No, I’m not talking about those little purple pills. Or devices from the back pages of the National Enquirer, or the performance-enhancing supplements sold on TV at 0-dark-thirty in the morning.
I’m talking about the performance anxiety you wake up to in every-day life, like getting the kids ready for school before managing to get to work on time with two shoes that match and an outfit that didn’t come out of the laundry hamper.
Are You a Warrior of Worry?
I used to be like a martial arts warrior when it came to worrying. In fact, looking back now, I probably should have had an anxiety assessment since I had a high level of anxiety for most of my life.
To combat this anxiety, I was continually writing down positive thinking quotes, inspirational quotes, quotes about staying positive, positive energy quotes, happiness quotes - you name it. I wanted to feel inspired, uplifted, calmed. I wanted to be happy.
I thought that "positive thinking" would make it all go away and I'd miraculousy get happy. That's what the experts said. That's what the happiness self-help books said. But I was wrong - and so were they.
Positive thinking is critical to happiness, but it's just one part of a solution to getting happy. The other ingredients for a happy life involve:
- Recognizing which inner beliefs are supporting an ongoing state of unhappiness and then rooting them out.
- Developing tools and strategies that support your ability to take action to improve your life.
Transforming anxiety into peace
At a turning point along my road of life, this blind squirrel found an acorn in a snowstorm by discovering one cool trick.
One day I was lamenting this long list of problems to my brother on the phone, and being the witty, funny guy he is, he made some comment about my ending up homeless and dead, with the unfortunate fate of being found in $10 plastic shoes.
I started laughing so hard at myself that tears streamed down my face and later that night I found myself repeating what had happened on the phone. I took my worst-case-scenario and deliberately ran it through my head all the way out to its twisted, pants-on-fire-hanging-from-a-cliff conclusion. And when I did, my humor inevitably kicked in and replaced my fear as the irony, absurdity and ridiculousness of my negative inner-mind “movie” transformed it from a tragedy into a comedy.
Dying Alone
The ultimate bad ending and the eventual price to pay for failing in life is death, isn't it? Isn't that the ultimate, end-all fear? Or pardon me, that’s not quite true. For some there is the ever-threatening and far more punitive danger of being roasted in a fiery inferno to pay for our mistakes not just until we die, but for eternity!
I’d say those are two pretty bad endings for failing at the job of life, wouldn’t you? No wonder we suffer from performance anxiety!
With that in mind, let’s indulge in an example of a possible “worst-case scenario.” For simplicity purposes let’s say this particular scenario ends at death, and spare ourselves the wincing details of the hereafter.
Your client list had thinned because of the economy and your boss (whose nephew needs a new job) is looking at you like a lion at fresh meat. The mortgage is getting harder to pay, you can’t afford those stops at Starbucks, and your once-promising romance has died a painful death.
If you don’t make more sales and earn more commissions, your boss will hack you and his nephew will get your desk and parking place. Within 90 days your savings will disappear and you’ll lose your house. Now homeless with only a K-Mart shopping cart (filled with your ex’s camping gear and that box of weight-loss protein bars you never ate), you are forced to farm out your semi-orphaned child to those critical in-laws who always knew you were a loser and never liked you anyway. Wandering alone in the dark, abandoned by the world, you finally collapse into a fitful sleep under a dank bridge where a strange drunk wanders by and urinates on you. You get the dreaded a-drunk-peed-on-me virus that you can’t cure because now you're uninsured, and within 24 hours you fall desperately ill and die - alone - just one more unidentified statistic getting 15 seconds on the local news after landing a temporary home on a refrigerated roll-out slab in the morgue.
Does that just about hit the mark with where you'll inevitably end up if you make one wrong decision, suffer one bad judgement call, or let one thing slip out of your white-knuckle grip of control? Yeah, right.
Now that you’ve acted out the movie of the worst-case-scenario in your head, wept at your sad fate and recovered with a fresh cup of coffee - it’s time to lighten up and look at your problems for what they really are: Riddles to be solved using your imagination, creativity and above all, sense of humor.
Here are six tips for taming your anxiety and taking the “riddle” approach to problem-solving:
1) Set aside a time to deal with challenges: Pick a relazed time like a Saturday afternoon. Have a notebook to write in ,and handle it like you’re going in to a planning session at work. Only this is life work, not job work.
- Be dressed and upbeat (no pajamas and sad face), and bring the creativity, brightness, and optimism you would apply to solving someone else’s problem.
