New Leaf Mentoring … new thought. new health. new life.

Posts tagged ‘happiness’

10 Habits of Happy People


Happiness is an ideal that many say they would love to experience to a greater degree in their lives and yet try as they might, it remains distant and elusive. There are interesting commonalities that happy people share. These are not coincidental, they are steadfast choices we get to make as the base line for our lives. First you really need to determine, in front mind, if you truly want to be happy or if you just want to complain about not being happy. If you really want the peace that comes with being genuinely happy keep reading…if you want to complain don’t read any further…you might catch yourself feeling happier by the end of the list and we wouldn’t want to shift your mood without your consent!

1. They feel lucky and privileged to be alive

Happy people are appreciatively amused by their good fortune and celebrate their successes openly and freely with friends and family. Every new day holds a new chance for good luck to find them, and they enjoy even the smallest of win falls.

2. They express gratitude often and sincerely

Happy people tend not to take things for granted. Every gift, blessing or kindness directed toward them feels to be exceptional and important.

3. They practice forgiveness

Happy people don’t hold grudges and work at letting things go. They are more likely to look at their fellow-man compassionately than suspiciously.

4. They give of their time and talents generously and freely

Happy people believe in charity and paying things forward. They will volunteer easily since they have no fear of losing anything.

5. They have a perspective of life that is bigger than just themselves

Happy people often have a perspective of life that takes them far beyond their own lives. They focus on greater, more worldly issues instead of small petty things. They are often directed to a calling to help aid a distressful situation somewhere in the world. They are not afraid of letting their own problems go in light of the big picture.

6. They look at life with wonder and curiousity

Happy people tend to be interested in everything. They are easily enchanted by curiosities and are eager to get involved in new adventures.

7. They place their attention on positive outcomes and possibilities

Happy people try in all situations to be optimistic and cheerful. The expect the best and usually get it. They understand the Law of Attraction and know they would rather attract happy situations than miserable ones.

8. They state an intention to be happy and look for miracles

Happy people look for miracles everywhere. They see the amazing little things that happen every day that ultimately set the big wheels in motion.

9. They respect their lives and enjoy them

Happy people don’t long for things they don’t have but rather set their focus firmly on the blessings of the life they do have and move into full attention to honour and respect and preserve life as they have it. They treat their life and the life of others as a Sacred experience. They care for and preserve the assets in hand.

*10. They understand themselves to be the source of love and happiness

MOST IMPORTANTLY, happy people understand that they themselves are the generators of happiness and strive to share it rather than looking for something or someone outside of themselves to make them happy. They take it upon themselves to create happiness where ever they go and eagerly look for the next chance to smile.

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Healing, Metaphysics

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In A Perfect World


Part of my job is helping people get to what they want in life. The other part of my job is helping people understand what they want to get. This is by far the most challenging piece. Amazingly, people usually don’t know what they want. And even more amazing is that they don’t know they don’t know!

So just to get the ball rolling, I like to pose the questions, “What does your perfect world look like? Who’s in it? What do you do? How do you live? Where do you live? What do you look like” Usually I get answers that paint a very different picture from the life being lived. Sometimes I get I don’t knows, but very rarely do I get the true answer, which is of course – “close to what I got”.

In a perfect world we are not enslaved to live the life we’ve got, we are free to make choices at will that guarantee our happiness every day. In a perfect world we have no worries, no anger, no fear. We are perfectly matched to the love of our life, and have purpose. The stuff of fairy tales and romance novels.

So here’s the rub…our world is perfect. Your world is perfect.

It is the perfect alignment of cause and effect. Like attracts like. What you have in your life is the result of the seeds you have planted and nurtured to thrive. How can it be any more perfect than that?

Your life today is the life you believe in. It’s the life you believe you deserve, it’s the life that makes sense of your choices. Your life today reflects all of the faith you hold in your self, your loved ones, your god, and your past. What ever the struggle, the torment, the pain you suffer you believe in it.

We live in a world of free choice. But instead of making our choices that support our happiness and happily ever after dreams  we do any number of things that screw us up and set us on ‘the wrong’ path. We lie, we cheat, we get hooked on various addictions, we compromise our decision-making by doing what other people want us to do when we don’t want to – from sex, to careers, to marriage, to schedules, to having kids, we give our power away. When you give your power to choose the quality of life away you immediately become aware of feeling that you no longer live in a perfect world. When you believe that someone else’s dream is more important or better than your own you start living in someone else’s version of life and dream.

