“Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure.” Earl Nightingale

Yes, I know, sometimes it’s easier to blame it on that rascally, indefinable, elusive thing called ‘luck’, isn’t it?

But jokes aside, what is this equally hard-to-pin-down thing called ‘success’?  Have you ever thought of yourself as a success?  Have you ever done or ‘achieved’ anything that you would consider a success?

You must have heard the story about Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb.  He was asked in an interview:  How did it feel to have failed all those many times (reportedly in the vicinity of a thousand).

“Failed?” exclaimed Edison, “those weren’t failures!  They were all the ways I learned how not to do it!”

Ah, yes. It’s hard to have that kind of attitude though, when a relationship has ended or you’ve been told you didn’t get that job or you just blew the diet plan yet again.

“Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all. You can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it, So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because remember that’s where you will find success.”
– Thomas J. Watson

Here are some dictionary definitions of success:

• The achievement of something desired, planned or attempted
• The gaining of fame or prosperity
• One that is successful

So, how about it?  Would you consider yourself a success?  Or do you think it would be more accurate to say that you have been successful on some occasions and not others?

It’s an important question to ask yourself because, you see, success and happiness have a lot to do with each other.  Or at least, your beliefs about success and happiness do.

Which brings me to the question in the title of this post:

What comes first, success or happiness?

Well, if you believe that success is the achievement of things, then it is more than likely that your happiness will depend on how successful you consider yourself.

If you get what you desire, aim for, work for, in other words, if you succeed, then you will be happy.  This kind of belief demands certain outcomes and your happiness is contingent upon securing those outcomes.

But is there a different way of looking at things?  Could one be happy regardless of the outcome?  Put it this way, would you rather be happy regardless of the outcome?

I know I would.  In fact, my life experiences have shown me that there is no other way of being truly happy and staying happy.  I would go so far as to say that being peaceful and happy is the greatest ’success’ one could have or be!

So, I’ll finish with a rather nice quote to which I’ve made a slight adjustment to make it more gender inclusive:

“When a person feels throbbing within them the power to do what they undertake as well as it can possibly be done, this is happiness, this is success.”
Orison Swett Marden

Notice, this kind of ’success’ and happiness isn’t contingent upon an outcome.  Rather success and happiness are experienced in the enthusiastic and fully committed (passionate) ‘doing’ of something!

Love always, Lucy

Awakening to Happiness, Prosperity and Freedom!

Want to be a Happy and Successful  Parent? Learn ‘INSPIRED PARENTING’ from 5 teachers from The Secret. (Might be the perfect gift for Christmas :))

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“Don’t believe everything you think!”

Excellent advice, if you ask me.  Advice that meditation practice, including mindfulness meditation practice, will help you see the value of.

Not long after the car with that bumper sticker drove off, another car with this bumper sticker drove by:

This is the lab calling.  Your brain is ready to be picked up.

Ouch!

Then again, in the context of meditation and mindfulness and peace of mind, perhaps having the brain/mind reconditioned/reprogrammed in a ‘lab’ might not be such a bad thing :)

But the purpose of this post is really to remind us of the neurotic thinking habits of our conditioned mind and to encourage us to take time to disengage from it by some form of meditation practice.  I know that in my last post, I talked about mindfulness meditation.  I have also provided you with some simple instructions on 3 types of mindfulness practice.

This lovely little Zen spiritual story, told  by Maritza Parra, illustrates this point beautifully:

I know the value of mindfulness practice and I do some form of it everyday.  In fact, I make it a point to maintain a constant degree of awareness at all times.  I don’t always succeed but I am quick to catch myself when I am not being present.

So, how is mindfulness practice valuable?  As I said, it breaks the conditioned pattern of thinking, the kind of thinking that is anchored in unexamined beliefs, fears, doubts, worries etc. It gives you a chance to step out of this whirling pool of conditioned thinking and step into the crystal-clear waters of the unconditioned mind.  “Ground zero‘ if you like.

What a relief!  What a marvelous reality check!  What a magnificent way of reconnecting with your true nature!  And what an amazingly healing experience – mentally, emotionally and physically!  Yes, of course your body heals as your mind is cleared of all its toxic thought patterns and their neurochemical and biochemical products!

