Letting go – the easy way
How does one become a butterfly? You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar. Trina Paulus
Look around you. Right now. What do you have in your life that’s important to you?
Now imagine that gone. Completely.
Generally even the thought of losing whatever it is makes us feel sad, overwhelmed or possibly even angry.
`While going throughout the journey in life, you’ll eventually come across a point where you need to let go. It may be letting go of a person in your life, it may be letting go of negative thoughts and feelings, it may be letting go of material things. Letting go is the steepest learning curve in attachment. This week Happiness Weekly looks at how you can let go the easy way!
Acceptance
Part of letting go is acceptance – acceptance that it is gone, acceptance of your feelings and acceptance of the feelings other people have around you about whatever is gone. For example let’s say we lose someone close to us through a relationship break up or death – there’s not a lot we can do about it, it is what it is – but we will have feelings about it and the people around us will have feelings about it. If we can accept what has happened quickly, then what other people think will bounce off us rather than consume us.
Self-validation
I’ve been talking about this a lot lately because it’s true – a lot of the time we look for external validation – but why? We live our lives! Stuff what other people think: What do you think? How do you feel? That’s what matters. Check in with your self and make your internal or self-validation a priority in your life.
Be conscious of attachment
If you know you are attached to something (dependent children are different) – let’s say we’re talking about a house, a spouse, a sports car or a romantic partner, start distancing yourself emotionally from whatever it is you are attached to. Practise thinking about letting go of it in the most positive way you can. This is key in recovering quickly if you are to lose it. Even if you just practise it as a passing thought rather than doing a deep meditation over it – if you are to lose it, your mind is prepared and your subconscious will return you with “Oh yeah, you prepared for this – remember when you were thinking this would happen and this is what you thought…” Don’t panic, it’s not the Law of Attraction, it’s preparing for what may eventually happen.
Challenge your limiting beliefs
If you were to lose whatever it is you’re attached to, what would it stop you from doing? What is it about that thing that you are so afraid of losing it? How does this thing make you a better person now than what you could be without it? If you lost whatever it is you’re attached to, what would it stop you from being? You’ll find when you start challenging your limiting beliefs about the thing you’re attached to, that you’re able to create distance from it. In fact, you may even discover the thing you’re attached to is holding you back.
Believe in yourself
When you believe in yourself, you know exactly what to do. The only way you can believe in yourself is to know who you are. Spend some time on your own exercising your self trust, self acceptance and self love, and learning about yourself and the things you love. Once you know all these things, you’ll be able to believe in yourself, your confidence will grow and you will be ready to face whatever challenge comes your way.
Break it down
Take it one day at a time, one step at a time, one moment at a time. You don’t need to let go all at once. But if you use each day to detach piece by piece, you’ll feel stronger because every time we let go of something, we give more energy and power to ourselves. If you are strong enough to let it all go at once, then more power to you – letting go quickly enables you to start your healing journey faster whereas letting go gradually can sometimes just prolong the pain.
Let it go
If it comes time that you need to put this into practise: give yourself permission to let it go. Consider other positive stories where people have been in your exact situation (or something very similar) and as a result, have gone on to achieve much bigger and better things. Focus on what you do have, not what you don’t have. Focus on what you can do, not what you can’t do. Read positive affirmations and encourage yourself to let the situation strengthen you. Allow it to make you better not bitter. And remember: When you’re going through hell, just keep going – keep going and going until you’re so far removed from that hell that before you know it, you’re floating with angels again. Remember: nothing can hurt us forever.
Finally, if you really want a lesson in letting go, try packing your entire life in a small suitcase and moving overseas to a completely different country … indefinitely. What’s stopping you? Remove the blocks and excuses – and go for it – it will be one of the most empowering things you ever do.
How to establish your purpose in life
Find out who you are and do it on purpose. Dolly Parton
Two weeks ago we said farewell to Charlotte Dawson, a model, television presenter and passionate anti-bullying campaigner. I must say, Alex Perry’s speech at her memorial was absolutely beautiful – what a great friend! If you didn’t catch it, you can see it . I am so happy to know that Charlotte’s campaigning against cyber bullies and trolls will continue despite her departure from the world. Where ever you are, Charlotte, you certainly left your footprint.