Come to understand that even when you make a decision to follow someone else – it’s still your choice. Once you get that part, commit to it! Don’t wish otherwise! Accept where you stand! If you don’t like it – change it! Come to independently know your own mind. The world can’t be anymore perfect – you co-created it. You are living your choices. If you understand that and still think you feel trapped and can’t make changes to change your situation then accept it. Don’t torment yourself and others with self-pity. Self pity has a soul shattering dynamic all its’ own that works to serve victimization belief systems. Once you believe you are victimized you are doomed to follow along. Then the serious whining begins!

Instead congratulate yourself on being the master creator of your world – with the power to make choices, look for options, do what you can, understand the compromises you intentionally make and let yourself off the hook. Just stop complaining about it. Work hard at loving your life, at creating a life you love, finding the things you love about your life, and doing the things you love. Anywhere you spend energy in your life (which is everywhere) make it loving energy! Loving thoughts that support your choices will in turn create other options that create more love. Anger, fear, bitterness and resentment may still crop up but just to show you what is still out of alignment. In the loving of your life you will soon be living in a perfect world, all your own with everything you love in it.

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Metaphysics

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Opening to a Beautiful Mind


I woke up this morning, early, 4:45am. I got a ‘thought knot’ in my brain and couldn’t unravel it while I was lying there so I was forced to get up. On top of that, my dreams, all night, were disturbing to say the least. My life – in my dream – was eroding, earth falling away to gaseous fire pits, big snakes, rotting dying people, secrets, hiding. Obviously some deep messages to figure out…or not! My dreams were being affected by some bad TV watching (serial killers, snakes and mystery). My crazy collection of random thoughts were tying up in knots creating unsolvable problems. So I got up, planted my feet in the real world and made a coffee. As I sat with my coffee in the early morning gray, still mostly black, light, (did I mention it was really early?)  I found myself reflecting on how thought full my brain and life was. I know better than to try to figure my way out of a thought knot. Thinking only makes it worse. ‘Thought knots’ have to be untangled. Carefully. Slowly and deliberately.

As I consciously began to unraveled my ‘thought knot’, I became aware of the huge variety of thoughts that swirl through my brain in any given moment. Gradually, as the various ideas started to let go and flit away, I started feeling better and more centered. My brain stopped its’ swirling and my focus was restored. In the back of my brain I noticed feeling very grateful that I had the awareness to sort through my mind problems.

The mind is an amazing thing with enormous potential to trap us in useless circles or free us into beautiful dimensions of new possibilities. I prefer to spend most of my time in the latter state but occasionally find myself locked in the former. We all do. Fortunately, I have learned to have faith in my brain and in the power of my mind. It’s not always easy to shift your brain away from swirling patterns to useful ones but I have always considered it a very essential piece to my freedom and happiness to be able to access the power of my mind rather than be victimized by the habits of mindless spinning. Within all the mental madness, all the swirling under tow is clarity, focus and direction. Underneath all the muddy thinking hides a crystal clear beautiful mind capable of outstanding feats.

Learn to meditate, spend time contemplating life, play games, find things to laugh at, try new things, say yes instead of no, practice non-attachment.

I have come to trust that my mind is the interface between the outer world and my heart. What I want in my heart will be made manifest through the power I own to wrap my mind around what it takes to get it. If I never discover what I am all about mentally, my challenges are sure to overwhelm me and I’ll never be able to access my power to create the life I want.

My happiness, your happiness will be determined by the freedom we feel to exercise the choices of our mind and we can’t do that if we constantly get bogged down in ‘thought knots’. Happy untangling.

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Metaphysics

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Finding Balance


Trying to find balance is very tricky to say the least and something that needs constant attention. It is challenging for almost everyone though it is entirely possible to achieve. We just have to be able to understand the conditions and requirements that would define balance and harmony for ourselves.

In our ‘super human’ mode we think we can take it all in, do everything that crosses our mind and look after all the relevant details to boot. In trying to be all things to all people we tend to ignore the one that counts the most. People most often neglect their own needs and requirements, falling instead for the little ego boost that comes with praise from others. I tell people all the time that you came here to live your own experience, your own life and it is everyone’s responsibility to do just that. People generally cock their heads to one side and ask what I mean by that. ” But that’s being selfish…and selfish is bad…right?” Wrong.

