Category: Conscious

Would you rather be passionate or enthusiastic?

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A few years ago I heard Joseph Campbell’s exhortation to ‘follow your bliss’ and I thought, ‘Love it, I’m in!’ The full quote is “follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls” (thanks to my niece Erin for the introduction to Mr Campbell).  It sounded like a brilliant philosophy to someone like me whose bliss was way down the bottom of the ‘to do’ list.

Now, as I tend to do with anything new, I leapt into this new way of being with spontaneous and careless abandon.  And once I’d moved past the sticking point of – ‘What was my bliss, what joy did I want to pursue, what did I love to be or do with a passion that I was compelled to follow?’(more on this another time) – then life was looking good.

For a while… Continue reading →

Let’s talk about something that matters

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Conversations with purpose make us happier. I knew science would support me eventually, conversations with purpose certainly make me happy. There’s nothing I like more than a chat about stuff that matters with one or more people who are really present and engaged. Researchers say that “the happy life is social rather than solitary and conversationally deep rather than superficial”

The article also uses one of my favourite quotes from Socrates “the unexamined life is not worth living”. Now before you say ‘too much navel gazing’ and click elsewhere this doesn’t mean we need to spend hours pondering every nuance of the deep mysteries of life and picking apart our every experience. While the authors suggest that deep conversations actually make people happier and instill a sense of meaning in the interaction partners, the definition of what makes a substantive conversation is individual. It could be a chat about the state of our health system, your upcoming mortgage payment or the world shortage of bees. Continue reading →

What lights you up?

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Wow, I went to a breakfast chat the other day by Mel Neil from the Langley Group on positive psychology in the workplace, and what lights you up.

How freaking fabulous was that chat! And the thing that got me is that she showed us the science behind it.

I can’t help it, call me a nerd, but I love it when science validates what you’ve been intuitively doing for years. I love the figures and the graphs and most of all I love it when someone passionate gets really excited and tells you great stories about their stuff. Continue reading →

If it’s written down, it’s real

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I have this note on my desk that I read every time I sit down.

‘My writing matters’. My writing coach encouraged me to put it there to remind myself of what’s important to me. As I mentioned in my last blog, I dreamed of being a writer but got side-tracked with life and work and family.

So to add to Step 1, make my dream conscious, try this.  Step 2, write everything down, not just your dreams.   Continue reading →

Starting Fresh – its never too late…

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Hello and welcome, here we are at last, or at first really.  My first blog post.  The first day of autumn, an auspicious day for a new adventure.

Now you’re asking yourself, ‘she’s got ‘autumn’ and ‘auspicious’ and ‘adventure’ in one sentence why would I keep reading?’

Firstly, I don’t mind if you don’t.  Stop now, turn off whatever device you’re reading this on and go outside.  Breathe in deeply, stretch, and smile.  Off you go…

Still here?  OK.  Here’s the deal with me.  I love words and I believe they have the power to change lives.  And if we’re really honest, all of us could do with a little change somewhere in our lives. So, mostly what you’ll get will be words about inspiring, instructing or involving you to go and do something, something different, or at least to think about it differently.  To ‘be the change you want to see in the world’ as Ghandi said, words which, by the way, cover all three – they inspire, instruct and involve, works for me. Continue reading →