Unfortunately when something tragic or unsettling happens to us it’s hard to remember our purpose in life and easy to retreat to the couch in a darkened room with a bucket of ice cream. Yes, I know how it feels. What we need during these times is our own mission to keep us going and that mission will act as a bright light through the darker days. We are talking about the real reason for why you are here, the reason you actually exist. This week Happiness Weekly looks at how you can find your purpose in life which will be strong enough to keep you going through whatever painful or tragic events life throws your way.
1. See everything as an opportunity
Imagine if one day you stopped looking at challenges as problems and started looking at them as possibilities. Opportunities would present themselves, and start to unlock and open as you walk towards them, like an automatic door. Half the time, the reason we’re held back from living a life of purpose is that we don’t know what we want or what we’re looking for.
2. Clear your mind and focus
Clear your mind completely so you can really focus on this exercise. Make sure you won’t be interrupted. Scribble out any final thoughts. Practise some meditation to capture your focus if it helps you. Listen to music. Go for a walk. Everyone has their own unique way of clearing their mind. Whatever yours is, do it and then come back to this. The idea is to get rid of any pre-conceived judgements you have about what you can achieve or your self-worth or anything else which may block you from achieving everything you need to in this exercise.
3. Visualise your perfect life
Write down what your life looks and feels like once all your dreams have come true. Really be in the moment. Touch things, smell things – use all your senses. The more vivid you can be, the better. Consider where you live, how you feel, your hobbies and interests, how you make your money, the people who are you in your life etc. Take one action from this list and start today, to firmly plant your feet in the direction to head where you want to go.
4. Identify your purpose
OK, it’s time for some soul searching – get set to ask yourself a lot of questions:
What do you enjoy doing so much that you would do it without earning money for it?
What makes you feel happy? What makes you feel good about yourself?
What are your favourite leisure activities? What can make you lose track of time?
So you have no regrets, what is the one thing you want to do or accomplish before you die?
Who inspires you the most? And what is it about this person that inspires you?
What are you naturally good at doing? What do other people say you’re good at or come to you for?
If you had to teach something, what would it be?
What would you regret not doing, being or having in your life?
Visualise yourself as a 90+ year old – who matters to you most at the moment?
What challenges, difficulties and hardships have you overcome or are in the process of overcoming and how did you do it?
What causes do you identify with the most and want to make a difference to?
If you could get a message across to a large group of people – who would the people be and what would your message be?
5. Write a list of your current resources
Consider your current resources and abilities and write a list of all the tools that could help you to live a life of purpose. Once you have this list, consider how you could use your current resources to serve, help and contribute. Make some notes next to each tool, ability or resource that you listed and make notes about how each one could be used to do in order to live your life of purpose.
6. Write your personal mission statement
Consider what you want to do, what you want to change or help and what result you want. Put it into a sentence. Too hard? Need more inspiration for this one? Go here.
7. Start today!
Don’t leave it up to chance or wait for the perfect moment to start living your life of purpose – once you figure out what your purpose in life is (by completing the above exercises), start living your life of purpose today! Be intentional with the decisions you make. If you start taking action now you’ll slowly build more confidence in working towards your purpose and soon you’ll be achieving things and be living a strong, purposeful life.
Highly recommended reading:
Helping you find your life purpose by Susan Biali M.D
Life on purpose: 15 questions to discover your personal mission by Tina Su
11 actions you can take today to discover your life purpose by Izzy Arkin
5 lies that kept me from changing my life purpose by Staton Ann Mineshima
How to find your life’s purpose and make yourself a better person by Kevin Wood
Being conscious of our words and how they affect others
The trouble with most of us is that we’d rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism. Norman Vincent Peale
One of the greatest signs of success is when people try to stop you from doing what you’re good at by trying to bring you down. Actually, Habeeb Akande said it best:
Whoever is trying to bring you down is already beneath you.