Love always!

Lucy

Awakening to Happiness, Prosperity and Freedom!

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Studies done on boredom show that people who are unable to remain attentive get bored easily.  They seem to require frequent, new and different stimuli to keep their minds active and thus avoid feeling bored.

Studies have also shown that people who are not very self-aware and not accurately in touch with their emotions are more prone to boredom.

When we feel bored, we are not really present to where we are and what is happening within us and around us.  This lack of attentiveness can have unhelpful long-term effects.

For instance, over time, we become less and less in touch with our internal and external world and require more and higher intensity stimuli to keep us interested in life and focused on the things we need to do.

However, if we were able to pay more attention to what is going on within us and around us, not necessarily with a judging eye but with the keen eye of sheer observation, the most mundane things can suddenly become the most fascinating things in our world.

This is what people who practice mindfulness meditation frequently experience.  Both the inner world and the outer world become amazingly exciting and intriguing.

They begin to notice that the sky is not just blue or pink but that it holds so many different and constantly changing hues and shapes and forms that it becomes a panorama of movement and colour!

Grass is no longer just green but a palette of many ‘greens’ depending on where and how much light hits it, what length it is, how damp it is, what other plants are growing around it and so on.

Now all this may seem trivial and useless but for the person who suffers from boredom (which can often be a precursor to depression), this ability to be very mindful can be a life-saving skill.

In fact, mindfulness is really about being in ‘the flow’, the natural flow of consciousness, of life.  It allows your natural happiness to flow through unimpeded by feelings of being stuck or resisting the way things are or fearing the way things will be or regretting and obsessing over the way things have been.

Of course there are other ways of overcoming boredom and most people tend to rely on these.  Sports, hobbies of various sorts, social activities and intellectual pursuits are often things that people engage in for a variety of reasons including the desire to avoid or reduce boredom.

The practice of mindfulness and other forms of meditation is, however, something that you can do without any additional resources, anytime and anywhere.

For instance, being mindful of your breathing can open you to the fascinating world of something as mundane as your breath.  Or simply being very mindful of a mundane task such as washing the dishes can help alleviate any boredom or resentment you feel when you have to perform the task.

Instead of eating or reaching for a cigarette, practicing mindfulness meditation can not only help you overcome your unhelpful habit, it will also increase your ability to focus and be attentive, increase your powers of observation, improve your memory (which is closely related to attentiveness) and remove blocks that have collected in your mind and body as a result of feeling stuck, bored or even anxious.

It can also put you in touch with your feelings, allowing you to encounter them in a relaxed and fearless way.  It offers you the experience of noticing how your feelings come and go thus encouraging you not to get fixated on them or to make hasty decisions in order to try and get rid of them.

Before I finish this post, I would like to mention another kind of boredom that mindfulness practice and meditation more generally can help overcome.  It is called ‘existential boredom’.

This boredom is with the world generally.  It is the kind of boredom that a person experiences when they find the world meaningless and their life purposeless.  They have little enthusiasm or passion for anything.  It is the kind of boredom that is most frequently associated with severe depression.

When we fail to see the magnificence of the world, the diversity and intrigue that it holds, when we fail to feel the very pulse of life throbbing, the world can indeed become a cold, lifeless and meaningless place.

The practice of mindfulness and other types of meditation can tune us into the very heartbeat of the world.  It can awaken in us the natural joy and passion that we so long for.

See also Three kinds of Mindfulness Meditation

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Hi there, I am wondering if there is a specific mudra or breathing exercise or meditation you can tell me of that will help me deal with a domineering intrusive father who keeps trying to control me. I would like to deal with this situation in a peaceful manner as often talking about it with him either keeps things the same or makes them worse so I am focusing now on working on myself from within so that my external reality changes.  any help on this? thanks :)

My response:

I hope you won’t mind me saying so, but I think you’ve already hit on exactly the thing you need to do i.e. focus on yourself!

