It seems this message can’t be shared often enough. We are constantly being told that we create our own reality. But the truth of happiness needs to be reinforced often because we tend to forget that happiness is a choice. If we’re not feeling well or someone has made us mad or we didn’t get what we wanted, then we feel unhappy. But is that really a good choice? Maybe the initial reaction of unhappiness isn’t a choice, but staying with that feeling, sometimes even wallowing in it, doesn’t bring us the happiness we seek, nor does it help us to solve the original problem.
I learned about a foundation that has been created to give a ‘Wow!’ experience to patients who have been diagnosed with late stage cancer and their families. The idea was developed by someone who had cancer but had an excellent prognosis. Unfortunately, she had a reversal during treatment and became terminal. Her idea, though, has been carried on by her husband. The foundation creates a dream vacation, a vacation from cancer, for a few days for the family to make memories that live on with the survivors. For those few days there are no hospitals to deal with and they can live ‘normal’ lives. What a beautiful idea!
This foundation was created by a woman who could have chosen to feel sorry for herself or to wallow in her own condition. Instead, she decided that if she had only a short time left with her family, she was going to make every moment special. She lived with her disease but chose to smile and to live the best she could whatever moments she had left.
If someone with terminal cancer can find a way to make every day count in a positive way, can you? JUST FOR TODAY, can you decide to find the delight available to you, in small things and big things? Can you decide to feel happy whether Life hands you lemons or sugarplums?
You see, living a Conscious Life is always about the choices we make. In everything we do, we are making a choice. We can’t choose what happens externally nor can we control other people, but we can choose how we react to what happens. This message bears repeating because, as we grow, we start to see at a very deep level just what it is that we can control. And there is a lot in our life that we can control.
There are also circumstances that we cannot control. Does staying upset about those things change anything? Usually the answer is ‘no.’ We can’t get into the proactive mode of problem-solving until we move beyond the reactive mode of being upset.
Making a decision about how you feel is a big step toward living a Conscious Life. It is not that your feelings are not valid, for they are, but you have the ability to move beyond that initial feeling. You have the power to decide how you will continue to feel. As with Fear, where you are told to ‘feel the fear and do it anyway,’ if you are feeling unhappy, ask yourself why you have chosen to allow something to take away your remembrance of the light within. Accept the feeling but then look for the way ahead, letting your Iinner light illuminate the possibilities. Choose to feel happy about the belief that there are possibilities even if you can’t see them yet.
Just because you aren’t feeling happy at the moment doesn’t mean that you can’t feel happy soon!
[If you are interested in the foundation I mentioned, it is the Jack & Jill Late Stage Cancer Foundation and they do great work.]
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BOOK LIGHTS: from “The Magicians”
July 28, 2010 — Rosemary________________________