Amy Collette

It’s easy to say that happiness or any other condition in your life is a choice. But what does that mean? Does it mean that if I’m not happy that I’ve consciously chosen to be miserable?

Well, it means that you may have developed a habit of unhappiness. For instance, you probably know someone who is Doctor Gloom – always looking at the dark side of life, complaining about how things these days are just not as good as “back then.” I was just at a party, making small talk with some people I rarely see. One woman wished me a happy new year, then proceeded to tell me how everything was going to hell. I don’t think she saw the contradiction.

No matter where I steered the conversation, she was determined to draw it back to how things were different (meaning worse) than in “her day.” Whew! I felt drained and exhausted when I finally made an excuse to get another drink just to move away from her.

She is an extreme example, but we can get caught up in that victim thinking so easily. Because it’s all these things around us, and all those other people making bad decisions that make the world a sad place, right? There’s nothing we can do about it…

Except make a choice every day to see it differently.

It’s a practice – to start looking for other things, for the light side. It’s not until you start to do this that you realize that victim thinking is just a habit – one that most of us have.

For me, it started with gratitude. That’s the foundation of a whole life, of being a complete person. From there, I added other practices, like self-care, meditation, intuition, and healthy relationships.

It’s never too late to start a new habit – and it happens pretty quickly. I invite you to start today – not to make grand, sweeping resolutions that are impossible to keep. Just start with one practice. When you wake up or when you go to bed (or both!) breathe in the feeling of  gratitude. Let your breath take your mind to whatever floats up in your mind to be grateful for. And invite that feeling to be with you in your dreams and in your day.

It’s the start of choosing joy.

(More happiness practices)

I was just listening to an old song from the ’70′s and a line that hit me was “I sense … something divine in you.”
It’s just a pick-up line in the song, but it made me smile and think that if I could see the divine in everyone, life would be a lot more fun.

A life coach told me that to change a habit, you have to replace it with something. That makes sense to me – it’s hard to just tell yourself to stop doing something. It’s easier to shift that energy into something else.

And, like everything, it has to start with me. Like when I make a mistake, instead of spending 10 minutes calling myself an idiot, I can see the humor in it, laugh, and forgive myself for the goof-up. Then maybe I can do the same with the people I love…

I woke up this morning out of a disturbing dream feeling angry. In the dream, I was mad at my brother for not taking care of himself – I felt that he had made poor decisions about how he lived. I thought that he was putting other peoples’ opinions above his own needs.

This dream was very vivid and has stayed with me all day. Finally, I took a few minutes, took some deep breaths, and asked tmy inner guidance what this meant. The answer came almost immediately – a gentle question asked of me: How have you been giving away your power – placing yourself at the bottom? How have you been leaving yourself behind?

Of course. It always comes back to self. With a sigh and a laugh, it was immediately clear to me that I do this in many ways. By fearing that what I do will make other people feel bad. By assuming that things must happen or be a certain way. By imposing rules on myself that I’ve learned from surviving a dysfunctional family. Those rules no longer serve.

The other important question that came through Spirit was: Why were you so angry at your brother? How do his choices about his own life have anything to do with you?

This one was hard for me to look at – I thought I was better at respecting the people I love – “letting” them live their lives. But – I’m my brother’s keeper, right? Wrong. He is best equipped to make his own decisions, as we all are for ourselves. What I can do is listen to him, love him, and lift him up to the light. And let him go.

Intuition is a blessing that you can use everyday, once you get the “hang” of it. It informs your relationships, your work, your parenting – it affects your very outlook on life. For me, using intuition just flows naturally out of the spiritual work I’ve done over many years. Mixed in with heavy doses of gratitude, it’s helped me to have an amazing marriage, joyful friendships, and beautiful work.

Intuition encompasses so many things – I’ll just dip my toe in the subject today. At it’s simplest, intuition is the ability to see the light. Rather than being some mysterious psychic ability, intuition is an awareness, a sense of knowing that you can develop and deepen over time. All of us are born with it – it’s a free gift from Spirit.

You’ll find your own unique way to awaken your intuition. You can start by getting quiet and observing what’s around you, and learn more about how energy flows through everything.

Look up!

You might think you’re already aware of your world. But how about when you hear of a new fad or music group? You’re not quite sure how it got past you, when everyone else seems to know about it. And then you hear about it every time you talk to someone.

Last weekend I told my friend Deb that I never knew there were so many hawks in the sky. She wisely said, “You just weren’t looking.” That’s exactly it.

In meditation one day I asked for what I needed to know, and I got the message, “Look up.” I didn’t know what that meant, but I started looking up anyway. What I saw were trees, birds, clouds – a whole world up there I wasn’t paying attention to! Hawk struck me deeply as a totem animal – one that always had a message for me.

Now I see hawks all the time. In fact, I’ve begun to rely on their presence when I need verification. I started noticing that a hawk or other bird was flying over, just at the moment when I made an important decision or had a new idea. At first I was amazed; almost dumbstruck. But it is an everyday occurrence. Now I smile and laugh when I see that shadow of wing; I send up some gratitude for the angelic “thumbs-up” and know that I’m on the right path.

Energy Awareness

Developing my intuition started out with simple awareness, like my bond with hawks, and grew into an understanding of energy. Everything shares energy – from the sun, from within, between people, and most important, from Spirit, which shines through all. Meditation and other practices can help guide you to a greater understanding.

For me, meditation led to a calm, a place I could find a peace and clarity that didn’t exist in my outside world. Making a practice of getting “out of my mind” and into that deeper place meant that it became easier to find that peace more often. Then a real shift happened – that peace started crossing over from my “meditation world” to my everyday existence. The beautiful gift from that peace is the openness to Spirit that happens in meditation can how happen at any time. That energy easily flows into everything. Intuition is now informing my decisions without my really thinking about it. That’s what I think of as really being in the flow of life – one with that truth of Spirit.

Gently increasing awareness of your own energy and the energy of everything around you is a transformation – it puts you in the center of a ton of information that you were missing out on before. Having so much more available to you naturally gives you the ability to make decisions with clarity and certainty.

My best advice about where to start is: look up, look around, but first – look within.

I was blessed to attend the anniversary celebration of some dear friends today. The pastor who married them also reaffirmed their vows – 50 years later.

He talked about how, 50 years ago, the couple vowed to love, honor and obey. He said that today, many wedding ceremonies skip the obey part. Personally, it’s always made me cringe, because it implied an abuse or at least imbalance of power. But here’s what he said about it:

“50 years ago, the groom started a bank account. He handed his bride a check book and said, ‘When you’ve got something to put in it, use the forms in the back. When you want to buy something, use the ones in the front. Do whatever you want with it – I trust your intelligence and your wisdom. Can you do this thing that I ask of you?’

And the bride told her husband-to-be, ‘I promise to always protect you, and to take care of you and help you build a fruitful life. To always nurture our family and love you. Can you allow me to do this for you?’”

In a few moments, the beautiful words of this pastor changed the way I thought of the word “obey.” Instead of a term of opression, it became another word for trust.
Amen.