I would just like to elaborate on that a little though.  The internal work that you are attempting to do is really about ‘awakening’.  All too often, we ignore or pay scant attention to the ‘inner work’ because our focus and preoccupation is with trying to change the external.  As you have found, that can be futile!

It may be hard for us to accept this but what we see and experience of others is, first and foremost, a reflection of our beliefs and attitudes.  If you are finding this hard to understand, consider the common experience of the same word or action or person evoking different responses from people.

One person might respond with laughter, another with fear, another with doubt etc.  It is the same word/action/person but our responses are all different depending on what filters i.e. beliefs and attitudes we each hold.

So, focusing on yourself is indeed the best, and ultimately, the only way you will bring about change.  You see, by recognizing that it is YOUR RESPONSE to someone or something that determines your state of happiness or otherwise, you regain control over your own wellbeing.

Whereas you may have believed that your father was the cause of your unhappiness, you can now see that it is your response to your father that is the cause of your unhappiness!  That is indeed a significant ‘awakening’.

Also, recognize that your response towards your father is your attempt to regain control that you believe you have lost or are in danger of losing.  In truth, as Eleanor Roosevelt so rightly said,

“No one can make you feel inferior (weak/angry/disappointed/rejected etc) without your consent”

As for mudras, meditations and breathing exercises, let me suggest a couple of things:

Breathing is the most easily available, fast and effective way of dispersing ‘negativity’.  Actually, I prefer to describe it in terms of removing the blocks that we create within our mind-body system with our negative thoughts.

By breathing slowly, gently and deeply and maintaining a soft focus on your breathing, you will restore that natural flow of life/love energy.  You can do this sitting (with your back straight and your body relaxed), or lying on your back or even while you are walking.  You can focus on your solar plexus or even on your heart centre.  This in itself is a type of meditation.

If you like, you could coordinate your breathing with the following thoughts and use this as another type of meditation:

As you breathe in:

The power of the universe, the power that brings all things into being, moves through me and expresses itself through me.  (Imagine how all of life, including the planets, galaxies, water, wind etc is brought into existence by this very same power – feel the power)

As you breathe out:

I allow all obstacles that arise from my beliefs to fall away as the power of love flows freely through me. (You can imagine the obstacles falling away from your body like great weights falling into an ocean – feel the lightness and the free flow of energy)

As you realize and experience the true, indestructible power that you are, that you have always been, you will feel less and less threatened by your father’s behaviours.  Perhaps your will see that it is his failure to experience his own, true power that feeds his need to exercise (a false sense of) power over others. This might help you respond with empathy as well as confidence.

On the other hand, it is possible that you will find he is not as controlling as you thought him to be and that perhaps it is your great fear of losing control that causes you to respond in the way you do.  Or perhaps a bit of both.

There is a book by Byron Katie called ‘I need your love, is this true?’ which I would strongly recommend.  She uses an excellent thought process that she calls ‘The Work’ which I consider tremendously effective.

I do hope this has been useful.  I commend you for taking control of the situation and focusing on the inner work of ‘awakening’ to the workings of your mind.

Love always

Lucy

Awakening to Happiness, Prosperity and Freedom!

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Take, for example, a job I had to get done.  Now, I knew that it involved writing 28 pages in a day.  Right, that seemed pretty straightforward enough so I dutifully sat down and began typing.

Sometimes, the ideas would flow steadily with perhaps a brief pause here and there as my brain scanned its databases for the most appropriate word to use.  At other times, the ideas were a little less willing to stream through and those were the times when I would take a break and try and do something different.

When I got back, I would continue with a little more momentum than when I’d stopped but it wouldn’t be long before I was stalled yet again for an idea.

If you’re a writer, you’ll be very familiar with this sort of thing and more than likely take it philosophically as ‘par for the course’.

However, it occurred to me one day that, given that I’ve been writing for most of my life and that I’ve been writing ‘professionally’ for a good few years, shouldn’t this get easier?  Shouldn’t I be able to stick at something just a little bit longer and coax the writing muse to stay longer than it usually does?

Don’t get me wrong.  Breaks are wonderful and necessary.  But they don’t always create or cause greater efficiency.  What do I mean by that?