In my experience, from many years ago when I had my own business promoting unsigned bands, it is these negative comments that can actually stop you going further. In fact, you’ll never know how close you were to success if you give up somewhere in the middle. And it only takes one or two people to get inside your head and plant that seed of doubt, that could cause you to turn your back on everything you’ve worked for.
Let me tell you, the biggest mistake you can make is to quit what you are doing based on a couple of complaints. Remember, the glass is half full, don’t forget who you’re there for and remember all your other followers and supporters before giving up. Sure, if you’re only making a difference to two people and one makes a malicious complaint, then perhaps it’s worth reconsidering if you should continue or not. But if you’re getting hundreds of clicks a day, and regular comments and it’s one person who complains … stick with it!
What inspired this blog today? A couple of things.
I follow a gorgeous Facebook page called “” by Jolita Kelias, who recently posted this:
“Now that the number of my followers have increased immensely in the past couple of weeks due to the work that I do and the message I share, I started receiving plenty of promotional emails which I delete without reading and Hate messages from some of you. I guess some of you are having issues with another person’s happiness and goodness. So here is my message to you:
You have a problem with something, deal with it. Some of you write to me demanding to delete some posts you don’t like. So my answer is – You don’t like it, don’t look at it. No one is holding you here. The exit is in front of your nose – turn that way.
And to the ones who harbour beautiful feelings I say – Thank you for journeying together with me. Hugging you all. Jolita Kelias”
Today I went onto YouTube to look up trailers for some upcoming movies and instead came across these. This is how celebrities respond to mean Tweets directed at them (I found some of them hilarious!):
When I consider the whole scenario of these people going out of their way to be deliberately mean to others, all I could think was this…
The fact that all these negative people that are being referred to – all the trolls, all the complainers, all the “haters”, whatever you want to call them – they’re all old enough to write. Most of them can even spell. They’re all intelligent enough to access and use social media. Using that to deliver such hurtful, hateful messages in a bid to bring someone down who is working to pull everyone up is beyond me. Clearly something is going wrong with the values we are now teaching or maybe we’re overlooking values all together with much faster-paced lifestyles.
And not just the celebrities, but just people and their ignorance in general. Bullying is not ok. Anyone who follows my blog knows Happiness Weekly’s stance on that.
Trying to tear someone down when they’re on their way to success is not ok.
Interfering in anyone’s life in a negative way is not ok.
Pulling someone down when you see them succeeding is not ok.
In fact using words for anything negative is simply not ok.
We all have a right to freedom!
The intention of Happiness Weekly is to make a positive difference to many, many lives. This blog is dedicated to helping people, loving each other and building others up so we can work together as one big team to create a very positive and harmonious future for everyone to live in. If you wish to unsubscribe from something you’re following, and you’re not sure how, Google it! That’s what it’s there for.
If you’re not here to do that, and you’re on my page, or their page or any page that you just want to rip down, then I ask that you please don’t be there because these people are making a positive difference to many other people. And it’s not about you. In fact, I ask anyone with any negative thing to say about someone to first look beyond themselves. Why? Because a blogger can shut a page down and it won’t make a huge difference to their lives – if anything it could enhance it by giving them more time for themselves and to do other things they enjoy without the focus on others. But it’s not about them. It’s about the people who they are selflessly helping, who they are making a difference to, who will be hindered by the blog or Facebook page or other medium closing down because of your negative comment. Same goes for celebrities. What if these celebrities stopped entertaining because of the mean things people said to them? So that’s why I ask, anyone with anything negative to say, to think beyond themselves first.
And on that note, I wish to share this with you, it’s an absolutely incredible YouTube video by motivational speaker Lizzie Velasquez. It’s a little lengthy, but please watch it the whole way through if you have time:
Life Coach Darren Poke who writes the Better Life Coaching blog recently released this easy-to-digest blog about revealing our critics for who they are, it’s well worth the read. It’s called How to stop the hyenas laughing – a story about dealing with critics. Well done, Darren.