- Leave your worst-case scenario emotions out of the process and keep in mind that the ultimate goal of holding this meeting, beyond the challenges you face in solving this riddle, is to get happy.
2) Deal with one challenge at a time, as a completely isolated problem:
- Work on solving only that riddle until you feel confident that you know the solution and can proceed into the taking action phase.
- Don’t lump a dozen small problems together to form one giant, convoluted mess that feels impossible to fix.
- Like belly-button lint, if you save it up and roll it together long enough, you’ll create a monster!
3) Go ahead and take each riddle to its most absurd, worst-case scenario conclusion:
- When you're done, have a good laugh and put things back into perspective.
- Not being able to afford that gym membership might not result in your eating yourself to death on Kentucky Fried until the couch collapses, you die and the cat ends up eating your face. It might just mean you jog around the park and exercise on your living room floor for a while. Which, compared to dying from the dreaded a-drunk-peed-on-me virus or being eaten by the cat, isn’t so bad.
4) Take each question you come up with and look at its opposite:
- If you’re trying to figure out how to buy a second car, try solving the riddle of how many different ways you could live without one. Think of it as a game, like “10 ways to live in my town without a car.”
- Or use your imagination as if planning a TV reality show with your family as the stars: “How much can this family earn holding a two-day garage sale?” or “Can a family of 4 live on $100 per week in groceries for 6 months?”
- Start thinking of yourself as a creator and producer in your life, and not as simply a reactor and bystander.
- Don't be afraid to have fun - sometimes we get "jaded" as we grow older and we stop using our imagination, or playing at life like a child does. Give it a try, have some fun, and let yourself lighten up and feel happy!
5) Remember to laugh at yourself and lighten up:
- Get real with your family and friends. Just because you always showed up with a $50 bottle of wine on Father’s Day or a new cashmere sweater on your friend’s birthday, doesn’t mean you have to keep that up.
- Let go of ego-based decisions you might be making to keep up appearances. Instead, share your real circumstances with trusted friends and family, not with embarassment but with humor - and watch that anxiety fade away as it's replaced with closer bonds of support, hope and love.
6) Go ahead and adopt a positive attitude!
- Collect those positive thinking quotes, inspirational quotes, quotes about staying positive, positive energy quotes, happiness quotes - or better yet, write your own!
- Paste them on the fridge, stick one on your car dashboard, the bathroom mirror, the front door.
- Do whatever it takes to keep you thinking positive and remind you that you are on a journey to happiness, and that happiness starts with your thoughts and your positive attitide.
- Wheter funny or serious, surrrounding yourself with reminders of your goals for a happy life can only help.
Anxiety and worry are based on fear, and that fear is created in your own mind. If you can create a negative story powerful enough to cause your emotions to respond as if an imagined tragedy somewhere in the future is true...just imagine what challenges you can overcome when you replaced that negative movie in your mind with one of empowerment, optimism and decisive action.
That new movie can re-write one person's story of anxiety and unhappiness into a story of joy and hope for a happier future and a more passionate, fulfilling and happy life.
Your Inspirational Quote for today:
Golden Key # 37 says, “Changing our life experience begins with changing how we choose to perceive what is happening to us and how we choose to respond to it.”
The 37th Golden Key references our ability to change our experience in the world by altering how we choose to respond to what happens around us. When we understand that our routine responses are not necessarily predetermined, but are instead a reflection of our inner beliefs about ourselves – we have the ability to change how we navigate through life.
The Ask Mia question for today is:
What is the one problem you could transform into a riddle today, and then solve?
- Start with something very simple - practice makes perfect - and then unleash your imagination, creativity, positivity, optimism and passion to solve a riddle and create a better, happier life!
Post your questions and comments below and I’ll answer you personally. Here’s to your happy life!
Mia Pratt is a happiness expert and author of the ground-breaking happiness self-help book, “The Secrets of the 100 Golden Keys.” She is also the founder of the Center for Creativity and Happiness, where you can ASK MIA for free advice and download free ebooks and podcasts on how to create a more passionate, fulfilling and happy life. You can learn more about Mia and the 100GKU Center for Creativity & Happiness at www.100GoldenKeys.com.
Seeking happiness vs. creating happiness - which path are you on?
We've all experienced tragedies and setbacks in our lives – and all the wonderful parts of life, too. And as a result we’ve developed inner beliefs that serve as our road maps through life. But one of the most important shifts you can make is to start creating happiness, rather than seeking it. And creating happiness starts with creating new beliefs that support the happy life you want to live.
