Write Your Own Path to Happy

You are the sum of your experiences.

So they say.

We are told that we are a part-nurtured, part-natured walking product of everything we’ve been through and everything we believe to be true within and without of ourselves. We are a collection of memories, subconscious influences and belief systems which gradually mold us into the folks we are today.

We are warned that we carry the burden of all the unkind words and unfair judgments that we have ever received, that we harbor all our previous moments of personal anguish, and that we embody all the false hopes and misguided truths which we have learned and which we must un-learn in order to find true happiness.

However…

… are we not, therefore, the product of all of our positive experiences too? Are we not carrying around the satisfaction of every heartfelt compliment and word of encouragement?

Are we not resonating with every kind smile, every yet-to-be-realized dream and every moment of pure joy which linger inside of us, waiting to be recalled and re-lived to remind us of how amazing we really are?

I believe that for every breakdown, there is a breakthrough. For every put-down, there is a great big hoist-up, and for every thunderstorm, there is a rainbow that follows.

In essence, we are strong, we are determined and we are hopeful. At our core, we believe that there is always something to aim for, be that true love, contentment… success… or heaven. We are unified in our common pursuit for more, for better, for what we feel we deserve.

For every insult you endured, I can bet you have received a compliment. For every rejection you survived, you have achieved some form of success, and for every time you forgot how to believe in yourself, you were shocked by the realization that you had more faith than you ever gave yourself credit for. For every time you have been lost… you have also been found.

You always picked yourself up and carried on. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be here now.

We dwell on the times we fell, we lost and we were hurt. We hold on to our wounds like battered reminders of our failings — anti-trophies of our battles and defeats. But what of all the many times we smiled, we won and we saved ourselves, over and over again?

Where are our proud medals of personal success and gold-starred acknowledgements of our sweet victories and triumphs?

We are resilient and strong, and it’s about time we remembered this. We should be laying wreaths at the altars of the beautiful days we have lived.

I choose to let myself be the person I am, and the person I am proud of becoming. I choose to remember the sheer number of times my breath has been stolen by sunsets and sunrises, the oceans and mountains.

I choose to be influenced by the kindness of strangers who have continuously shined out to me like a beacon of hope in the chaos of humanity.

I choose not to be broken by the words which went against me, but instead choose to be strengthened by thepower of those which lifted me up and filled my heart with hope and my soul with joy.

I have decided to be carried by the river of love which runs through me, not by the fickle breeze of judgment and contempt which, at some stage, blows amongst us all.

Our whole lives are based on choice, it is what set us apart from other animals. We all have souls that need to survive but the difference is, we have a choice; we don’t have to just survive, we can live, we can thrive and we can be inspired.

We can choose what to leave behind and what no longer serves us. We have a privilege and, therefore, a right to be able to carry with us only that which benefits us — be it memories, friends, lovers or experiences.

“How we feel about ourselves, the joy we get from living, ultimately depends directly on how the mind filters and interprets everyday experiences. Whether we are happy depends on inner harmony, not on the controls we are able to exert over the great forces of the universe.”

~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Why should we carry the responsibility of the burden of our pasts when we can choose to leave it behind?

Let’s try to take only with us the softness, the warmth and the kindness that each of us has and will continue to experience, and be  more selective with the past we choose to carry; therefore, the life we choose to live.

If I am the sum of my experiences, then I choose to be built out of the multitudes of dreams that reside inside my heart and the many sunny days that I have woken up to.

I choose to be a product of all the magical times that my soul has connected with another’s, and the plethora of smiles I have received from strangers. I choose to be a grand medley of the times I have loved others and been loved myself.

I choose to embody the sum of the parts of me constructed from perseverance, determination and hope, rather than an amalgamation of my memories of fear and shame.

My self-confidence is more reliant on how I choose to see myself, than how others choose to see me.

My self-belief is dependent on the importance I place on my own dreams, not the willingness of others to support them.

The love I have for myself is home-grown and self-appointed and is based  on the gradual collection of experiences in which I have taken growth and strength as an outcome, not self-pity.

{Photo via pinterest.com}

We have two options in this short and sweet life of ours: We can blame others for who or where we are today, or we can take responsibility for our own happiness. We are the lead character in the story of our lives… Select the plot you want, drop what you don’t. The rest is fantasy.

It’s true that we are the sum of our experiences… but only those we choose to cherish. Remember the good and forget the rest.

Life’s too short not to.

5 Signs You're a Dreamer...

“You seemed so far away,” Miss Honey whispered, awestruck.

“Oh, I was. I was flying past the stars on silver wings,” Matilda said. “It was wonderful.”

Oh, beautiful dreamer… your head is in the clouds again. Come down here where I can see you. What were you dreaming of this time?

Sunkissed meadows framed by azure blue skies… Hazy days spent lounging by trickling streams that meander through sleepy fields… Crimson and burnt ochre sunsets lighting up channels of diamonds over dappled oceans… Flocks of wild birds darting over snow capped mountain tops and lush emerald valleys… Mystical lands filled with the promise of love  and passion, the sweet aroma of incense and jasmine hanging thick in the hot summer air… Wild horses carrying on their backs princes and thieves ready to whisk you off to faraway lands to feast with kings and run with the wolves.

