open your eyes

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Wednesdays can be the cause of the mid-week blues. Halfway through whatever needs to be accomplished this week. Maybe you've fallen behind on a lot of things. You could even be ahead- if you are.. yay! But no matter how much you've done or still need to get done, always remember to stop. And look around. And know that there is beauty to be found. If you only open your eyes. Be open to all the beauty around you - especially the everyday small beauties. If you can learn to cultivate an appreciation for the smaller things in life you'll soon realise that they it's all the small things that actually hold the most joy. Be open to the joy of small beauty.


And good luck with the rest of your week. 

On using your words

Saturday, April 16, 2016

Nobody is born with language. It's something we learn. Language is the tool we use to communicate with the external world, how we express our internal ideas, thoughts and feelings. Our hopes and our fears. We use our words to say things that need to be said and sometimes things we wish we had not said, in hindsight.



Learning the art of using your words effectively and communicating clearly is a journey. It's a skill.

Your words either inspire, uplift and encourage or they degrade, mock and hurt causing destruction and pain. They either nurture life and promote better tomorrows and cause people's eyes to sparkle, connect and come from a place of love or the opposite. Hurtful words which degrade or mock others come from a place of fear and inner unease.


Your words reflect your highest beliefs, your relationship with yourself and your mission in life. Use your words to plant seeds of love in the hearts and minds of others. Use your words to heal, not to wound. Choose to love people's successes and be happy for them out of a place of inner love, inner peace and stillness.

Speak words of affirmation, of approval, of anticipation of good, words of love not of hate. Use your voice to speak words of forgiveness, kind words. Use your voice to affect those around you positively. Enrich. Help others grow.



The words you choose to say tell speak volumes about your inner life, about the essential you, inside there. Happy inside, happy outside. Happy words, happy life.

Happy people have happy faces. Be the love and kindness so many need. Help happy live and grow in others, happy begins in you, happy words reach tired minds and warm hearts. Happy words are contagious.

What you speak, you become. Let your words be happy.

7 things

7 things happy people think about

Friday, April 15, 2016

Think of the happiest person you know. The person you look up to, or the person you imagine when you think about becoming “your best self”. What do they all have in common? Their thoughts.
Let me explain. Happy people think differently. They dream differently. They imagine differently. They let themselves be different, do things differently.

We all have something like 50 000- 70 000 thoughts on average every day. If those thoughts are negative, that’s a LOT of negativity. You’re poisoning your mind. Negative thoughts are heavy and they steal freedom and life.




Happy people have happy thoughts. You are what you think about, what your beliefs are, what you do over and over, your daily habits. Thoughts become a habit. The majority of the things we think are a repeat of the thoughts from the day before, and the before that, and the day before that. We get stuck in the thought patterns of our minds. If the thoughts are negative - it’s daily negativity. You will become stuck in a cycle of negative thinking, which leads to getting sick more often, not doing the things that are on your heart and being generally tired and disheartened. 



The seven things happy people think about are:

  1.         HAPPY THINGS. Happy people consciously make an effort to clean their minds. They evaluate their thought processes; letting go of the heavy, negative thoughts that try to latch on, replacing them with lighter, happier thoughts. Thoughts that encourage life and do not prevent it.
  2.         HOW GRATEFUL THEY ARE. The people with happy eyes have happy minds and happy hearts. The easiest way to have a happy heart is to genuinely count your blessings. Every single one. Every single day. Starting with the smallest. Gradually you will realize that you take most things for granted and you actually have many more blessings than you originally thought. And that's really good. 
  3.      TOMORROW. Although happy people live in the present, they do think about and plan for tomorrow. They make healthy, life-encouraging choices. They choose to eat well for tomorrow. They choose to keep their minds keen and sharp by challenging themselves intellectually and creatively. They think about what kind of a person they want to be tomorrow and do something about it today.
  4.      DEATH. We are all going to die. If you think about your own mortality more often, chances are you will start to lead a better life. Go for your dreams. You only have one life. This is it.
  5.       THEMSELVES. But not in a vain or self-obsessed manner, they think about who they were yesterday, and how they can improve themselves through regular self-evaluation and a conscious effort to choose to forgive themselves for failing in the past and to focus on future successes and future contentment through dedication, awareness and resilience.
  6.       THE ESSENCE OF WHAT LIFE’S ABOUT. The people who live the longest aren’t the richest. Aren’t the most famous or most hard-working. They are the ones who have had a long life of choosing to focus on their blessings, other people, service and maintaining healthy relationships. Having a long life isn’t about giving up on all material goals but instead not basing your whole life on materialistic values, placing your life’s worth on your internal happiness. Happy people are engaging, involved, interested, enthusiastic and listen to what their heart is whispering. They focus on the essence of being alive. They laugh, they see the best in others, they tell the truth, they don’t hold onto negativity. Life is all about choices. Choose to make your life a happy life. 
  7.       FINDING STILLNESS. Happy people know how much they can handle. They know how to achieve balance in their lives. They know how to say “No” without saying they are sorry and when to say yes. They find stillness through putting themselves first when they need to and focusing on what’s important. They attain inner stillness by organizing a potentially chaotic outer-world through a method of introspection and figuring out what’s best for them, for their long-term goals and what’s best to get done in this moment to maintain their stillness so they do not regret today. Finding stillness is about learning to be still, quietening everything to listen to your heart. You already know how to be happy. Let yourself be still. Happiness will follow. 





The art of re-using Plastic Bags

Thursday, April 14, 2016

   As you begin to grow in your journey towards being more aware of your everyday actions, their consequences and what needs to change you will slowly become quite disgusted with the amount of plastic that we use, day in and day out. Or at least that is what happened with me. 

Let's think about it. Just about everything you buy comes wrapped in plastic that loses its value as soon as you open your purchase for use. The bundle of plastic gets thrown out or stored somewhere in your house, often stored in bunches in another form of plastic packaging... why do we do this? This is a modern phenomenon. We need to stop using so much plastic. We need to be less wasteful. Kinder to our environment. We are choking it with plastic. 



Again the thing here is to become mindful about it. Let's think about that word for a second. "MIND-FUL"... this essentially means making a more conscious effort to be aware of everything, being more awake to your life, being open to seeing the meaning and the implications of everyday, simple things. Like the grossly excessive consumption of things that come wrapped in plastic! 

 How can you complain about the litter on the side of the road if you are a part of the majority of the population who buy new plastic bags with every shopping purchase. Every single one. "Throwing" your bags "away" does not make them magically disappear into nothing. Sure, it frees up some space in your environment but they will be transported along with all the other things that we throw out onto some piece of land somewhere to sit. And sit. Changing this problem starts with you.

You can do something about this. Be more mindful of the plastic in your day to day life and make a conscious effort to take your own bags, start to reuse containers in your house. Simply buy less. You'll save money and you won't have the problem of the plastic wrapping to deal with (I know, it doesn't take the problem away - but it's a start!) 




The art of re-using plastic bags is exactly that. It's an art. It will take a while to become a habit but once it sticks, it will be your new normal. Become disgusted with plastic bags. Talk about it to the people in your life. Voice your concerns for our voiceless Earth which is becoming clogged with plastic due to our modern ways of excessive consumerism. Buying more isn't going to make you any happier! It's a momentary high of... Yay! Something new and shiny! And then the plastic comes off and the money leaves your pocket and it becomes less shiny and then it's on to the next thing you "need". 




Take your own bags to the shop. Think about what you really need. Be irritated with all the plastic packaging. Do something about it. What you buy speaks volumes about who you are. If we all boycotted the plastics, companies and manufacturers would be forced to find wrapping and packaging kinder for our Earth. Things would change. It starts with you, your own plastic bag and being kinder to the Earth, one avoided item of plastic-covered purchase at a time.


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