Adjust the Joy

Did you know that in Ancient Egypt Joy was considered a sacred responsibility? It was believed that when you passed on the God Osiris would ask you, “Did you bring Joy?” and “ Did you find Joy?” If you answered yes, you were allowed to continue your journey onto the afterlife. How would you answer? Joy is one of the highest vibrations on this planet when it is looked at energetically. It is understood that everything in the Universe is energy and we can measure this energy by vibrational frequencies. It is a universal law that as we feel, think, and live we vibrate. As we vibrate we not only send out our energies, but we also attract energies. When we are feeling Joy we attract things, people, experiences that will serve our greater good.

What answer do you get when you ask yourself the two questions above? Are you pleased with the answers. If not, what will you do to change the answers. So much of what we experience and what we ripple out to the Universe, to our family and our friends, has to do with our perspective that we carry around with us in our lives. Perhaps you need a shift in perspective.

Take something that is keeping you from finding Joy and approach it from a different perspective than you usually do. The only way you will get a different result is if you change things up. What can you do differently?

Explore why you are having a challenge in bringing joy to others. What needs to shift or change? What gets in your way? Again, if you change your approach, if you change your reaction to people and situations, if you change the way you “see” things you may find a difference waiting for you to embrace it!

Start small, start simple. Joy is easy to find in the simple things in life. Joy does not need bartering or negotiating to be met. Joy softly approaches and tenderly shares its lovely and light tendrils with us and once we are wrapped up in it, we do not want to let go or be let go! Find Joy today.

Blessings ~ Lisa

©COPYRIGHT 2012 Lisa Meade

Peppered Throughout the Day

Admittedly, I have very busy days. With five children, even those out on their own need TLC regularly, my darling husband, three separate careers, ongoing course work and all the small stuff… well, you can imagine. We all have full or overflowing plates it seems. Given that, I am quite certain that a small and simple acts that I have placed into the tiny spaces of free time that are left in my day are what save me. These acts keeps me grounded. They preserve my focus on my intentions. They help me stay connected to Spirit. They also support me in letting the petty problems that I stub my ego on throughout the day, roll off my back. They allow my heart to stay open to others.

So what are these small and simple acts that I weave through my day? I pepper my day with moments of prayer, deep breathing, positive affirmations, chants, meditations and more. These small undertakings keep the flow in my day. I rarely get stuck anymore. I am not saying I don’t have a “bad” day from time to time, that is inevitable, but these choices I make to bring the focus back can help save the day from falling completely into that deep black hole!

It is not unusual to find me chanting through a red light. You may see me whispering a mantra to myself as I chop the onions for the veggie chili for dinner. You may find me with my eyes closed after getting off the phone with one of my adult children, sending them prayers of positive energy and light to assist get them over whatever troubling speed bump they are facing.

People often wonder at how they can “become” more spiritual. It is as though they think there is a course they can take or a method that they can be trained in. The reality is that we are spiritual beings and we forget that beautiful truth. Being spiritual means just that…be spiritual. Bring whatever sacred act you feel connected to, whatever resonates with you into your life regularly and meaningfully. You must practice trusting it, honoring it, celebrating with it and relying on it.

Life will give you all the opportunities to put it into practice. And your mind will try to tell you there is not enough time. BUT that is exactly when you need it the most! Making time for your spirituality is as important as making time to exercise, or making time to eat healthy whole foods, or making time to laugh. Without it…what kind of a life are you living? You get to choose each and every glorious day!

Blessings ~ Lisa

©COPYRIGHT 2012 Lisa Meade

Are You Your Own Bully?

I have come across a common complaint among many of my spiritual life coaching clients. They are tired of beating themselves up and want to stop. The reasons for this behavior are as different and diverse as the clients themselves, but almost all began in childhood. Being unusually hard on themselves, many of these clients have subtle patterns and overt behaviors that often go unnoticed or accepted by others in their lives. Think of the people in your life who you know have great difficulty accepting a compliment, or those who are never satisfied with the work they do and seem to always find fault with some aspect of it, or those who can get particularly worked up and angry with themselves over some small shortcoming or flaw. Any kind of failure is unacceptable.

This self-bullying behavior sends very distinct messages to our bodies. It also takes a great amount of energy. Imagine the time that is wasted in this activity! If you wish to see what if feels like to be a bully to yourself, get quiet and focused. Think about a time when someone made you feel really bad about yourself. Maybe they humiliated or embarrassed you, or perhaps they yelled at you and used you as an example to others. How is your body reacting? How do you feel? What thoughts begin to go through your head? For some, this reaction, these thoughts and these feelings are far too common.

Not treating yourself with respect and in a kind manner is like a bad habit. For those who have been at it for a while, it is very hard to break the pattern. But being aware of how it makes us feel, focusing on the time and energy we are wasting doing it and wanting to make a change are all part of the first steps in transitioning out of this behavior. I often suggest to my clients to make notes about how bullying makes them feel both during the actual act and then later. Sometimes this gentle noticing brings about such a strong want to change that they are able to make the necessary shifts in thoughts and perspectives to do so. For most there is a deep desire to be healthy and happy, to live a life filled with peace and contentment. If that want can shine through the fog that is created by self-bullying then the change can begin.

Blessings ~ Lisa

©COPYRIGHT 2012 Lisa Meade

Why I Love My Jobs

I think I am one of the fortunate ones. I truly feel blessed with what I refer to as my jobs. But allow me to share with you a little secret…they don’t feel like jobs! I think I know why too. Along the path I call my life’s journey I finally figured out that to do my best in this lifetime, to live authentically and to continue to grow, I needed to be sure that my “jobs” supported and aligned with all of this. Spirit kept tugging me along in a certain direction and I quickly learned that if I went with the flow, stopped questioning everything, and developed my tools along the way, I became more and more passionate and excited about what was unfolding for me. The other lesson I learned was to try to live life without expectations. Expectations lead to judgments, disappointments and often frustration. Without them, anything becomes possible and that shift in perspective for me made all the difference in the world and still does.

I am a spiritual life coach, author and blogger, and an artist representative for a talent promotion agency. Odd mix of titles, but they work for me! And, as I have said, I love my jobs!

While they may seem separate and a bit diverse these different roles all share certain similarities. They allow room for my creative spirit, they allow me to be of service to Spirit and to others, they allow me to use my strengths and I am appreciated for that, and they keep me engaged with others. These particulars are important to my satisfaction and my growth. The challenges that cross my path in these roles often stretch me, at times test me and sometimes puzzle me, but they have not yet bogged me down or took away any of my passion.

So I cannot help but wonder when I hear someone complaining about how much they hate their job, how life would be different for them if they could find a way to be their best, to live and grow authentically and find a job that supports this. We make lists all the time. We make lists for the groceries we need to buy, the qualities we want in a life partner, bucket lists of what we want to do before we die…what would a list look like that had the qualities of the best suited job for someone.

Perhaps that is the key. We accept jobs based on things like money, location, benefits, coworkers and such. These are all important, but they are not all that should be considered. When we look into a job do we consider how it aligns with what we want in life? Considering the amount of time the average person spends at the job, usually at least 40 hours a week, I think it should.

This, of course, is not to say in today’s economy we are grateful to have a job. I understand that fully, having watched my husband's business slowly disappear as companies took their business overseas for cost savings. We had good practice at making lemonade from the lemons left behind. But even through that, this concept became part of the equation of surviving, rising above, seeking elsewhere and moving on. I even think that it helped in that whole “have no expectations” piece…as anything became possible!

Blessings ~ Lisa

©COPYRIGHT 2012 Lisa Meade