Introduction

No matter what has happened to me, whatever people have said or done to discourage me, all the up’s and down’s, all the disappointments I’ve experienced, there’s always been a small voice inside me that has kept pushing me forward to reach my purpose and goals, I call it my courage voice.

There have been countless times when I was on the edge of just giving up. Days would disappear into just a blur when I would feel that it was pointless and hopeless, a black hole of despair and uselessness, But for some reason I couldn’t totally give up. Something persisted.  I somehow found the courage to keep on keeping on no matter what; a small little voice of encouragement kept me hanging on in there, something that truly wanted me to live and be happy.

 I believe that that small little voice is in all of us and in allowing it to speak gives us what we need to find the courage to be happy, because the forces at play try to stop us stepping out into our truth and happiness and we need courage to overcome them. We need courage to move out of our comfort zone and try something new, take on new beliefs, new thoughts, new feelings and do new things.

My mission is to help you, as it’s helped me reignite that small voice to overcome the challenges of finding happiness. It has required great leaps of courage which, at times, have been very hard to achieve. Sometimes in the darkest moments courage let alone happiness, seemed a million miles away, but the truth is, without courage there is no happiness – you need the courage to attract the Law of Attraction!! You need courage to take action! The prize is when you take action you find happiness!

If Happiness is Your Goal and You Have the Courage to Claim It Keep Reading!

What you won’t find, if you keep reading, are just theories, facts and figures, although I will be backing up the science behind the scenes. Most importantly what you will find is a truthful real life experience using real events of my own life, showing you the steps I’ve taken to reach the happiness I have today.

I will show how to ease into happiness and access your own courage to break through the blocks in your beliefs, your thoughts, your focus and your feelings that prevent you from being happy.

Sometimes this can tend to be a painful process, don’t I know; however I will lead you gently through these blocks a step at a time, so you will learn how to stop being the victim of your circumstances, and be able to take a breath of freedom.

You’ll stop asking ‘Why me?’ that puts you in victim mode, instead I’ll show you how to become the victor putting you in power mode! I’ll show you how to develop the courage to see the value of where you are and what is happening and how to turn ‘negatives; to ‘positives’ instantly. You’ll develop the understanding of how to find what you need from any given situation and grow from it.

Although much has been said and written on having ‘the attitude of gratitude’ when you’re feeling unhappy it’s quite a difficult thing to have. I will show how you can introduce yourself to gratitude without forcing the issue so you feel grateful whether you like it or not!!

Each Chapter will finish with the Happiness Business Plan Actions Steps which will certainly move you quicker towards Happiness and having a Happy Life! We will develop a 30 day happiness action plan together that will transform your life beyond recognition.

The fact you are here and now tells me you have already begun your journey to finding happiness and I congratulate and honour you, I know what it takes to even make the first move. Yes courage! The irony of really learning anything is it has to get bad enough until we make a decision to do something about it and that can turn into something positive and life changing. That good old saying ‘It’s always darkest before the dawn’...

For some very strange reason we have been taught that being ‘negative’ is a bad thing, but in fact, how on earth can we be positive if we don’t know what negative is? It’s night and day, black and white sunshine and rain. Contrasts are what make life so interesting!! Challenges are growing pains to new understanding and awareness.

It took me a while to get to the real understanding of this, like all of us I wanted to be happy but even after having many great successes, the troughs in my life kept haunting me, taking me, it seemed, back to the beginning to the same dark place.

Finally, trapped in my tiny little apartment, a week before a major birthday, sitting thinking ‘how on earth had I landed in this desperate situation’ I had two choices, do or die. I could end everything or summons up the courage to start again.

It seemed the more I’d tried to pursue happiness the more it seemed to escape me; I began to think that there was something really wrong with me and this compounded the unhappiness I was feeling.

Being well aware of the rules of ‘The Law of Attraction’ I just couldn’t understand why this was happening. I felt ashamed, demotivated, and guilty for feeling so bad and no matter what I seemed to do this unhappiness and sadness just got worse and worse.  

This particular day at absolute rock bottom, sitting at my little table drinking my tea, trying to process my sorry state, a little small voice said ‘Remember me, I’m your courage, you can do it’, nearly drowned out by a much louder voice yelling ‘what’s the point, you’re too old, it’s time to give up, you’re passed it’ and a million other cant’s booming in my head. The little voice took a breath ‘You can change this, no matter what has gone before; it’s never too late to start again, have courage’.

As I sat there, I took a deep breath and with all the courage I could muster I started to really look at myself and face a truth I hadn't wanted to acknowledge for a very long time, underneath I’d really been unhappy for as long as I could remember. Now I had to make a new decision; happiness is something I decided to get no matter what.

