjoy nothing more than being silent, or absorbing myself in a task such as walking, drawing, crafts or my writing.  Each of these activities enables me to be in the now, and I feel so much better for it. 

For today though I am somewhere else!

 

The reason for my abandonment of all things meditative is, in my opinion, a just and valid cause.