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What does it take to make you happy? Picture a line and on one side of the line is absolute bliss (happiness beyond measure). On the other side of the line is sadness. Everyday run-of-the-mill happiness falls somewhere in the middle. Some people would say it is easy to be happy, others would say it is hard. The important message is that happiness does not come from the outside of us but the inside, and that makes all the difference.
Many people think that they will be happy, “if….” If they have a boyfriend, or girlfriend; if they get the next job; if they make more money, have a house, or drive a new car. The truth is that these things only bring fleeting pleasure. We can never get enough things outside of ourselves to make us happy. Happiness that lasts comes from connecting with the part of life spirit that is inside of us, the part that comes out when we sing, dance or create art. This is also the part that we feel when we see puppies or small children playing. These things make us happy because they remind us of our connection with life itself.
After you read this article, close your eyes for a minute. Sense that inner part of yourself that knows happiness – that is happiness. Does it feel warm? Does it have a color? Rest there for a few minutes until you feel yourself naturally smiling. Remember times when you felt like the world worked for you and you knew yourself to be secure and content. Feel your breath, feel the buzz of life in your hands and feet, and let yourself move in a way that makes you smile.
We can all make this a daily practice. If we remember to connect with our own inner happiness, then we can help our families, friends and co workers remember their “happiness place” as well. Perhaps we can all spread a little sunshine as we go. If this happens to you, I hope you email me at james.alana@gmail.com and tell me stories about how it worked for you.
Hi everyone,
As I mentioned in another blog, I recently was propelled through circumstance to investigate which archetypal pattern was currently playing in my life. The idea here is that we all are playing out a few roles that tie us to humanity through the ages - and the alchemist turned out to be me! In fact it fits my soul so perfectly that I find it thrilling to investigate – so investigate I did.
Before I forget it, you will find a few links at the bottom of this blog they are put there for fun and I highly recommend follow some of them. The first link I saved for the Lost Wonder Museum – and it truly is a wonder! I highly recommend it for anyone desiring to experience the buzz when your small human mind connects with the universe – FABULOUS. Also, wasn’t Nicholas Flamel a character in Harry Potter? Wasn’t he the man who had created the sorcerer’s stone? Evidently he also lived in our 3D world as I found drawings on the web from his notebooks! (See the 2nd link).
I’ll use this space to highlight the basic learning from my search:
1. Most people think of alchemy as the search to turn iron to gold –or for the sorcerer’s stone and eternal life –evidently the life eternal that alchemists really seek is not the mundane but the enlightened idea of the blend of this life with the eternal oneness of the universe (a theme that runs throughout).
2. Alchemy was given a bad name by Freud, who commented that Leonardo Da Vinci (a known dabbler in the alchemical arts) was the equivalent of someone half crazy in the lingo of today, making Leonardo seem ridiculous.
3. Jung, on the other hand, developed the basic alchemical principal of the merging of opposites and the basic patterns of life force (air, water, earth and fire) into psychological principles (spirituality, physicality, emotionality and mentality).
4. Alchemy has seven steps – as you will see in the Museum of Lost Wonder.
The effect of my search on my creative mind has been enormous. The actions that follow include: a) using this as a teaching cycle for my other work (a retreat coming up by the way in Colorado in May or early June), b) I have started a small altered book “My book of Wonder” that uses the seven alchemical phases as a stepping off place, and c) I am adding the seven steps to my spiritual/psychological database of ideas to work out their correspondence with everything else that I have put together.
The bottom line for me is that a lot of energy came zooming into my life with one set of exploration – here’s hoping that whomever reads this finds the same zoom of wonder for themselves – It is really a lovely ride.
I’ll leave the discussion here for today so that my readers have time to play in the links below.
Love you lots,
Alana
www.lostwonder.org (tour the museum) This is really a can’t miss
http://www.alchemylab.com/flameldwgs.htm A whole page of Flamel links
And finally a link to cool pictures (like the one above) http://altreligion.about.com/library/graphics/magick/alchemy4.jpg
It is a lot more fun to live a life where you don’t know where you are going exactly than to plan, fret and try to coerce an otherwise uncooperative universe into doing what YOU (the little you) want it to do. Or at least this is becoming true for me and I have a few examples.
Like millions of people I started 2008 planning. Only this year I had no real idea of where I was going so rather than planning for particular things (little me planning) I opened it up to the alchemical side of things. Having been trained as an artist is very useful here – artists become comfortable when they face those big white pieces of paper that they don’t know and can’t precisely control what will come out on the other side. There may be zen in it (if I better understood zen), but I know that there is flow to it, using Csikszentmihalyi’s (1990) discussion of flow (which I would call an alchemical state) where people enter a zone (as the athletes understand it) and “magic” happens. Art requires focus, flow, and entering the zone and so did my planning session this year.