The Turning Point

Courage had always been something I could rely on in the past, having the courage of my convictions had pulled me through many times before, but for some reason I’d got so wrapped up in my awful state it hadn’t been around for a long time.

If there’s one thing I inherited from my mother, it was the attitude of never giving up, she was, without doubt, a very courageous women and instilled this into all her children the good old saying ‘Pick yourself up brush yourself down and start again’ despite the fact it was often yelled in high pitched tones! I had to start again; she never gave me an option! However, it actually stayed with me as a positive, courage was well and truly programmed into my head!

I digress, but with this coming into my mind I took out my notebook and started writing everything and anything that came into my head.

Unexpectedly I wrote a poem pouring out all my feelings and despair, my anger, frustration, sadness.  I kept writing until I’d put every emotional hurt down on paper. Reading it back it filled me with horror, I couldn't believe that this was what was going on in my head, no wonder I felt so bad with this pitiful story running riot, how could I have not seen this before. It was a turning point, a true revelation.  

It shook me to my core to see what I had created, to find myself in such a deep dark place inside and out, full of pain, hurt, resentments, anger inside and living from hand to mouth in a tiny apartment that I could hardly even afford. It was not a pretty picture, something needed to change.

I had perfected the art of putting on the mask of smiling, laughing and looking happy and successful and no one ever knew what was happening with me underneath. How I cried inside the pretence, the anxiety, the fear, hiding behind the seemingly happy face I showed to the world, I was totally out of alignment with how I was feeling and what I was doing.

It suddenly became clear.

As I sat there at my little table I cried and cried with relief and joy, I could see with absolute clarity the resistance and blocks I had built up inside me, not allowing my true emotions any expression or recognition. I had lived in a painful pretend world, behind the mask for so long I’d forgotten how to really feel. I let my tears just flow till I started laughing and crying at the same time!

That day changed everything

I stopped comparing myself to how I used to be, or how I thought I should be; instead I began to see the wisdom of where I was and the value of my situation.  I had been saying that I hated where I was living, my circumstances, my lack of money, lack of love, everything around me I’d be looking at and feeling I was hopeless, undeserving and lacking in everything. It was a long pitiful story of negative resentful feelings, about myself and my circumstances, until that day.

If you are ready to start your journey to real long lasting happiness, to get out of the ‘should be’ world and into your happy world, I’m with you all the way. Taking a leap of faith to breaking through the fear, the anxiety and depression is something I now know how to do and what it feels like to succeed, I know the pitfalls and desperation, the highs and the lows. My intention is to guide you through the process of, firstly seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and secondly giving you the necessary steps to take to put you on the road to happiness, so let’s get started

Chapter 1 Old Habits Die Hard!

Do you know the saying ‘if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got?’ Well that’s the definition of being stuck or as some think, it’s the definition of insanity “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results! Well I was both stuck and insane! So to feel better and move forward I had to begin to get unstuck and find a new sanity, change and rearrange things both with the outside ‘stuff’ but, more importantly in my mind, I had to get rid of all the rubbish that was not serving me! Getting stuck in patterns of doing things and wondering why nothing changes is a mistake we all tend to make; I know I was very stuck in mine!  

I needed to change those patterns, but when you’re feeling unhappy the first challenge is actually getting it together to start anything. I had to think about it differently, find a new way. I came up with an idea that I was going to experiment. I would do everything with the intention of seeing how I would feel.  In other words allow myself to observe how I felt without judging it ‘right or wrong’, without any pressure or expectation and stress but open to what feelings I had and acknowledging them, good, bad or indifferent. The main point being - I wasn’t worried about the outcome and therefore didn’t set myself up for disappointment, I just allowed myself to feel what I felt! I had nothing to lose so I began and it started to work, I began to feel a change happening.

It lead to the next experiment, which I’d read about sometime before and had pooh-poohed at the time, it was the value of relaxing! I remember thinking ’how on earth could that work!’ But there it was in my mind so I’d experiment and see what happens.

Relaxing! Yes I know it sounds crazy but bear with me, just letting myself relax was a big deal in itself. But I wanted to set up different reference points and ease myself into new feelings of happiness. Relaxing seemed liked a good way to start, just letting go and trusting the outcome without any preconceived ideas just might be an answer

So I gave myself permission of 20 minutes a day to just relax, meditate and allow myself to just be, and it was and is fantastic! I let myself float in the pleasure of just lying down closing my eyes and experiencing how it felt to just to let go. It was something I could never remember feeling before. I felt a sense of newfound freedom!

Relaxing had never an option as a child and growing up, if I wasn’t ‘doing something’ it was always referred to as being lazy so I’d always felt guilty if I wasn’t actually doing anything. So actively relaxing was a whole new experience and it felt really good! 