If I needed to write a 28 page document in one day, I should have been able to do it, given my experience, my knowledge, my skills etc.  After all, I’d done it before and I should be able to do it again whenever I wish to.  But why wasn’t it getting any easier?  Why didn’t I feel I was getting ‘better’ at it?

Pondering these questions triggered the ‘ah-ha’ moment.  I realized that what I hadn’t done but ought to have done was set myself mini-goals, or sub-goals, if you like.

For instance, I could have broken down the 28 pages per day into say, 7 pages per hour.  That would have enabled me to complete the job in 4 hours.  Or, I could have set myself a less demanding pace and decided to complete the job in 7 hours, which would have meant 4 pages per hour.

Within these time frames, I could easily allow for breaks thus keeping a fresh and steady momentum.

So what is the ‘elusive obvious’ here?

It’s this:

The brain is most efficient when it has more immediate, measurable and frequently occurring targets.

Blindingly obvious, you say?  I agree, ‘cept we don’t always remember, do we?  And we don’t always apply it to all our goals, do we?

28 pages a day is a good enough target when you have 28 such chunks to complete in the next 28 days.  The brain then organizes itself according to the 28 days and the subconscious ‘pressure’ to complete 28 pages each day is active and effective.

However, when the 28 pages in one day is a one-off, non-recurring event, then the brain requires more immediate, measurable and frequently occurring targets or goals.  The ‘pressure’ is set off at each hour and you’re more likely to stick to the demands of each hour i.e. 4 (or 7) pages rather than hang loose by a less immediate and less frequent demand such as ‘a day’.  After all, when does the ‘day’ start for you?  When does it end?  A day is an adjustable target, an hour isn’t!

Does this make sense?  I hope so.  If not, consider this:  Which of the following requests is likely to get you acting more efficiently i.e. producing the most suitable response in the least amount of time :

• Please be ready for dinner this evening
• Please be ready for dinner in the next 30 minutes?

Or, how about this one.  Which of these is going to get you moving real fast:

• Walk fast because there might be snakes in the area
• Walk fast because there’s a snake right behind you?

Yes, your brain’s efficiency increases when the targets are immediate, measurable and frequently occurring :).

But now, here’s the more important reason for sharing all this with you:

When it comes to ‘personal development’ goals, these too operate by the same principles.  You would be more successful with them if they too were broken down to more ‘immediate, measurable and frequently occurring’ goals!

Yes, the goals of happiness and freedom and prosperity can and should be broken down into sub-goals with more immediate, measurable and frequently occurring time frames.

Now, if you’ve read this far and are keen to know what I mean by that and what examples I might offer you, I dare say you’re going to be disappointed, if not irked, by what I’m about to suggest.

Why?  Because I’m sure you’ve heard it before and perhaps chosen to ignore it or didn’t think you could do it or even tried and didn’t succeed or perhaps simply had no idea how to do it.

Well, despite the risk of leaving you disappointed and/or irked, here is what I suggest when it comes to the goals of happiness, freedom and prosperity:

Break them down to the immediate and frequently (constantly) occurring goal of…

NOW.

Indeed, it’s the only way you’ll ever ‘achieve’ them!  Imagine, intend and allow happiness, prosperity and freedom NOW.  It’s not just a metaphysical goal, it’s a proven method for getting your brain to cooperate with you in achieving your goals.

If you have any doubt about the effectiveness of this, just remember:

What you see in your immediate reality are the EFFECTS of PAST thoughts, imaginations, intentions and permissions.

If you wish to see different things i.e. EFFECTS in your future reality, set yourself the immediate goal of imagining, intending and allowing them NOW.

Do it.  NOW.

Love always

Lucy

Awakening to Happiness, Prosperity and Freedom NOW!

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In a world of potentially infinite demands on our time and personal resources, it would be suicidal not to establish repeating parameters within which we can manage our most basic needs.  Such routines not only make the difference between survival and crash and burn but also help us develop efficiencies along the way.

Quite simply, instead of having to make a decision everyday and possibly several times a day about whether to have breakfast, lunch or dinner, our brains are programmed to anticipate, prepare and consume these meals at particular times each and every day.  It is a huge saving on our mental and emotional resources!