So finally I want you all to remember this: negativity can inspire rather than hinder. It can make people stronger. Everyone has a choice about how negativity will affect them. If you’re a blogger, or getting bullied, or have had hurtful things said about you that have knocked you down – which we all have at some stage – then look for the positive and keep going.
Don’t give up.
10 ways to make a big life change
If you don’t like something change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it. Mary Engelbreit
It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory. W. Edwards Deming
My friends recently acknowledged me for being able to make really big life decisions. Each time I transform a little bit more and step up just a little bit more – and I always land on my feet. So this week, Happiness Weekly is looking at how you make those big life changes
1. Make up your mind to change
As with any decision making, start with weighing up the pros and cons of the situation. In the past, I have had cons far outweighing the pros, but still followed my heart and gone with it. I have no regrets and I’ve never looked back, so it is possible to go against the logic in front of you and still succeed. If anything, the pros and cons list just helps you to know what you want. Once you know what you want, you can go and get it. When your mind is made up, the rest should follow. The trick is not to change your mind until you’re at least three quarters into the big life change, and then you just need to make slight tweaks and adjustments.
2. Focus on what you want to change and remove all the blocks
It’s really important that you keep in mind what you want to change any why, rather than the how. Start removing anything blocking you from getting where you want to go. Keep a photo of your goal in your wallet or close by illustrating what you want to achieve. If you’re moving interstate for a big job and leaving your life behind, then keep a photo of what you want your success to bring you. If you are overweight, then keep an image of someone, with a similar build who you admire, in your wallet. Keeping your goals as visual as possible with trigger you to stay on track and self-motivated.
3. Expect the best but prepare for failure
Build yourself up to expect the best, know that you can do anything you want to – it’s very important to believe in yourself every step of the way, leave the doubts for other people. But the fact of the matter is that every now and then you will suffer setbacks – that is part of the process in being successful. Always remind yourself that it’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that’s important.
4. Take chances
Don’t be afraid to take chances along the way, and be flexible with change. One of my closest friends said to me the other day: “I’m disappointed only because things are not turning out the way my mind saw them … in reality it is what it is and nothing more”. Don’t stop when you get a setback, look for your next goal and keep going. Life’s too short to be wondering “what if” – if you’re curious, follow it and see where it leads you.
5. Review your friends
This doesn’t mean you need a fall out with all your friends, but just stop keeping in touch with the wrong ones as often. The people you need to associate with at this time are people that have been successful in whatever change you are making, or the people who support you 100% and will help you where they can. Anyone that makes negative suggestions or thinks or acts negatively will have to go. Take care of yourself and put yourself first where ever possible. If you have difficulty doing this, start treating yourself as though you were your best friend.
6. Set goals and rewards
Make this one big life change the major goal and focus on it. You can also set mini goals, timeframes and rewards when you achieve something to help you along the way. You need to reward yourself for your achievements to help stay on track. You also need the mini goals because generally major life changes don’t happen overnight. It’s a marathon not a sprint, but once you’re in a routine it will get easier.
7. Challenge yourself
Get out of your comfort zone and try new things. Do things you wouldn’t usually do. Focus on doing the things you want to do. Take yourself to an event on your own, you’ll surprise yourself with how many people you come out knowing. Try a new food – you may like it.
8. Get a makeover
Go to the hairdresser and change your hair, change your wardrobe and generally get a makeover. Change yourself to look exactly how the final you will look. Changing things on the inside is one thing, but you still need to dress where you want to go. There is no doubt a makeover pushes things to happen faster.
9. Trust your instincts and be accountable
Telling a few close friends your plans, and then proving that you can do it will also help you along your journey. You may need people that are there for you when you suffer a setback. Trust your instincts with your decisions. Ask for help if you need it and avoid doing things you don’t feel aren’t right. You may also hold yourself accountable by documenting your progress in a diary or a blog.
10. Be persistent
Don’t give up! Be confident in your decision, think of the end result, continue to take action and keep going. No one can do it for you. Stick with it even when the going gets rough, because once you achieve your goal, it will be worth it… and you’ll have some great stories to tell that you’ve collected along the way!
Remember, change is as positive as you make it! What major life change have you made? How did you make it and what was the result?
