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Spiritual Marketing
Copyright 2005 Mark McCormackLet me say that marketing can be a corrupting experience. In the wrong hands, marketing can create more frustration, more dishonesty and more greed than any occupation.As technology advances, more and more people are able to ...
The Coach Approach
When you use what you go through to grow through, you take the coach approach. I am suggesting that you hire your own counsel. After all, who else knows your dreams, goals, and intentions better than you do? Who else has access to your inner compass? ...
The Power of Intention
One of the most amazing scientific discoveries in recent years is something that spiritually adept people have known for thousands of years. Your experience of life responds to your intention. In the past, you may have heard the word "intention" used to ...
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This question is likely to bring either a defensive response like `Of course I am! or a bemused reply of , `No, should I be?
Happiness is such a simple, natural concept and yet it seems so hard for the average person to attain. Most os us are really bad at being happy!
Why on earth should this be so? Firstly, lets explode some myths and then we can look at some strategies for allowing happiness into our lives.
Myths about happiness:
*Happiness is somewhere `out there and we have to find it
*Its associated with goals, places, people, events
*I can GET happiness and MAKE others happy too
*Happiness is basically unattainable and certainly fleeting
*It has to be earned.
*Its elusive and in the future somewhere
*You need a reason to be happy.
Sounds familiar?
Happiness lives within us, never outside of us. Therefore, it cannot come from external sources. The joy we get from things outside is the cream on the cake, an extra bonus but it can never be the whole story. Relying on people, places and events to make us happy is the ultimate fantasy. It can only bring transitory pleasure and disappointment in the end.
There is no need to try to get happiness because it is your natural birthright. It exists deep within you like a constant well-spring - infinite, always available, powerful. Imagine knowing that you can be happy at any time and forever, without having to do anything to earn it or make it happen.
As happiness is linked to the life-source energy, like sexuality, creativity, spirituality and joy, it rests in the individual and therefore, cannot be bestowed by one person on another. This is one of our greatest myths - that we can make each other happy. At best, it is a romantic illusion created by songs, literature and popular culture. At worst, it causes a great deal of societys heartache as this mistaken idea is taken into marriage and other relationships where it can only be ground into dust by the heavy foot of disillusionment. The saddest part is that we dont need to suffer if only we are prepared to accept responsibility for our own happiness. It works both ways. If no-one has to make you happy, neither do you have to do it for others. Think how liberating that is! It isnt selfish or uncaring because as you feel your own happiness, youll have more to share with others, anyway.
Happiness is a choice. All you have to do is open yourself up to it and itll be there continuously.
The type of happiness that is possible on a permanent level is the
interior peace that means you feel good inside your own skin, that you have a positive relationship with yourself and youre enjoying the journey we call life. It means you can relax, be yourself, not have to try so hard to please and impress.
Most people feel happiness is a goal to be reached somewhere in the future. Its what I call `deferred happiness, you know the kind of thing - `Ill rest on the weekend, Ill travel when I retire, `I havent got time to play sport, Im too busy - and so on.
Each day is a unique experience and cannot be retrieved if you waste it. `Wasting time having fun is fabulous, wasting time in regret, guilt and anxiety is expended energy you could better utilise elsewhere.
Have you noticed that if you just feel happy for its own sake, people think youre strange. They say things like, `What do you have to be happy about? or `Whats brought on this cheerful mood? The whole point of being happy on a continuous basis is that there is no particular reason - you feel the joy inside you and you naturally smile and shine, like walking near the ocean on a glorious summers day and being grateful just to be alive. You can have that `bliss all the time, in the sun, in the rain, on good days and difficult, when life is going your way and when it appears everythings against you. Its feeling `okay inside all the time. That is true freedom. And as you shine, those around you bask in the warmth of your joy.
How do we positively work with the happiness principle?
*Look for signs everywhere
*Make positive thinking a choice
*Relax and stop worrying
*Remember life is a daily adventure
*Connect with your inner child every day
*Play every day, not just on weekends and holidays
*Love yourself enough to allow happiness
I think of myself as a `joy merchant, someone who sells the idea of joy. If you adopt this philosophy in your everyday life, Itll change your life. Im going to finish this discussion with my favorite saying, `There is no way to happiness; happiness is the way. Please write to me if you want to know more about living with joy.
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Scripture or spiritual slavery?Ashland Daily TidingsBy Gokul Gokani The first and last obstacle to a real spiritual experience is to find out whether we really are part of the whole or separate from it. Are we an island; are we to struggle to find our destiny, work hard to survive or be doomed, ... |
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