What do you dream of, dreamer?

I dream of people I’ve never met, and cities I’ve never been… I dream of fairies and folk tales and stories I’ve not yet written or read. I dream of what I might one day create and how I might go about creating it. I dream of success and love and heartbreak and heartbuild. I dream of heaven on earth and happiness. I dream of simple pleasures — the sun on my face, sand beneath my feet, the sound of a waterfall,  a breeze, a flower, a promise…

I dream… I dream… I dream…

I imagine feelings not yet felt, and places not yet discovered. I conjure up ideas and fantasies based on the colour of a rose, or the sound of a piano chord. I am an endless river of ecstatic imagining and whimsical wondering.

I dream because to dream is to hope and to have hope is to survive in a world that so fiercely tries to rob you of such luxury.

 As children we are all dreamers. Our imaginations are ripe and wild; we can spend hours, days, even whole summers outside  making dens and castles or imagining monsters and princes and unicorns with magic powers which take us to fantasia and back before tea time. We have invisible friends who we believe to be real and we are convinced our toys come to life every night.

We believe in a magical man with a penchant for sherry and the preferred transport of 12 reindeers, who delivers us gifts every Christmas, missing not one child on the whole planet. We hide our baby teeth eagerly under our pillows, waiting for a generous fairy to visit.

How awesome to live in this way? How wonderful to believe the world holds so much magic and promise…  So why do we stop? We’re told  it’s impractical to keep looking at life in this way and that we need to stop believing in ‘nonsense.’ After all, people will think we’re crazy…

“Dreamers are mocked as impractical. The truth is they are the most practical, as their innovations lead to progress and a better way of life for all of us.”  ~ Robin Sharma

But some  never give up imagining this world. Some continue to see magic in the mundane, extrarordinary in the everyday. We call them dreamers. They bring creativity and magic and excitement to the concrete and the routine. They make things happen because they still believe they can.

They dare to dream, and they dare to dream big. It’s within these dreams that change can arise, like the phoenix from the ashes. They see beauty everywhere and they create art from the earth. They tell stories and weave tales to help and heal and inspire.

“The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it.” ~ David Orr

So here are 5 signs that you are most probably a dreamer, in which case, go forth and spread your magic in the world to help make it a better place:

1. You love to read.

Fact, fiction, poetry, you’re ravenous for words and stories. You drink in their wisdom and lose yourself within their pages. Your imagination conjures up wild mental images which inspire and excite you, and you often fall in love with the characters from your books.

You re-read the novels that capture your imagination,  picking them up like old friends. It makes you delightfully happy to be curled up with a good book, a cup of tea and a long, lazy evening ahead.

2. You still believe in magic.

Even though we’re conditioned to stop believing in magic around our teens, you secretly still do. You believe in unicorns and fairies and wizards and witches and you most definitely believe that there is a realm of magical wonder that exists alongside our ordinary existence because you’ve witnessed the innocence of a child, the sixth sense of an animal or the kindness of strangers.

You’ve known the electrifying pull towards the mysterious and you know that magical powers exist in yourself and in all the other magical people. You know because you feel it. And feeling is believing, dreamer.

3. You’re creative.

You love to paint or draw or write or sing or play an instrument. You might not be the best, you might not even think you’re very good but you just love to use your creative energy towards doing something that makes you happy. You feel an urge to sit down and draw the sunset with coloured crayons, or a poem flies out onto a scrap of paper without warning after hearing an old favourite song.

You love to let go and let the creative juices flow because you lose yourself and you  feel really good when you do. Creativity isa life force that flows through each one of us and harnessing it means to access our highest energy; the place where beauty and magic resides.

4. You love to be immersed in nature.

Fields, mountains, rivers and oceans. These are the places whereyour soul comes alive and you feel a peace in your heart. You feel the pull towards places which offer you this solace and you feel connected with the gentleness of nature.

You are energized by the forest, and the quiet calm of the countryside and you feel the need to escape to nature every so often to re-charge. A lack of green spaces can play havoc  with your general disposition — and you often find yourself longing for the silent sweetness of nature.

5. You love to be alone.

Spending time alone, recharges your batteries and gives you a chance to connect to yourself again. You love the company of others but you need to escape into your own space often as it’s there where you can really dream and create and contemplate and just be.

Listen to music, read a book, think, relax, unwind and unravel the stresses and strains of life, in your own time, and in your own space. To ‘just be’ in your own company is one of the surest sign of being a dreamer. You can never feel alone or bored when you’re truly at ease with yourself and your imagination.

So, dreamer, we’ve been waiting for you… We need you to promise to keep dreaming to inspire us to be better and bolder and more brilliant.

Show us faraway lands with your words and your hands and your heart and paint our futures with the spectrum of rainbows. Be bold enough to alchemize your dreams into reality and  live bravely in your heartspace to inspire others to do the same.

“My own heroes are the dreamers, those men and women who tried to make the world a better place than when they found it, whether in small ways or great ones. Some succeeded, some failed, most had mixed results… but it is the effort that’s heroic, as I see it. Win or lose, I admire those who fight the good fight.” ~ George R R Martin