Hi,
I'm Nora Speakman.
Thank you so much for joining me.
Today I want to talk about practicing happiness.
Transforming things that can happen in our day into joy.
How do we do that?
How do we experience something that can seemingly take us off point and return to a place where there is peace?
We're going to talk about that today,
But let's begin with our breathing.
So we're going to inhale for seven seconds.
We're going to hold for four.
And then we're going to release with a long exhale.
We're taking in life as we breathe in.
We're releasing the past.
The old moment has gone and the new is here.
We live into the present moment.
So we take in again.
And we hold.
And then we release with the longest exhale.
That's so good.
Let's do that one more time.
Breathe in.
Hold.
And release.
Very good.
Being able to enjoy happiness doesn't mean that we'll have zero suffering.
It's my opinion,
The art of experiencing happiness is also the art of harmony as well.
When we learn to acknowledge,
Embrace,
And understand that things aren't always going to be easy.
We're able to go further and transform those moments that seemingly throw us off into more understanding.
More compassion,
Not only for ourselves,
But empathic joy for others as well.
One of the most challenging things that we can encounter is sometimes believing that there should be no bad moments in our day.
No despair.
When if we consider rather that we can take those moments and transform them rather than moving from something.
We move toward joy.
We move toward peace.
We move toward happiness.
Then we don't try to orchestrate or dance around moments that seemingly could bring us frustration or take us off point for our day.
We learn to play with both and.
When we consider,
For example,
In the time of creation,
When our wonderful grace was creating light,
It wasn't a stark difference from light to dark.
There was this gradual place of going from one to the other and that is transformation.
That is what we do within our day.
One of the main afflictions of our culture is that we don't know how to handle these moments that can come up inside of us.
Sometimes we try to cover them up with all types of consumptions.
We try to eat our way through things or even drink our way through things.
We we try to brush them under the rug.
But unless and until we're able to move through,
We can't be present.
We need to experience this peace and what comes in being available to life,
To the present moment.
So these opportunities don't elude us.
For many people,
Mindfulness can seem like another form of suffering.
It can overwhelm us trying to understand it.
But mindfulness is actually the capacity to dwell,
To remain in the present,
To know that we are experiencing the year and now.
We're conscious to the to what is happening around us and through us.
We're simply being more aware.
We're using our energy to live in the now.
And the now is the only eternal moment.
When we practice our breathing,
We're in the now.
We're always mindful of what is happening around us,
What is happening through us.
In our body,
In our feelings,
In our perceptions.
It helps us to be present not only in ourselves,
But in the world with others.
So we can continue to experience life and all that it's offering,
Knowing that we can generate the energy of understanding and compassion that heals us as we come alongside others and as we move through moments in life.
And we begin producing our own medicine of mindfulness.
When we notice that things can begin feeling like they're unraveling.
We can stop.
We begin our breathing.
And in that,
We are giving our complete attention to our in-breath,
Receiving life and our out-breath as we let go.
We transform the energy within our body.
We recognize the tension.
We recognize the stress and then we bathe it in this peace.
And that begins the healing within ourselves.
We partner with clarity.
We bring along wisdom.
And we move through this,
This despair that seems to well up.
We learn to practice this healing balm that just washes through our body.
We learn to let go.
We learn to move through.
We learn to live in the space of the now moment.
We experience the sky.
We feel the gentle breeze on our face.
And we realize that we are birthing happiness and peace from within rather than from what is happening to us.
We begin practicing this mindful breathing and even mindful walking.
Right?
We bring our mind home to our body where we establish the here and now.
We allow ourselves to create this condition of peace and happiness rather than allowing the conditions of life to tell us how to be.
And we develop a beautiful practice of concentrating our energy.
We don't allow ourselves or our mind or spirit to get carried away by envisioning fears of the future.
Rather,
We dwell in a place of stability in the present moment.
We get in touch with the wonders of our life,
The awe,
The beauty that is all around us.
We generate this joy and this peace.
As we do our breathing that's so mindful,
We're developing insight that is clear.
We are releasing and liberating ourselves from the afflictions that have stolen our joy for too long.
And we are developing this oneness so that we are learning to increase this calm,
This beautiful peace.
We remember who we are.
We stay grounded in our identities.
We realize the roots of these things that come to steal our joy,
Steal our moments.
And we let go of the useless energy that has taken up space for too long.
We realize how we are creators and we create this oneness,
This beautiful peace,
This feeling of our body,
Our mind,
And our spirit being in complete alignment.
We feel this blooming inside of being able to see with so much more of what is available to us,
What we can partner with,
With this oneness with others around us.
And we are all experiencing the present moment.
So I want to begin to close our session by breathing again.
And as you breathe in,
I want you to visualize this.
Maybe it's a beautiful pottery place where you're spinning joy.
Maybe it's in the water and the ocean and with each wave,
With each breath you are taking in,
More of that peace,
More love.
And with maybe the waves that go out,
It's in being able to disseminate that to those you love,
To the rest of your schedule for the day.
And in these moments,
We realize that life is full of beautiful surprises.
And even when those challenges come up,
We can manage those challenges with grace,
With love.
We receive them because we know that we can transform them and we let go.
So we breathe in again.
And we hold.
And we release.
We breathe in.
We hold.
And we release.
I thank you for joining me in this time and I send you wishes of a wonderful rest of your day filled with peace,
Filled with mindfulness and filled with joy.