No matter how old you are, or how rich or talented or successful you are – or if the opposite is true – right now is the time to look into yourself and reevaluate what you believe to be true about yourself. Time is passing. The world is changing. Are you changing with it?
Maybe you don’t have to wait until your world falls apart or you're gasping your last breath as your entire life flashes before you, to figure out what’s missing from it. Maybe you can liberate yourself from fears, anxiety and worry today, and start creating a happy life now.
Creating happiness
I look at creating happiness as attending a kind of “Happiness College.” You have to want it bad enough to do something about it. You have to make it a priority, like getting a college degree. Only getting happy is way better because it's relatively free with the exception of the price of a cup of Starbucks or a trip to the movies.
Maybe it's time to become a student again. Students seek, but they also create. They dream. They allow themselves to feel passionate about stuff. Sure, there's a little too much beer and pizza going on, but that's easy to modify if you're thirty or older. McDonalds has salads and diet coke if it comes to that.
- First you have to make the decision that you want to learn - that's decision number one.
- Then you commit to the process and practice and apply what you learn day by day.
- Then you are tested on it - only with happiness, you're tested every day.
- When you earn your degree in it, you can spend your life making a life-long career of it.
Twenty-year-olds have accomplished that in a variety of fields and some seventy-year-olds too – so why not pursue a life degree, with a Major in creating happiness?
"Golden Key #23 says, Happiness Is a Choice and Sometimes We Forget to Make It.
The 23rd Golden Key is a simple one. We can’t choose to be happy unless we choose to believe that happiness is a choice – and then remember to make that choice a hundred times a day. To live in happiness we must form the habit of making that choice."
Mia Pratt is author of the ground-breaking self-development book, “The Secrets of the 100 Golden Keys,” and founder of the 100 Golden Keys University Center for Creativity & Happiness. She is the definitive expert who literally "wrote the book" on the powerful secret relationship between your creativity and your happiness, specializing in teaching you how to unlock the power of your creativity and use it to create a passionate, fulfilling and happy life. She is also the creator of the fun and enlightening ebook series, "The Pratt Theories of Creativity & Happiness" as well as her free podcasts. You can learn more about Mia and the 100GKU Center for Creativity & Happiness at www.100GoldenKeys.com.
Click to find out more about Mia's enlightening and powerful book of solutions, "The Secrets of the 100 Golden Keys."
Gratitude and Happiness
Today I've been made aware of some serious problems the local people here in the village are facing, which has me thinking alot about how much I have to be grateful for. So today I want to share Golden Key #50, which says:
"To Live In a State of Gratitude Is to Experience Peace. The 50th Golden Key reminds us that when we focus on what we have, we can use our creativity to fuel our abundance rather than to fight off the fear, anxiety and feelings of powerlessness associated with focusing on what we don’t have, what is wrong and what we fear."
To have and to have not
I've learned something invaluable in the process of getting happy and creating the incredibly liberated life I live today, and it’s this: when I focus on what I don’t have, it gets bigger - and the bigger it gets, the unhappier I become.
But, if I focus on what I do have and what I'm grateful for – such as what I did accomplish today, what I do have in the bank, what I am learning and sharing and experiencing – my happiness grows exponentially.
You can start the process of creating a happy life right now if you choose, by being kind and loving to yourself through acknowledging the incredible accomplishments you manifest every single day, in a hundred different ways. You are a powerful creator!
Letting go of false, negative and outdated beliefs
When you set up expectations or beliefs of what should be and then respond emotionally when those expectations are not met, it is a formula for anger, anxiety and unhappiness.
If you’re utilizing old beliefs rooted in the past, running them through your mind via negative thoughts, and then projecting them into the fresh, bank canvas of the future - you can’t live your best life, because you aren’t living in the present; and happiness only exists in the present.
How many times have you had an expectation of something from someone and they didn’t meet it? Maybe it was your birthday and they didn’t remember it, or you thought they should have invited you somewhere and they didn’t.
The hurt feelings or anger that come from unfulfilled expectations are feelings you create– they are not created by the other person. The other person did what they did for whatever reason, which may or may not have anything to do with you.
What you did had everything to do with you. You created unhappiness by your response to what did not happen.
So, by eliminating your expectations of others and functioning in the present with things that do occur, you can eliminate some experiences of unhappiness.