I won’t bore you with the details, suffice it to say that I came out with a diagram with four arms, two representing things that work in my life now and two that are the energies I want more of. I couldn’t n tell you all that I thought about or what the parts meant because I was largely moving on instinct. When the drawing that represented what my little mind might call a strategic plan felt “right” I printed it. Now it resides above my head and since part of the picture is a growing body of writing and two book proposals, I occasionally add words around the diagram.
Synchronistically, I was listening to a Deepak Chopra tape (2007) in which he leads his audience through exercises to identify their archetypes. I have seen this type of work before and it didn ‘t “click – this time it did and I adopted the archetype of ….(drum roll)…..(you guessed it) the alchemist. Being visual I went to the internet to find pictures of alchemists and …..(drum roll again) they look just like my office looks when I have these large planning documents up covering all my cabinets – many things going on, different sections of the office in use for different things I am doing, etc. I like to have everything out where I can see it – and evidently this has been the case for people who think like me throughout the ages.
Feeling satisfied that I was on the right track, I started to use another Chopra (2007) idea and as I go to bed at night I scan my day – then ask the universally connected part of myself (the bigger than me, me) to watch my dreams in the same way. Great stuff! While I may not remember my dreams exactly I can ask when I wake up what was that all about – and my other knowing self gives me an answer.
Enter new or refinements of old ideas and we’ll see the mystery of unfoldment in action once again. The facts are:
1. I have said that if I was to come back to the US and/or lead another reinventing life retreat that the universe would have to open the possibilities because I couldn’t see how it was going to happen.
2. Years ago when I did something called, The course in miracles, (Foundation for Inner Peace., 1992) one of the exercises that did not make sense was, “There is nothing you need do.” What did that mean? I could almost hear myself (small self) argue with the words on the page.
3. In my work as a university professor I am studying transformative education – this took me to a book by Loder (1989) who discusses the Christian stories of transformation.
4. Oprah Winfrey is evidently recommending a new book by one of my favorite provocative authors Eckhardt Tolle (year) Name of book and I got it to listen to on my iPod.
5. There is another Deepak book (2006) Power, freedom and grace, sitting on my desk that I haven’t quite gotten to that I want to add in my Reinventing Life database.
How do all these separate items – coupled with my asking myself when I wake up the meaning of my dreams have to do with following the mystery? The message that came to hit me over the head not once by three times from three different authors (Loder, Chopra and Tolle) was (there is that drum roll again) – my small (what they call egoic) limited self can’t control anything but the bigger connected to the mystery self can have a great time sitting back and letting the flow take me to interesting places. Interesting place number 1 at the moment is to Colorado in April. I received an email yesterday from an old business colleague who will bring me in as a guest speaker for a few days. While I am there, if all is meant to be, I can meet some people and get the next reinventing life retreat going. I will also keep my eyes and ears open in case there are other reasons I am meant to be there and doors may open that I can’t quite imagine.
The dream sequence last night cinched it for me. Mid way through the night I awaken feeling pressured and burdened (not an unusual set of feelings when I am trying to control things) to find that in my dreams I had taken on one too many things and the conflicting deadlines had me running (gee, I wonder if any of my readers have ever experienced this?). OK fine, I noticed it and went back to sleep. As I awoke this morning I felt at ease, upon asking what that was about I “heard,” this was an example of how it feels to let the mystery lead, “There is nothing you need do.”
WOW!
(Chopra, 2006, 2007; Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Loder, 1989; Tolle, 2005)
Chopra, D. (2006). Power, freedom, and grace: Living from the source of lasting happiness. San Rafael, Calif.: Amber-Allen Pub.
Chopra, D. (2007). The essential spontaneous fulfillment of desire: The essence of harnessing the infinite power of coincidence (1st abridged ed.). New York: Harmony Books.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow : the psychology of optimal experience (1st ed.). New York: Harper & Row.
Foundation for Inner Peace. (1992). A Course in miracles : combined volume (2nd ed.). Glen Elen, CA: Foundation for Inner Peace.
Loder, J. E. (1989). The transforming moment (2nd ed.). Colorado Springs: Helmers & Howard.
Tolle, E. (2005). A new earth: Awakening to your life's purpose. New York, N.Y.: Dutton/Penguin Group.