We must come to take time and our time on earth seriously. Life is precious and it is irresponsible to squander away your time and life energy  doing things that threaten the quality of your life and health. Only from a healthy state of mind and body are you able to be of any help, spiritually, emotionally, mentally or physically, to anyone else.

But balance is more than just time management, it is ultimately about worthiness and value. Our need to feel like we matter is our greatest vulnerability. Everyone, no matter who they are, wants to be respected and valued. These are deeply emotional issues and touch us deeply in our core. Every day I hear people complain how they weren’t respected, listened to, valued, or appreciated, not at home, work or in friendships.

It is very challenging in our modern culture to find equal exchange of value for worthiness. It is difficult to acknowledge prowess, accomplishment and success in another if we feel in any way inferior or inadequate in comparison. We tend to sit on an emotional teeter totter, constantly weighing one thing against the other as though any one moment in time is an accurate measurement of what we are all about. Worthiness is an issue that is measured and balanced out over time; over a life time even. Our biggest mistake is thinking that one single event in time has the power to make or break our value as a worthy human being. Help yourself by accepting yourself in every moment. Start by understanding your motivation, your triggers, your strengths and weaknesses, and be responsible for your choices. These few things will help you understand your true worthiness and allow you to experience value on a daily basis.

Learn to lighten up, cut yourself some slack and make sure you do something everyday that you love.

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Healing

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A New Leaf


There comes a time when we have to make changes. I know making changes is difficult. It is the human way to become attached – to everything. But as we learn, as we grow, it is important to portray ourselves on the outside in ways that reflect the changes we are going through on the inside. My friends and clients that have known me for many years of my business journey tease me about the way my business image keeps changing every few years. It’s true…at least on the surface. Changing is what my business is all about. Whether it’s with the Reiki, the Metaphysics Workshops, the Living Well Seminars, or my articles, it’s all about helping people stimulate, create, and maintain the changes they want to manifest in their lives. Likewise for myself.

We’re all looking for happiness and peace of mind. What that means is different for each one of us. How that looks on the outside may be  different but in the end we all want the same things; we want to be heard, we want to matter, and we want to be accepted. These elements are the root of all the changes we ever try to implement in our lives. They are the essence of all that it means to be human. It is perhaps even the common purpose that binds us and in the same moment propels the evolution of humanity forward.

Gregg Braden identified the three common fears of mankind to be i) a fear of surrender, ii) a fear of loss of self-worth, and iii) a fear of abandonment. We spend our lives doing what we need to do to try to overcome these fears. We strive to leave a mark in this world that survives our death.

Change is an interesting illusion of our minds. I’m not sure that we ever really change in our core. I believe we are what we are. I also believe that we don’t always know what we are and can spend a lifetime trying to find out. We can get so side tracked in life that we can head off on a path at a very early age that can leave us lost for a long time. To make sense out of a life we feel disconnected from we buy into and build up all the trappings that make us appear to be solid citizens. Eventually that solid looking box begins to crack and disintegrate leaving us confused, angry and afraid if we continue trying to hold on to it.

Everything in our world is impermanent. Everything material and physical changes. Our physical body will also change and die. But spirit lives on. I’m not talking about reincarnation here. I’m talking about the spirit of humanity, the spirit of the Divine Principle, the spirit of God. Our essential purpose is to live that spirit as fully as possible within the expression we are.

And so we change, everyday, trying to be more fully what we are. As the days go by we either choose to do things differently, letting go of everything that no longer fits or we choose to hold on tighter, trying to create a reality that would fool the best of them. It is the heart that will guide you towards the changes you want, and your mind will decide if you do or don’t. If there is disharmony between the heart and mind you will stay locked in a battle that will seep toxicity into all areas of your life. Change doesn’t have to be cruel or harsh. If we decide to make changes freely and easily, consulting with our heart and mind, we can make smaller, incremental changes that reflect our truth, stimulate our passion and empower our presence in the world.

My new business logo and image are reflective of a new lighter, brighter sense of myself and my work. The truth is I’m all about growth, all about change, all about turning a New Leaf! More than anything though I am committed to doing what I have to do to build a harmonious relationship between my heart and my mind so all of me can go peacefully in one direction.