Living a happy life as your authentic self
Let's face it, unhappiness is a natural part of life. Life is messy and unpredictable and filled with changes, disappointments and failed efforts. So even after you have learned the secret of lasting happiness, losses will be painful, financial challenges will still be challenging, and death
will still be devastating. But how you deal with these things will be forever changed, because you will know how to bring happiness back into your life when the time is right.
So, living as your authentic self (or what I call your True Creative Self) doesn’t mean you won’t ever feel unhappy; it means that those feelings will reside in balance with your other emotions– as an emotion you experience, and not a condition in which you are terminally doomed to live.
And for that, you will be forever grateful!
Click here to discover more about Mia's enlightening book!
Mia Pratt is author of the ground-breaking self-development book, “The Secrets of the 100 Golden Keys,” and founder of the 100 Golden Keys University Center for Creativity & Happiness. She is the definitive expert who literally "wrote the book" on the powerful secret relationship between your creativity and your happiness, specializing in teaching you how to unlock the power of your creativity and use it to create a passionate, fulfilling and happy life. She is also the creator of the fun and enlightening "Pratt Theories of Creativity & Happiness," plus her powerful free podcast series. You can learn more about Mia and the 100GKU Center for Creativity & Happiness at www.100GoldenKeys.com.
Feeling Too Happy?
Today is one of those days I feel so happy that I caught myself almost wanting to cry as that little thought crept into my mind: how long can this happiness last?
But then I remembered my truth.
Happiness doesn't mean that nothing goes wrong, that you don't experience heartbreak or loss, that you feel up and peppy and confident and prepared for everything in life all the time.
Happiness means you know deep in your heart and in the back of your mind, like a kind of cosmic braille that has been etched inside your soul where you have no sight - that the world is fundamentally a good place, that people are kind and love is true and abundance is the natural order, not blight.
It's the knowledge that as hard as life or people or circumstances might try, they can never extinguish the flame that lives inside of you.
It's yours alone, whether you believe it to come from a divine source or some other place.
You become its steward when you are born and it's passed into that next realm when you depart this life.
"You are the keeper of your own eternal flame - and that flame begins with your humanity, which fuels your love, which creates your happiness. Never forget this most important job - to let no one or nothing in this world reduce the power, light and strength of your eternal flame!"
Mia Pratt is author of the ground-breaking self-development book, “The Secrets of the 100 Golden Keys,” and founder of the 100 Golden Keys University Center for Creativity & Happiness. She is the definitive expert who literally "wrote the book" on the powerful secret relationship between your creativity and your happiness, specializing in teaching you how to unlock the power of your creativity and use it to create a passionate, fulfilling and happy life. She is also the creator of the fun and enlightening "Pratt Theories of Creativity & Happiness." You can learn more about Mia and the 100GKU Center for Creativity & Happiness at www.100GoldenKeys.com.
Remember Your Childhood Dreams?
It’s easy to forget your childhood dreams as you become an adult, because your adult self doesn’t look at the world like the magical-thinking child you once were.
I had a profound realization about that thought as I was laying in bed in “my room,” an office-and-guest-room in our modest second-story flat in the 16th-century village of Ajijic in Central Mexico.
That realization took me back to my childhood. My father was a WWII ex-prisoner of war who spent 18 months in a German prison camp. He suffered from severe Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSS) in addition to experiencing terrible, crippling pain from the wounds he received when he was literally blown out of his plane while flying a mission over Germany.
Needless to say, mine wasn’t the best home environment for a little girl to grow up in, but there were equal parts of love to match those times when Dad’s alcoholism and unpredictable rages swirled around our family like a hurricane. My mother made it her life’s work to counter the negative affects brought on by my father’s condition and my dad, when sober, did his best for us.
Out in the yard behind the house we had tree that was just tall enough to hold a small “tree fort.” It was really just a few rickety floorboards with a blanket hung on a nail for walls, but to me it was a sanctuary in the treetops. I could retreat there when things got crazy and just...dream.
I remember one evening when the my tree was in full bloom and so was my father’s rage. Snuggled amidst the cloying perfume of apricot blossoms up in my sanctuary, I watched the clouds float by in a lavender sky as the stars came out one by one. The angry drone of my father’s voice seemed far away then, as if emanating from some distant dream that had nothing to do with me.
In my treetop sanctuary I was the reigning queen, in dreams of my own making.
One of those dreams was to have a grand tree-house far away from our troubled home some day, a place where I could live and dream in peace. Of course as a skinned-kneed tomboy of nine, that seemed a reasonable wish - but by the time junior high rolled around with its tribulations and angst, I forgot all about my tree house dream.