I found courage started to rise again, a new natural inspiration to want to do something began, not because I had to but because I wanted to, I wanted to do a grand tidy up of my apartment. Dispensing with all the things I didn’t need any more, and creating a new environment, I didn’t feel under any pressure and it didn’t seem unachievable or complicated. To my amazement in fact it was easy and fun, and I had a great realization in the process -  It’s virtually impossible to be Happy if you’re hanging onto old baggage; it just stops you moving forward and constantly sabotages everything new that you want to do, so out with the old and in with the new and declutter!

It felt great when I finished, and that was a good feeling. Especially clearing out my wardrobe of things I hadn’t worn for years, I kept thinking I’d fill it up with lovely new happy clothes! It also encouraged me to carry on and gave me some new energy. I also gained some extra feel good factor points in deciding to give all these things I didn’t want to charity so someone else could have ‘happy new clothes!’

I’d eased myself into motivation and as a result increased my energy and had a feel good factor feeling. This is all important. When you’re in a unhappy state the tendency is not to want to do anything, and happiness is a million miles away. By just going with the flow allowing yourself to relax starts a new energy cycle. In other words when you decide not to do anything, relax and embrace not doing anything, you’re aligning with yourself and offering no resistance. That’s when the magic happens. Suddenly you want to do something!! Motivation appears naturally and it feels great!

Getting in the flow is where we’re headed and I really began to understand the statement of ‘What you resist persists’ the more you try to push things away or force the issue the more they persist. By not resisting you allow a new flow of energy to happen which brings you closer to feeling better. Relaxing for a short time each day helps you to let go and ‘get connected’ to your life force energy.

Sometimes when my mind was in overdrive and I was particularly anxious I put on some quiet relaxing music, other times I’d find a guided meditation on YouTube, this is a great way to shift your focus away from the problem. You’re detaching from the story running around your head and it helps to break into the old pattern and replace it with positive thoughts.

I’m now religious about doing this every day without fail, even if it’s just for 5 minutes I will take some time to relax, still my mind, breath deep and allow the flow.

I noticed when I began my relaxing ritual that thoughts and ideas would come into my mind, so once I’d finished I’d write them down, I now have countless notes of thoughts and ideas. This was my second experiment, writing things down.

I divide my book in two, from the front it’s all good things, my Happy Thoughts, insights, things I want, goals, everything positive. From the back are my ‘Scream Pages’ basically everything negative that runs through my brain, all the things I just want to get rid of out of my head. It’s such a release to do this.

So get yourself a note book or journal today!

This is like a detox, out with the old, in with allowing new ideas and thoughts to happen and as this chapter is called ‘Old Habits Die Hard’ there will inevitably be some resistance! You can write that down too!

But this is what I did and still do. It clears the mind of all the rubbish and this was my next stage. I’d cleared out my apartment of all the old stuff now it was time to clear all the debris in my mind. Press delete empty old files and add new happy ones! 

 Ready to rock and roll, happiness here we come!

Take a breath relax and in your Journal start by writing where are you up to now. Ask yourself some questions - these give you a springboard to move forward. Go at your own pace and if there’s a block, relax, ease yourself into the process. Start at the Scream end writing your anxieties, frustrations, fears, anger etc. Whatever, take a breath but Make a Start!!  

Remember I wrote a poem, pouring out all my emotions; the main thing is to begin.

Here are some guidelines for your questions -

Why am I angry?

Why Am I sad?

Why do I feel unloved?

Why am I frustrated?

Why do I feel stuck? Etc

Create a list of all the things you feel angry, frustrated, disappointed about, let down about, everything and anything that you feel a victim of. Yes everything!!

This is the hot button for change. Why? Because the sooner you acknowledge these feelings the sooner you can let them go. This can be a bit challenging, however, better out than in!! When you’ve done it you’ll feel a great sense of relief I promise!!

What’s so interesting is when they’re out of your head and on paper they don’t seem as bad as you thought. But you have to release them from the prison of your mind.  When they are in plain sight you automatically can ‘see’ and think about them differently. My first observation for myself was ‘it’s not all as bad as I thought’! I found I was feeling relieved and in a way a bit stupid as they weren’t life threatening!!  

In this quest for understanding what was going on in my mind I came across a book by Byron Katie called The Work. She proposes asking 4 specific questions to any challenges you might have, which I found very helpful.

The first questions to ask

 ‘Is it true?’Well that threw up some interesting thoughts and then....