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Healing

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Forever Questing…It’s the only way!


As children, my siblings and I were taught to question everything. My Father drilled into us to not ever just believe anything. All trust, all faith had to be earned; even then it was up for discussion. For the most part this philosophy has guided me well. Today I use this philosophy to guide me in my discovery with reiki and metaphysics and even in raising my kids. Because of this questing nature I have a hard time just blindly accepting all the anecdotal information that pours out unreservedly from spiritually minded people. It is so interesting to me how easily smart, educated people will accept the same old ideas no matter how fantastic, without ever asking ‘Really?…are you serious?‘ and believe me I have had no shortage of unbelievable stories in my life. It’s not that I’m really all that skeptical, (OK – maybe I am) but I prefer to think of it as curious. I was that kid that had to ask ‘why?’ a million times a day and I have kept asking why as my life unfolds. The really cool thing is that there is ALWAYS an answer for the why question. Sometimes the answer leads to another question that starts with ‘but if…’ and sometimes it ends with an ‘Oh! I get it!’ and sometimes hearing the answer is all you really need to recognize that you knew the truth all along. Sometimes the truth is simply the hardest thing to hear.

But I have learned that just the asking begins the unraveling of the mystery. Afterall, life isn’t really mysterious, we live in a dualistic cause and effect world and reality is built on building blocks of information. I find that the biggest block to understanding what is really going on in any situation is usually 2 fold. Firstly, we like to wear our favourite coloured glasses (they could be rose coloured or grey coloured or blue or green etc.) to make sure that everything we look at is viewed with the same shading of belief (rosy, hopeless, depressed, envious etc) which keeps life comfortable and relatively predictable; and secondly we keep our blinders firmly glued to the sides of our heads to keep our scope of vision nicely limited. By limiting what we are exposed to we think we can control the path our life will take.

Let’s face it, processing new information is consuming work. You gotta’ think…HARD even sometimes! And furthermore, sometimes those thoughts are going to land you in some unpopular place and we all know how hard that can be. We learned as kids that it is way easier being popular than different. These two popular and fashionable (and by that I mean common) accessories work reasonably well to keep the path ahead uncluttered of unexpected obstacles and doubts. Everything goes along as expected, well that is until one day it suddenly doesn’t. Suddenly, one day, out of the blue, an unexpected terror blocks the road. Death, illness, financial loss, or even extreme boredom appears and screams at us to get off the road! Take a detour! Change your mind! Change your ways! And we stall, dumbfounded, confused and before we know what’s happening we ask ‘Why?’ and the quest begins.

In that moment Universe presents to us an option. Sometimes the one road changes into a very clear forked path and we are forced to choose this way or that way. Other times it seems we are tricked to follow a different path with things that seem to glitter and shine with promises that turn out to be fool’s gold. And other times, we don’t know why, we suddenly veer off into the underbrush following some kind of white rabbit that takes us on a journey we will never forget. However it happens we will, at sometime in our lives, find ourselves on the road less traveled. If we want we can squat down on the road we are on and stubbornly refuse to budge. We can stay there, live there and eventually die there without ever having to change one single thought, peacefully polishing our glasses and re-gluing our blinders every day but this isn’t life.

Life is meant to be lived and experienced not only survived. Only a new choice will quicken the heart and spark the mind. Only choosing a new road will tease the Spirit Within to awaken with groggy interest.  And once on that new road we have to embrace that we are indeed thinking, reasoning, independent creatures of consciousness meant to exercise our inherent right to choose. Our survival will be determined by our choices, our reactions, our resistance/acceptance of the new. Our happiness determine by our bravery, commitment and creativity.

And so life is lived; questing, challenging,  defeating enemies of the one true heart, embracing the unknown, and conquering fears. We are then rewarded with riches untold, unlimited love, and strength of a thousand elephants. After we have quested we come to know the stuff we are made of. We know then that we are strong enough to ask ‘Why?..’ with the innocence of a child and the wisdom of the oldest sage.

So this blog is for asking ‘why..?.’ or ‘what if…?’ or ‘how..?.’ I am every bit as curious as I was when I was 5, except now I have a car, a computer and bigger reality. Today my world and indeed my universe is much, much bigger and so are my questions and thus my experiences.

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Healing

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