I woke up this morning still on the bed in my office. I am used to retreating there to burn the midnight oil when I’m suffering from creativity-induced insomnia, leaving Petie to sleep in the big bed undisturbed by my clicking mouse and glowing Mac laptop screen.
I awoke to a roaring morning symphony of chattering birds and I stared out into the treetops off my second-floor terrace for a long while. As the sun came up I could see the last few stars twinkling through the skeleton of branches that dominate my terrace, and suddenly I had a profound realization.
Here I am, living in that magical tree-house of my childhood dreams. Somehow, through myriad trials and a plethora of wrong turns in life, I found that sanctuary.
I’ve often asked myself, is it too much to ask in life, to have your childhood dreams come true?
Today, in my tree house in the sky, I think not.
Today I think that in many ways we’re already living our childhood dreams - it’s how we perceive those dreams that has changed.
It’s how we allow those dreams to become larger and morph into measured accomplishments and goals, failures and successes - like moving targets that keep getting larger and further away the closer we get to reaching them.
The turbulence of my past almost destroyed me at certain times in my life, as the beliefs, thoughts and memories of the past created a level of anxiety that was crippling. But this same past also fueled a burning quest to end the war that my father’s battle implanted in my mind.
My childhood made my father’s emotional war my war within myself - and yet because of that war, I dreamed of a life of peace lived in the sanctuary of a treehouse someplace far, far away.
Because of him I spent my life searching for the answer to how to be happy, and found it.
Because of him, I found my Divine Purpose.
But it was because of me - because of my own choices and what I chose to believe was possible in spite of my father's war and my own childhood - that ultimately changed me from a wounded survivor into a passionate and powerful creator.
Today’s inspirational quote is Golden Key #10, which says:
“When We Fulfill Our Divine Purpose, We Have Learned to Define Ourselves Through Our Love of Ourselves Rather Than Through External Sources.” The 10th Golden Key reminds us that the beliefs we adopt toward ourselves, and not those that others assign to us, have the power to define us. Only when we adopt the negative beliefs of others as our own, do they have the power to destroy us. Our beliefs are our personal Constitution, and to reframe them is to make an amendment to that Constitution. Amendments are necessary to bring into the present those beliefs, rights and codes of conduct that have become outdated through the natural progression of time.
Claim a life of creative liberation!
Today, take a few moments and think back to those days of childhood, whether happy or turbulent. Think of a simple, uncomplicated dream you had, and connect the dots with how you are living, and what you are doing, today.
Close your eyes and let the images and feelins pour over your body like wet paint in the rain.
What remnant of that dream lives on, and what part of it has become disfigured and bloated by unrealistic expectations, blame and excuses, fear, remorse, anxiety - and pain?
What impact has your past and the beliefs you adopted from negative experiences from that past, had on those childhood dreams?
Make today the day that you follow one dream back, back, back, into the place of its origin. And from that place of simple beginnings, breathe life into that magical dream again!
Remember the optimistic child inside of you who believed and wished and willed that dream into existence like a campfire in the rain, even if only a shred of its original treasure remains.
That treasure is yours to do with as you wish, and you are a powerful creator. Liberate yourself from the bondage of your past and watch your dreams come true!
Mia Pratt is author of the ground-breaking self-development book, “The Secrets of the 100 Golden Keys,” and founder of the 100 Golden Keys University Center for Creativity & Happiness. She is the definitive expert who literally "wrote the book" on the powerful secret relationship between your creativity and your happiness, specializing in teaching you how to unlock the power of your creativity and use it to create a passionate, fulfilling and happy life. She is also the creator of the fun and enlightening "Pratt Theories of Creativity & Happiness." You can learn more about Mia and check out our cool free stuff from ebooks to podcasts at the 100GKU Center for Creativity & Happiness at www.100GoldenKeys.com.
I came across this photo of a rare white tiger the other day and it made me think about how we categorize things we perceive as beautiful, unique, rare.
Something occurred to me as I stared at that tiger.
It’s so easy to get stuck in comparison mode in life - a white tiger is more beautiful than a yellow tiger because there are fewer of them. A diamond is more valuable than a ruby, a butterfly is loved far more than a mere moth.
If this is true, then what about snowflakes? Every single one is unique and beautiful, and no two are alike. If uniqueness equals beauty and beauty equals value - then shouldn’t we value each snowflake highest of all, like miraculous fairy-diamonds fluttering on the turbulent winds of winter?
