As Buddha said 'There is no path to joy. Joy is the path.'
or as the cliche goes: happiness is an inside job.
I think living this and sharing this message with others is the answer.

Often we put happiness on hold or make it conditional on some other achievement.
Byron katie's 4 questions is a useful tool for realising how one's thoughts influence one's emotions. And how you can flip this switch in an instant. Tolle's system works too: just be the witness of your pain body and realise it is not you.

Depression can be lifted through how you hold your body. The fake it until you make it principle. It can also be eased by having a life purpose.  Our main purpose is to realise our connectedness.

How much joy or bliss we feel is proportional to the degree to which we feel connected to others and to source. Gratitude is the key to feeling connected.

Heartmath has an excellent breathing exercise: focus on your heart. Breathe through this area. think of something you feel grateful for. expand this feeling into bliss...

 

We don't have a special day dedicated to thanksgiving in Switzerland. It's a beautiful concept from a beautiful group of people who have just made a radical shift for themselves and the entire planet, by choosing hope over fear.

 

So, to celebrate this day, and this tremendous leap forward I would like to give all Americans a very special gift. The gift of recognition and acknowledgement.

Thanks to all of you. Especially to those of you who have touched my life deeply and significantly.

Thanks America for Walt Whitman, for Walt Disney and for Wallace Wattle...

 

Thanks for  dreaming big dreams for the planet and yourselves. For holding a vision.

For daring to walk on the moon and for actually doing it, especially for having the courage to do things before you really know what you're doing or if it would work out.

Thanks for Obama.

Thanks for Gaia. And for all my  friends right here, for  not giving up on me even when I sometimes slip behind a moleculer for weeks or months. Thanks for inspiring me and playing with me and reminding me of what really counts. You are wind under my wings.

Thanks also to those who have trusted me to look into your hands.

Thanks especially for all my American friends and mentors. For all the people who inspire me, who nourish my soul, who help me with big things and small detail, and those who keep me on this planet when no-one else can.

Thanks also to those of you just starting to walk by my side. I look forward to the adventure!

 

And lastly, thanks for this  http://theshiftmovie.com/index.php

and for  Mamakat for leading me to it.

oops, some how duplicated this post. Please scroll down to read the real thing

My mother has just turned 80!  Yikes!

I remember when she turned 50. Well, at least I thought she did.

I sent her an in sympathy card and she was highly indignant. Turned out
I'd miscalculated. She was only 49 that year!

Mom was born  in Edinburgh, Scotland, 29.11.28
She was a love child and her mother was disinherited because her father didn't approve of her choice. Wrong religion, wrong side of railway line. He never spoke to her again. I find that incredible.

Her family immigrated to South Africa when she was 20. 3 months later she met my dad....

This is what I wrote to her. I'm sharing it because she has a message for the rest of us.

Dear mom,

You are so many things to so many people.

Mother, grandmother great grandmother, kind aunt, great aunt, adopted aunt, friend, madam, wife, life long lover of my father. The images flash through my mind. You’ve loved each other fully and completely 60 years. I see the two of you stepping off the airplane together in your 70’s still holding hands. It’s a powerful image in these times when people touch each other’s lives briefly and then walk away. You stand committed to each other, fully and wholly and with open hearts, while the world swirls all around you in a blur.

I look out now over a frozen snowy landscape and think of you in your warm garden paradise, sitting at your breakfast table. Vervet monkeys in the trees above, waiting for you to turn your back so they can grab a banana. It’s a honey pot. A sweet spot for birds and bees and beasts and friends and family from all around the world. All dream of being there with you. You have created paradise on earth. The calm in the eye of the storm.

How do you do it?

Your letters hold the secret. They hold a pattern over time. You write about the world exploding around your ears. All hell’s broken loose. Another drama and just as I start to feel mounting panic, searching for a solution for you for what seems unsolvable, you switch topics mid paragraph and tell me about the paradise fly catcher building a nest on your verandah, or the green bush snake sipping water from your bird bath, or your garden pests: the warthog eating your precious lawn, the monkeys eating the bird seed or stealing your bananas, the giraffe nibbling your bougainvillea or the shy bushbuck who lurks, semi-permanently in the shadows at the bottom of your garden.

What ever catches your eye at that moment or what gives you peace goes onto the page. The genet who sleeps all day in the tree above your house, the squirrels racing over the roof, the iridescent dragonfly hovering over the pool. This is how you stay sane. Beyond your primary premise of live and let live. The belief system that draws life to you, there’s another more sacred premise. And herein lies your secret, your gift and message for the rest of us: to live in wonder and delight, to be mesmerised momentarily by the miracle of life around you. This is how one attains true peace. To be the calm in the eye of the storm, by being present and the witness to what is, albeit fleetingly.

Thank you mom, for being you. Gentle, graceous, caring, compassionate, intelligent, curious, interesting, and interested in others.

Thank you for being the calm in the eye of the storm for so many of us. For holding a sacred space for so many to grow up in. Your children and adopted children of all colours, creeds and species.

Live and let live. This is what you have lived with every breath of your being, even to the point where it pinches. You just can’t help yourself opening your wings and your nest to others.

And today we celebrate you. And acknowledge your influence. For in truth, every value that I hold precious has come from you and from dad and your unshakeable commitment to each other.

We who gather around you are blessed to know you and to be nurtured and loved by you. May you write your book one day soon so you can touch more lives than the thousands you’ve touched already with your presence.

I love you mom! Thank you for being my mother, with all my heart.

Jena