Likewise, being programmed to go to work five days a week from 9am to 5pm is another efficiency many of us have developed.  It pays off for most people at least in terms of the income it generates and the boredom it seems to save us from.

Or take brushing your teeth after every meal or at least twice a day.  Because it’s become routine, our mental and emotional resources that would otherwise have to go into making a decision about it every day, are instead available for other more creative uses.

By and large, the greatest efficiency we gain as a result of routines relates to decision making.  As you have probably experienced, decision-making without a background of repeated/automated decisions i.e. routines, can be taxing on our mental and emotional resources.

When something out of the ordinary happens, such as a friend suggesting you go out for a drink after work, the brain expends more energy into helping you make a decision about it than it would if it remained on autopilot and sent you straight home.

In other words, non-routine decision-making is a lot more taxing that routine decision making and this is where the efficiency of routines is greatest, at least until the brain is trained for non-routine demands :)

However, we’ve all felt at some time in our lives, the dreariness and lifelessness of being ‘stuck in routines’.  Life can become lifeless and meaningless as we go through the motions from one day to the next while still holding out for some miraculous ‘save me from myself’ change or event to happe!  At the same time, we’re feeling increasingly despondent, if not depressed as our routines seem to suck us dry of joy juice!

Given that we live in a time and space-bound world, the ‘reality’ of limited time and space/resources is a pressing one.  Routines help us minimize the impact of this apparent limited nature of our time and resources.  For this reason, they are helpful and necessary for our survival.

But equally necessary for not just our survival but also our happiness is allowing our naturally creative and spontaneous nature to be expressed.  Routines, when used intelligently, can help apportion and direct resources (mental, emotional, spiritual and physical) to this natural flow of creative expression.  But, routines, when used slavishly, can impede, if not completely block the flow of creative expression.

This is the sort of thing that many of us face from time to time.  Instead of being efficient masters of our routines, we become unquestioning slaves to them, at least until we realize that we are doing too little ‘living’ or too much ‘surviving’.

Creative expression is the purpose of life.  It is the very nature of joy, of happiness!  It is what allows us to feel peaceful and enthusiastic at the same time!  It is the offspring of desire whose energy is love!

So, how do we ensure that our routines don’t suffocate us, blocking off the energy of love, the very force of life itself?  Well, it is important that we do something different everyday.  How?

Start by thinking different thoughts.  Remember that all our routine behaviours began at some point as routine thoughts, so pay attention to some of the familiar, routine thoughts that go through your mind.  Catch one of them and think something so completely different to it.

For example, one of the thoughts that I routinely have is: I need to write a blog post.  I can practice non-routine thinking by thinking:  I want to write a blog post that will make me smile and make my readers smile too.

Notice what this does.  Not only does it remove the unattractive imperative of having to write a blog post, it allows me to creatively explore an alternative way of joyfully writing a blog post!

Likewise, with a particular behaviour.  Instead of eating a meal off the same plate, try a different plate and try a different position at the table.  Who says you have to sit at the same place every meal?

In fact, changing places every now and again not only breaks the monotony, it also gives you a different perspective, both physically and mentally.  How?  Because all information in your brain is stored in networks of associations.  Change one piece of information and you are effectively shaking up and rearranging the network of associations.  Remember, it’s not information itself that is novel, it’s the organization, associations and interpretations that generate novelty.

I cannot begin to tell you the tremendous and far-reaching benefits of practicing non-routine thinking and acting.  Try them for yourself.  Start right now.  What would you typically/routinely do after reading a blog post like this?  Do something different instead.  See where that takes you.  If nothing else, it gives your brain something different to process and in that way, keeps it active and alert.

Making useful and creative changes in our lives doesn’t have to involve grand, largess actions or decisions.  Rather, it is through the small, seemingly insignificant, ‘routine’ things in life that we most easily express the creative influence of our life energy, our love, for our happiness and that of all else!


In other words, think of and use your routines not as boundaries to keep you safe and predictable but as the fertile ground within which are uncountable seeds of creative expression waiting to be noticed and nurtured by you!

Go do it now!

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