 ’Can you absolutely know it’s true?’ Well this is such a good question as what I found was most of my anxieties were made up from some misconceived beliefs about perceptions I’d concocted in my mind. The third questions

‘How do you react when you think that thought?’ Well I’d had a load of things going, I felt I was drowning in these thoughts, reacting as a victim, but suddenly I felt the energy and importance I’d been giving these thoughts was quite ridiculous!! They were just thoughts and beliefs I’d built up in my mind.

And the last question ‘What would you be without this thought?!’ Free! Was my answer!!   

I use these questions for all the things I feel I’m resisting, you can put them in your journal as headings when you feel you’re stuck, angry, frustrated, anxious etc. So progress is being made, which helps with the next bit…

What’s your story?

Write a brief overview of the present situation you’re in now, including your Beliefs, Thoughts and Feelings about it, good, bad or indifferent. Just get it out. This is likely to be your Victim Story, which is fine, just go with it. All this is doing is acknowledging where you are up to now. Until you acknowledge it you can’t move forward. The great thing is you’re doing something about it!

Now let’s change the feeling all together and put some great things in the Happy Section!

List all the things that make you happy! From the smallest to the largest, from when you were a child to the present day, write it down.

It will feel good!

Now ask some different questions from before

What if it all went right?

What does it feel like to be happy?

What does it feel like to be confident?

What does it feel like to be loved?

Here’s one of my favourites

What would someone who loved themselves do?

I have this on my board in the kitchen. I think the answer is ‘relax and enjoy themselves!’

What’s great about your life this week?

What are you grateful for? Etc

Getting on the gratitude train is a surefire way to happiness, focusing on what we have, rather than what we don’t certainly changes the game.

It has had a profound effect on me, once I started relaxing and began processing where I was up to, a sense of humility and calmness came over me. I was intrigued that with just a few simple adjustments, developing some new rituals, such a change came over me. I really started to feel ‘connected’ again, much less isolated and a great deal more peaceful inside.

 Action Steps to setting up your Happiness Business

1. Get Prepared – Get a Journal or Notebook

2. Give yourself at least half an hour a day, 20 minutes relaxation time and 10 minutes for your Journal and schedule it into your diary.

Keeping asking yourself questions like -

What’s Working,

What Isn’t?

What are you happy about?

What are you angry about etc?

No holds barred, just get it out of your head!!!

Then apply the ‘truth’ questions above. The point is to detach from the story as the story was then and this is now!  Is what was happening in the story happening now? This might sound harsh but actually 9 times out of 10 it’s not happening now. It’s something that happened in the past therefore is not happening now, it’s gone. Hanging onto it doesn’t serve any purpose other than to hold you back from moving forward and keeps you in ‘victim’ mode. Our mission is happiness so being a victim doesn’t work so well!!!

If you are currently in the middle of some crisis and it is happening now then the importance of your relaxation time is paramount. You have to ease yourself into allowing the resistance to dilute. Remember the more you resist the worse it gets, you have to relax to let go. You will find new perspectives emerging and solutions rise to the surface. You get new ideas and thoughts when you let the flow guide you unexpected things happen.

An amazing thing happened to me in the midst of my crisis. I was in a desperate financial situation when I’d started this whole process; I had thought it was the beginning of the end. However, after the ‘Turning Point Day’ when I’d started my relaxation time ritual, within a week, something remarkable happened.

An old friend phoned me out of the blue, I hadn’t spoken to him in years and I was happily surprised to hear from him. We exchanged our news etc as usual I said I was fine and sorting things out and suddenly he said ‘I want to help you I’m going to send you some money!’ Three days later I received the money! Wow I was amazed, overjoyed and incredibly grateful! It enabled me to find a new apartment, pay the deposit and 2 months’ rent in advance!!

I moved from that little apartment and knew I was on my way to bigger and better things.

You see I truly believe that the Universe, our Creator or whoever or whatever you believe in is absolutely overflowing with abundance. We just have to open the door to let it in. How do you do that? By relaxing and allowing! We don’t need to know how; we just need to allow the universe to do its thing. In a million years I could never have thought I would receive that money from someone I hadn’t seen or spoken to for years. Something moved him in my direction to make that amazing gift.

Fantastic isn’t it!    

Do you think it’s worth taking some relaxing time? As we go I’ll tell you more wonderful ‘universal’ interventions but in the mean time you might write some things in your journal of what you think and feel about what we have covered so far or what I call - Take Out Thoughts, Your insights and Ah Ha moments, realisations etc. This is a very important part of building a solid foundation; it gives you some new reference points on your road to happiness.

Give yourself a first step present, buy yourself a present, go out for dinner, watch a great movie, Do something just for you, relax and enjoy! I bet you’ll feel at least an inch nearer happiness!

The author hasn't added any updates, yet.