choose happy

Just Keep Going

March 21, 2014 By Arminda 3 Comments

There was a period of time in my life when I felt broken emotionally and couldn’t see through the density of my situation to a better tomorrow. I knew only to take one step at a time, placing one foot in front of the other. So that’s what I did. One foot and one step at a time. Step by step I filled an entire day and then a second day and eventually a week and all of my steps added up to my forward movement.

One night in a moment of uncertainty, confusion and deep anguish, my dear friend Bea called to check on me and she taught me something I’ve always remembered and carried with me as truth:

You never have to go back to yesterday; it’s over. Where you are is here. Now. And nothing that happened in a string of your yesterdays can hurt you today. Or tomorrow. Or ever.

I understand now what I was incapable of seeing then: the past and its cacophony of emotions born of experiences (some of which we choose and others chosen for us) have power over us today only if we choose to give those emotions a place in our heads and in our thoughts.

What matters is what we think because our thoughts, which flow through us and can sometimes be really loud in our heads, determine our state of being.

Your feelings are real to you. Your adventures in life will generate a wide range of thoughts, which will create emotional responses that will inform your journey. And you get to make the choice every single day about how you interact with those emotions.

When it seems as if the voice in your head is too loud and your thoughts are negative and the accompanying emotions feel too heavy to carry, please remember

You never have to go back to yesterday; it’s over. Where you are is here. Now. And nothing that happened in a string of your yesterdays can hurt you today. Or tomorrow. Or ever.

Take a deep breath. Let the chatter and emotions come to a resting place inside your head. And then choose to embrace a different emotion.

I am grateful for the knowledge that I’m wired for happiness, as are you.

I’m also grateful to have lived through enough of life to reiterate Rainer Maria Rilke‘s profound wisdom:

No feeling is final.

No amount of hurt, joy, heartache, euphoria, stress, pleasure, pain, delight, grief, happiness, trauma, enjoyment, agony, amusement, sadness, entertainment, anguish or diversion will last forever. I promise.

That’s not to say we won’t be faced with all of these emotions, to varying degrees, at some time or another throughout our existence. I believe we should experience this broad range of emotions. How else can we possibly learn and understand and grow into better humans if not through these very personal moments that add up to a lifetime?

Just keep going and when you think you can’t, just take one more step and then another.

I’m cheering for you.

Choose you. Choose happy.

Miss Bossy Pants

March 14, 2014 By Arminda 6 Comments

A few days ago I was in the midst of some lighthearted texting banter with a friend when he casually threw a handful of descriptors my direction, charging me of being the following:

high maintenance
pushy
bossy
high fashion sense
fabulous

I immediately countered with a reference to Sheryl Sandberg and her #banbossy campaign:

Sheryl Sandberg is advocating for the removal of “bossy” from our vernacular as it sends the wrong message to our female population about their true leadership capabilities.

I then sent a text message with a rewrite, suggesting I’m certain he meant to say the following about me instead:

I maintain high expectations of myself and those around me.
I’m assertive and know what I want.
My leadership skills shine in every circumstance.
I pay attention to details, particularly with myself and when I dress it is a reflection of my personal standards of excellence.
I am fabulous. Thanks for noticing.

This is not a post advocating for banning the word bossy, although I am an advocate for every single person reading Sheryl Sandberg’s book, Lean In.

This is also not a post to denigrate my friend for his comments, which I have taken out of context to share here with you. (He fully endorses and supports my rewrite.)

This IS a post about knowing yourself.

Sometimes we hear something said about ourselves and we choose to internalize that message as truth. Perhaps that something was said years ago or perhaps it was just last week.

Words are just words. Your thoughts apply meaning to them, and once you’ve attached meaning, you start generating emotions around those thoughts and before you realize it, you’ve created a belief. A false one.

Remember the childhood rhyme?

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words (or names) will never hurt me!

Maybe we should repeat this more often as adults than we did as children. Attaching meaning to names and words is a habit and habits are meant to be broken, at least the bad ones!

Who are you?

Know the answer to this question unequivocally. Without hesitation.

State your list out loud to yourself so you can hear it. Attach your meaning to those words and the emotions you generate will be positive because hearing those words will resonate an inner truth deep within you and you will smile from the inside out, and a new belief will have been created.

Now if anyone (yourself included) throws you a label or a name or a title that doesn’t fit your personal description, you’ll be prepared to deliver an accurate definition back.

Choose you. Choose happy.

Create Tomorrow Today

March 10, 2014 By Arminda 3 Comments

Creation has been a lot on my mind lately. The creation of our lives. Our futures. Our realities. Our now. And how our beliefs create the world around us.

We have within each of us the power to create whatever present and future world we wish to inhabit. We are the creators of our today and of our tomorrow.

How do we create something that we don’t believe exists?

Start believing it does.

Shawn Achor (my happiness crush) says:

Studies show that simply believing we can bring about positive change in our lives increases motivation and job performance; that success, in essence, becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy (The Happiness Advantage, 75).

Coach Michael Neill says you can make believe anything:

. . . we can change our experience of the world (and ultimately the world itself) by changing the way we choose to see it. . . . instead of always trying to align your beliefs with “reality,” it’s possible to align your beliefs with what you most want to create in your life. And when you consistently make believe in what you want, you can begin to create some pretty unbelievable results (Supercoach, 15,16)!

The greatest athletes and performers in the world will tell you they weren’t born talented; they created their talent by believing they could and in his bestselling book Wealth Warrior, Steve Chandler corroborates that sentiment with his reminder that “practice creates talent (115).”

Creating a new belief can be intimidating, or even scary, for some of us. You’re not alone.

Even Alice, from Lewis Carroll’s classic Through the Looking Glass, challenged the very notion of believing what Alice deemed an impossibility when the Queen chided her:

I daresay you haven’t had much practice. . . . When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

Impossible only exists if you believe it does. You define impossible.

Me? I’d rather eliminate that word from my personal dictionary altogether.

Let yourself give in to this new belief. This creation notion. It’s very liberating.

Perhaps practicing believing the impossible before breakfast as the Queen suggests is a great idea, and before long you’ll recognize you’re no longer chasing after your dreams; you’re manufacturing them.

Choose you. Choose happy.