Happiness & Success
Achieving Happiness Through Acceptance of Life
The quest for happiness often leads to frustration, as many fail to realize that the...
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- Written by: Ragini Elizabeth Michaels
I realized my nagging feelings of dissatisfaction, that little dissenting voice that made me feel like I wasn't in the right place at the right time, or doing the right thing, was all a set of instructions for how to find inner peace in the presence of my emotional turmoil...
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- Written by: Barry Vissell
Independence allows us to choose our lives, live them however we want, decide who we marry, what kind of work we do, if we want to have children, and the religion or spiritual path we follow. Independence gives us freedom of choice. We can easily forget an equally important thing … dependence...
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- Written by: AlixSandra Parness, DD
Joy enters my heart each time I see the world from a higher perspective than before. I can see more clearly through the eyes of my greater self. I know that finding joy is possible even in the most extreme circumstances...
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- Written by: Peter Fairfield
There are those who think karma is about blame and punishment. This sounds like old-time religion to me -- the methods and fear-based strategies designed to control simple minds and simple hearts. Karma is not like that...
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- Written by: Barry Vissell
No one gets through childhood without some degree of wounding. If we stay blind to these wounds, they have a way of unconsciously ruling us. Our inner child is the full complement of childhood feelings, needs and...
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- Written by: Jamie Rose
Take out your journal and write the names of two women you admire. Women who for you embody the word "goddess." For me, this first list might include Michelle Obama and Helen Mirren. If you're...
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- Written by: Meryl Hershey Beck, MA, MEd, LPCC
It is time to stop being your own worst enemy and begin to become your own best friend. As a psychotherapist, I see time and time again the adverse effects of my clients' lack of self-care. In general...
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- Written by: Agapi Stassinopoulos
For years, I looked at myself through the prism of trying to “fix” myself. It was subtle, out of sight, like a current underneath the smooth surface of a river, but it was altering the flow of my life...
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- Written by: Stephanie Dowrick
Beliefs, dogma, theologies — all the costumes of religion — vary dramatically through time and place. But the call to know love as the ground of our being, and to honor our gift of life through the way that we live it: this does not vary. Seeking, yearning, tasting and transforming are certainly heart, soul and meaning of...
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- Written by: Lynn Woodland
The more we bristle at the idea of self-responsibility, the more likely it is that we were taught at an early age to feel shame. Blame and shame go hand in hand, one giving rise to the other. They both have to do with finding fault, pointing a finger of judgment, and defining something or someone as “wrong.”
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- Written by: Thubten Chodron
Many of us have a well-practiced habit of talking about the faults of others. In fact, sometimes doing this is so habitual that we don't realize we've done it until afterward. Yet, when we examine its effect in our lives, we quickly realize that this habit...
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- Written by: Marie T. Russell
I've never been a big fan of country music. I have found it depressing, sad, whining, self-pitying... Well, you get the picture. However, now that I live in northern Florida, when I'm in my car and I'm "surfing" radio stations, country music is mostly what I find. Now, I must admit, I've discovered that not...
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- Written by: Marie T. Russell
The question to ask ourselves is "Who are we becoming?" Are we living up to the child we were, or could have been? Loving, playful, wanting nothing more than to love and be loved. (I'm talking about very early childhood. Before we were tainted and "corrupted" by mind games, by competitiveness, jealousy, revenge, etc. etc.)
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- Written by: O.C. Smith & James Shaw
by O.C. Smith & James Shaw. God's little green apples are yours for the picking. Whether you reach above your head for the green apples, or whether they fall at your feet, you must do the picking. It is only then that you can "bite into" (have) your new and changed experiences.
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- Written by: Clifton Baron
If you look in the eyes of a young child, one or two years old, very often it looks as if there is a light on in there. In an adult this light is gone. Where does it go? What happens to it? What is the difference between this child and me that I no longer glow with this brightness?
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- Written by: Amara Rose
Outside her country home, Dorisse exclaimed, "I've just got to stop and pick some of these delicious blackberries." Until she said that, I hadn't noticed that there were blackberry bushes all around us. I was amazed. Here I was surrounded by a potential source of nourishment...
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- Written by: Jim Dreaver
When you are able to detach yourself from the areas of stress, tension, and pain in your body and just be aware of them without the interference of your analytical mind, they have room to unwind and release. This is not to deny or ignore pain; it is to be present with it in a relaxed, open, non judging way.
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- Written by: Nancy L. Snyderman, M.D. and Peg Streep
I never expected life to be so messy. The life I imagined for myself, growing up, was simpler and neater than the one I actually ended up living. Life was, I thought then, a straight, unobstructed road to the destinations I would choose, with pretty vistas and sunsets on the way.
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- Written by: Marie T. Russell
Someone asked me the other day if loving myself and putting myself first was selfish. As I endeavored to explain the difference, I realized that there is a fine line between the two. There are two distinct different levels of awareness.
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- Written by: Marie T. Russell
Recently someone asked me, "In your years of publishing, what would you say was your most memorable encounter?" I instantly heard my inner voice whisper the answer, but my mind didn't feel comfortable with expressing what it had heard...