When everything is beautiful, unique and rare - then it can start to seem like nothing is.
We often turn that critical eye of comparison onto ourselves, and in comparing ourselves to the mass of other beautiful, rare and unique beings who surround us, categorize ourselves as mere moths rather than butterflies.
I had a beautiful friend when I was nineteen, with long strawberry-gold hair and the most amazing rust-colored freckles. To me she looked like some kind of goddess - a leopard-woman with green eyes and a lithe body draped in a delicate skin painted like a porcelain-and-rust watercolor. She seemed somehow magical to me.
But in her own eyes, my friend only saw ugliness. She loathed her fine hair that wouldn't take a perm, her green eyes that weren’t the crispy blue of her sisters, the blotched freckles that caused her to hide herself beneath coats and jeans even during the balmy nights of summer.
My friend condemned herself to a prison of self-loathing, unhappiness and isolation because of what she was not - and refused to see the beauty in who she was.
What part of yourself are you loathing instead of claiming? Is it that roll of fat over the waist on your jeans, hair that frizzes instead of dancing in the breeze, feet too big for the latest style of sandals? In what part of your life are you living in a state of apology for being unworthy of your own self-acceptance, and love?
You are a powerful creator, a creature of miraculous strength, beauty and rarity! But what is your true nature - who will you become when you liberate your authentic self?
"Never settle for the 'status quo' - that life cage of obligation, expectation, limitation and regulation that keeps you living as a slave to your own negative beliefs. You were meant for better things, a happier life, a more passionate and fulfilling existence."
Throw open that cage door and embrace the idea of creative liberation - it is your call of the wild, the pathway to your happiest life. Who shall you become when you set yourself free? You shall become whomever you create yourself to be!
Mia Pratt is author of the ground-breaking book on happiness, “The Secrets of the 100 Golden Keys,” and founder of the 100 Golden Keys University Center for Creativity & Happiness. She is the definitive expert who literally "wrote the book" on the powerful secret relationship between your creativity and your happiness, specializing in teaching you how to unlock the power of your creativity and use it to create a passionate, fulfilling and happy life. She is also the creator of the fun and enlightening "Pratt Theories" free ebooks, and the blog series, "Mia's Inspirational Quotes." You can learn more about Mia and the 100GKU Center for Creativity & Happiness at www.100GoldenKeys.com.
Click here to check out our cool free stuff from ebooks to podcasts at the Center for Creativity and Happiness!
Here's a visualization exercise for those days you find yourself feeling like a human piñata.
Your inspirational quote for today: "Sometimes it takes great tragedy or loss to find out the truth about yourself. Life smacks you open like that Mexican toy, the piñata, and in an instant all that is within you spills out into your world. It is often the act of picking up those pieces that causes profound personal transformation in your life, when you are forced to face what is strewn before you and then try to fit the pieces back together."
As you do this you must face your fears, insecurities, grief and vulnerability – but you also learn the magnitude of your strength, loyalty, perseverance, and capacity for unconditional love.
Profound transformation often occurs when you look at some of those pieces and begin to realize you can’t just stuff them back into the piñata. They don’t fit now, because some of the other pieces have expanded and hold a greater space within your life, and because recent events have changed you inside.
Refilling the piñata becomes a kind of “spring cleaning of the soul” in which you must sort through the beliefs and emotions of the past, and decide which to keep and which to throw away or "re-frame" to fit the present you to create a happy life.
Your Visualization Exercise
If you're feeling like a human pinata lately, picking up the pieces from some broken part of your life, here's a visualization exercise you can do to get a head start on the cleanup.
- Find a place to sit back and contemplate, where you have no distractions - someplace you can just "be" and listen to your thoughts.
- Think of your unhappy recent event as something that happened to someone you loved, and not to you. Picture that other person sitting beside you, telling you the story of what happened to them.
- Allow your feelings of compassion to flow forth, and visualize yourself giving comfort to that person. Feel yourself wrap your arms around them and hold them while they process their emotions and share their story.
- When you feel the emotions starting to calm, access your wisdom and shift from the role of comforter, to the role of coach. You know how to help this person - you know what advice to give them.
- Allow your inner wisdom to rise up, and imagine yourself telling this person what you feel and think - not from a place of emotion, but from a place of wisdom. Keep their face in your mind while to offer them your advice and solutions. You are serving as their coach.
- Now imagine their face turning into yours. Imagine that you are two people now - a student (the face you are looking at), and a coach - (you, with the answers).