How to take responsibility for your life
Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment, and learn again to exercise his will – his personal responsibility. Albert Einstein
One thing that really upsets me is when someone lashes out or acts up and then says “I’m sorry … I’ve been really depressed lately.” To me, this is manipulation and it’s insincere which makes it harder for me to forgive the person.
Take some responsibility! You’re in charge of how you treat others! Depression is NO excuse. If you are depressed, start focusing on how you are affecting others around you and act to not disturb others in a negatively geared way. Just because you are feeling crumby, doesn’t mean those around you have to.
Great. So now you feel crumby, you’re frustrated with yourself, you can’t get out of bed AND now you can’t socialise just in case you affect someone else? Well … might as well just dig a hole and lie in it – right? WRONG! Here are some tips on where to go from here.
Cut out the bad guys
If you’re not feeling right and acting up, you will typically find that there are toxic people in your life bringing you down. Maybe one of your friends is a Negative Nancy. Perhaps it’s your lover? These are the people you need to decide that you will do better without. It may be difficult, but the short term pain of evicting these people from your life is well worth the long-term gain. Your current circumstances have evolved from decisions you have made – you decide who is in your life and who isn’t – start here when you start again.
Apologise to the people you have hurt
Now you know who you want in your life – and should have good reason for each of them, apologise openly to anyone in this group of people who you have hurt. Express that it wasn’t your intention to cause them pain, and perhaps you weren’t being yourself at the time (DO NOT blame being depressed!). Once you have sincerely apologised, ask if they can help you make it up to them. If the person makes a reasonable request, then try to act on it.
Take responsibility
Start making changes to alter your actions and change the end result for next time. Learn from your mistakes and take the lesson in life with you. According to Joan Didion, “The willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life is the source from which self-respect springs”. Starting again is challenging, but concentrate on re-building your self-esteem and self-respect. Learn to trust yourself again so you don’t continue to let yourself down. Look at your life and really consider if things are in line with your values and beliefs. If not, it’s time to cut them loose and make some changes.
It is a painful thing to look at your own trouble and know that you yourself and no one else has made it. Sophocles
How to take responsibility for your actions
Stop reacting
When our actions cause pain to others, it is generally because we have reacted to something which has caused us pain. We are superimposing our circumstances onto other people’s lives as a means of taking control – this is not only unhealthy, but it’s a fast way of losing all the good and positive people from your life.
Reflect what changing your actions will mean to you
Ask yourself what accepting responsibility for your actions/thoughts will mean to you. How frequently do you blame others for your circumstances? Why do you feel like a victim? Once you’ve thought about all of these things, talk to yourself and start accepting that your actions have lead you to this circumstance, but if you change that going forward – your outcome may be much brighter for the future.
Do not give up!
Giving up and staying depressed is such a cop out. Quit using lazy excuses and start living proactively! It takes effort to keep going through tough circumstances, it takes effort to continually evaluate things and strive for the best, and continue to better yourself, and it takes effort to make up for any hurt you have caused, and effort to take responsibility for yourself. If you have got yourself into a rut, there is one thing that is for sure, you will be the best person to get yourself back out of the rut. While you can lean on some people around you for help and to offload – you also need to take responsibility, lean on yourself, trust yourself to make the right choices going forward.
Forgive yourself
The hardest part, but most important, in taking responsibility for your actions is to forgive yourself for what you have done to lead to your current (undesirable) circumstances. If you can step back from everything, acknowledge that you have made a mistake, and promise yourself that you will do better or try harder the next time around, then really, half your battle is fought.
Take responsibility for your emotions
Don’t blame others for your unhappiness. Take responsibility for the way you feel and act. According to Denis Waitley, “A sign of wisdom and maturity is when you come to terms with the realisation that your decisions cause your rewards and consequences. You are responsible for your life, and your ultimate success depends on the choices you make”.
So to summarise – how do you take responsibility for your life? Easy: make the right decisions. And then for the good news according to Hal Elrod: “The moment you take responsibility for everything in your life, is the moment you can change anything in your life”.