Tag: joy

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Advice to Myself – Choose Wonder

Wonder of Nature

Each moment of life holds a choice; I can sleepwalk through my days or wake in wonder to this miraculous planet and all the beautiful beings I share it with.  Through my meditation practice, I’ve learned that focus and awareness shift everything. Whatever I focus on, increases.

How much richer can day to day reality become if awareness and joy became top priority?  Whenever I choose joy and wonder, the world seems to shower me with even more joyful and miraculous experiences. Learn more about being joyfully mindful here: Wake up to wonder.

I have a choice in every moment

I choose joy and wonder now!

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A Blessing of Solitude

Winter Morning
Winter Morning

May you recognize in your life, the presence, power and light of your soul.
May you realize that you are never alone,
That your soul in its brightness and belonging
connects you intimately with the rhythm of the universe.
May you have respect for your own individuality and difference.
May you realize that the shape of your soul is unique,
that you have a special destiny here,
That behind the facade of your life
there is something beautiful, good, and eternal happening.
May you learn to see yourself with the same delight, pride,
and expectation with which God sees you in every moment.

~John O’Donohue
Anam Cara

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Shadows and Joy

Shadow Joy

“We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think.
When the mind is pure,  joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.”
~Buddha

Joy can seem as elusive and slippery as a soap bubble.

Yet once, years ago in meditation, I realized that joy and misery lie just a hair’s width apart within my mind. The image of joy and misery just micrometers apart within me, was so clear that I startled and came out of my reverie giggling. I remember that moment in vivid detail even now years later.  And I know that I choose whether I will feel joy or misery or something in between in this moment. And the next. And the next.

It only takes a tiny shift in the mind to move from misery into joy; a micron of a shift; just a slightly altered point of view.

Breathe. And breathe again. Deep, slow breaths that fill your lungs. And feel whatever body sensations are present now; feel the sensations that joy is hiding behind. Breathe and feel your body. Then allow joy to step out of the shadows and be here now.

Can it really be that simple? Yes. Yes!

“A human being is only breath and shadow.”
~Sophocles

☯