- As the coach, you know what your student needs to do. You are going to help your inner student to let go of the fears, insecurities and obstacles that are preventing them from taking action to solve the problem.
- When you have identified and communicated the fears, insecurities and obstacles affecting your inner student, visualize the "two parts of you" merging together as one until you are both the coach and the student. You are empowered. You are in charge. And you know what you have to do.
- Feel the strenght of your love, your character, your unique wisdom, your True Creative Self - and then ask yourself this question: Who am I now, and what action am I ready to take to change my life?
- Remember that you are the person you create yourself to be, every single day - not who others would paint you to be, or expect you to be, or wish you to be. Not even the person you thought you were yesterday. When you ask yourself, "who am I?" you have an opportunity to decide who you are, and then become the person you envision yourself to be.
- You are free to do this at any moment in your life, when you step into the role of creator and coach, and extend your compassion to the student in you - the one who makes mistakes but keeps on trying, trying, trying to do the best he/she can.
Never stop exploring who you are - creating who you are - and loving who you are! You are the masterpiece of your existence. Honor that position, and your role in life as both the wise coach and the seeking student. The coach's role is not to know every answer, but to propose possible solutions. The student's role is not to know, but to learn. When you accept both roles in life, your life becomes happier.
Click here to download the free ebook, "The Pratt Theory of Creativity and Happiness" and get started on creating a more passionate, fulfilling and happy life!
Mia Pratt is author of the ground-breaking self-development book, “The Secrets of the 100 Golden Keys,” and founder of the 100 Golden Keys University Center for Creativity & Happiness. She is the definitive expert who literally "wrote the book" on the powerful secret relationship between your creativity and your happiness, specializing in teaching you how to unlock the power of your creativity and use it to create a passionate, fulfilling and happy life. She is also the creator of the fun and enlightening "Pratt Theories of Creativity & Happiness" and author of the blog series, "Mia's Inspirational Quotes". You can learn more about Mia and the 100GKU Center for Creativity & Happiness at www.100GoldenKeys.com.
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
I had lots of questions come back about the article I wrote a few posts back, about how your creativity is like a rainbow (Golden Key #13).
So, today I'm writing about it again - because the rainbow is such a great example of happiness.
You wish for happiness in your life, but unless you establish the right conditions for it to exist, it won't appear.
You may chase a rainbow from one end of the earth to the other, but in reality it doesn’t exist somewhere else. It's something that appears right where you stand, when you place yourself in an environment where all of the necessary components for its creation exist. And that's how it is with happiness.
Creating a rainbow isn’t about the rainbow any more than creating happiness is about happiness. Both depend upon the creation of an environment that supports their existence, and when all of those factors come together, they appear.
You might think that creating that environment that supports happiness means changing your surroundings in some way - you know, moving into a nicer house or getting a better car, or turning in your sloppy old boyfriend for a shiny new tidy one. Having done all of these things in my search for happiness, I can assure you, they don't work. Sure, I experienced feelings of happiness with my new house and my new car and my shiny new boyfriend, but they didn't make me a happier person - and they didn't bring about a happier life.
Changing what I thought about these things, and not the things themselves, is what eventually made me a happer person. I learned that I could re-frame a negative belief about something, and that would eliminate the negative thoughts about it. And when I was liberated from the negative thoughts about it, I felt happier. And the more beliefs and thoughts I did this with, the happier I got.
Seeking happiness is like seeking a rainbow - it doesn't do any good to look for it. Seek it by creating an environment in which it cannot fail to appear. And where happiness is concerned, that environment exists within your Thought Life.
Here's a tip on how to create an environment that is conducive to happiness:
Instead of focusing your thoughts on that special something you want to happen that will make you happy - try shifting your thoughts to how you might get rid of something that is making you unhappy. What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think about this?
On the long journey through life, it's often the pebble in your shoe that makes your journey miserable, and not the weight of the backpack you are carrying!
Don't start with something huge when you decide to start cleaning out the "unhappy" from your life; deal with the littlest things first and then work your way up from there.
A rainbow is just light and moisture - but without either one of those things, it can't appear.
Your happiness is just positive thought combined with action; and without those two things, it can't appear either.
Creating a rainbow doesn't take lots of light and moisture, and it doesn't take lots of positive thought and lots of action to create happiness. It takes just a little bit of both, folded together with the power of your creativity, to transform a little corner of your life from unhappy to happy. You have to start somewhere.
Happiness is the result of the creative process – and we are creative beings!
Please share the one "unhappy" thing you already eliminated or are about to eliminate, to make your life happier - tell us about it in "comments" and maybe you'll inspire someone else!
Check out the Pratt Theories on the 100GKU Center for Creativity & Happiness home page if you want to learn more about how to use your creativity to create happiness, and look for my next free podcast, too. I'll let you know when it's ready.
Your inspirational quote for today:
"Your thoughts are like tiny stones you lay before you each day, and they are creating the mosaic that represents your life story.
What story are you creating with your thoughts - and does that story represent the life you want to live? If not, change it today! You are a powerful creator."
Here's an imagination exercise you can do to practice to shift your Thought Life from dwelling upon something negative in the past or future, to creating something positive in the present.
- The next time you are alone, doing something mundane like washing the dishes or loading the laundry, take a minute and tune into something negative that's running through your mind while you work. Be still, and listen to what are you thinking or worrying about. What is it?
- Once you recognize what it is, let it go. Push it out of your thoughts.
- Now reach within and find something that makes you feel happy – catch a luminous "firebird" from within your consciousness - an idea - and begin to feed it with positive thoughts. What is it that makes you happy when you think about it?
- For example: Go ahead and fantasize about that little cottage by the beach you want to own some day. Use your imagination and visualize what it would be like if that dream were already a reality, as if it had already happened.
- How do you feel sitting on the front porch of your cottage as the seagulls circle over the waves? Inhale the crisp salt air and feel the wind blowing through your hair. Feel the sun on your skin, and smile.
You have just created happiness!
Practice this exercise as often as you can and work on prolonging the experience of joy for as long as possible.
Each time your exercise comes to an end, listen to the negative thoughts that start creeping into your mind as your joy leaves.
You can’t afford a cottage like that, that’s never going to happen unless you win the lottery. It’s stupid to even think about it…
What belief is behind these negative thoughts? Write it down, and then say it out loud. My belief is…
“…that I’ll always be poor, so I’ll never have a beach cottage.”
Is there a better belief you could instill to replace the negative one? My belief is…
…that everything is possible in my future. It doesn’t matter if I ever own a beach cottage – it matters that it makes me happy to think about owning one. Happiness happens in my mind, not at the beach.
Remember that the flies of negativity are ever-ready to feast upon the flesh of happiness. Do not permit them to feed on your happiness and eventually they will cease to come. They are creatures of habit!
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Mia Pratt is author of the ground-breaking self-development book, “The Secrets of the 100 Golden Keys,” and founder of the 100 Golden Keys University Center for Creativity & Happiness. She is the definitive expert who literally "wrote the book" on the powerful secret relationship between your creativity and your happiness, specializing in teaching you how to unlock the power of your creativity and use it to create a passionate, fulfilling and happy life. She is also the creator of the fun and enlightening "Pratt Theories of Creativity & Happiness" and author of the Mia's Inspirational Quotes blog. You can learn more about Mia and the 100GKU Center for Creativity & Happiness at www.100GoldenKeys.com.
Imagination, Creativity and Happiness
What role does imagination play in the powerful secret relationship between your creativity and your happiness?
Your imagination is pure thought that is illuminated with the spark of infinite possibility, just as an embryo is illuminated by that unique spark of life that differentiates it from the ordinary cells that surround it.
While ordinary thoughts flock through your consciousness like blackbirds, more or less unnoticed – these illuminated sparks catch your attention like iridescent firebirds.
Catch a firebird in the net of your consciousness today and nurture it into reality! It doesn't have to be the grandest or most difficult one - in fact the fastest way to a happier day is to catch the smallest and easiest to imagine, dream and create.
Practice makes perfect - so help your firebird spread its wings and watch it fly! Then as you grow, so too will your imagination.
Learn more about the powerful relationship between your creativity, happiness and imagination - and start creating the happy life of your dreams!
Mia Pratt is author of the ground-breaking self-development book, “The Secrets of the 100 Golden Keys,” and founder of the 100 Golden Keys University Center for Creativity & Happiness. She is the definitive expert who literally "wrote the book" on the powerful secret relationship between your creativity and your happiness, specializing in teaching you how to unlock the power of your creativity and use it to create a passionate, fulfilling and happy life. She is also the creator of the fun and enlightening "Pratt Theories of Creativity & Happiness" and author of Mia's Inspirational Quotes. You can learn more about Mia and the 100GKU Center for Creativity & Happiness at www.100GoldenKeys.com.