Try Happy—Motivational Monday 6-22-15

Howdy Friends,

Try Happy! More than a state of mind. More than a suggestion. And certainly more than an emotion. Happy is a tonic, an elixir for what ails ya.

Happy is a motivator, too. We all struggle with de-motivation, especially when tasked with things that we know to be difficult, challenging or intimating. If we paint happy in our hearts and thoughts, those challenges find it much more difficult to hold us back. A blast of happy is like high-test in the tank, higher octane emotion to push us up out of life’s valleys to the

highest peaks of success and wondrous achievements. Happy is easy to do too, and it’s free!

Of course it’s not natural, or sane, to be happy all the time. Things happen. Sometimes really serious things. The key though is to be so practiced at wearing and living happy, those difficult times and sad, worried emotions cannot long survive. The elixir of happy can, and will, push those struggles right out of sight.

How does one learn, “The art of Happy? ” Smile. It’s really very hard for sadness, worry and stress to compete with the power of your smile. At first it may feel strange, clumsy even, but with a little sincere practice a smile is one of the easiest things to perfect. And everyone can indeed have a perfect smile. If they practice.

Stop reading right now and smile ... Feels good doesn’t it?

Now, smile with your entire body. Yup, your lips, your cheeks, your chest, heart, arms, belly, legs and feet. Breathe in a smile. Breathe out a smile; let that happy smile consume you all over. Feel it?

Even if you are today tasked with a challenge, I’ll bet you feel a tiny bit better. Try it again, right now—Breathe in that smile, from your eyebrows to your toes, breathe a big happy powerful smile. Now breathe out a big happy powerful smile.

Now ad to that happy breathing smile, a happy thought or two. Don’t stop breathing—just ad a happy thought. Remember a happy moment, surprise or person or adventure. Perhaps a place you love, a time you love, or song, book or movie. You might even want to think of a happy dream you have, perhaps a trip you’d love to take.

Allow your mind to shift from worry, stress, sad or overworked, to happy. Make it up as you go, there are no rules. Except to smile, think happy, and oh yes, breathe happy.

It might take a little effort, at first, but step by step you will master the art of happy. I promise.

I’ll bet you’re smiling right now.

Gitty Up, Dutch Henry

"Motivational Monday— Adversity as a Blessing?"

Howdy Friends,

Life is a vast conglomeration of many things. And isn’t that a most wonderful gift? We are offered so much as we traverse this world, love, wonderment, beauty, friendship, adventure, families, friends and the list could more than fill a book. Along the way we are blessed, each of us, with our share of adversity too.

Our Fringe Tree in Kessy's yard is a beautiful and fragrant gift.

 Adversity as a blessing? I’m pretty sure none of us feel that way in the midst of a visit from the trouble making adversity monster, but when it’s behind us we are most often strengthened by the trial. Still I suppose I’m not real sure about calling adversity a blessing, how about more of seasoning? Or just simply a part of our wonderful life.

Being happy is much more fun than being angry, stressed or worried, so let’s think about the adversity challenge just a second, and how we can turn sad into happy. Many of our Coffee Clutch and Facebook friends know of my motto, “Ignore the negative and celebrate the positive.” That’s the first rule, works just as it sounds it might. Now of course not every bad thing can be ignored, some things simply need to be faced head on, dealt with. But every good thing can, and should be, celebrated.

Here is the trick, face the bad head on, with only as much effort and attention it requires to deal with it. No matter if it is a big bad or a little bad. Don’t dwell on, procrastinate, worry and fret as that only feeds it, empowers it. It can turn little bads into big bads, and empower big bads to consume you. No, instead jump right in, take charge and fix it, even if your fix is not perfect, that will starve it, weaken it and it will become resolved and go away. I’ll never forget what a friend told me once as I struggled long and hard with a mighty big bad, “A year from now you’ll look back at this and it’ll be okay.” He was right.

Don’t worry about getting it just right, that’s what bad wants you to do, so you hang out with it. Then it can grow. But if you deal with it so it’s over, gone and out of mind, it disappears into nowhere land and your world is swimming in happy. And you can look back at it and know it’s okay. Remember this, our first reaction, strategy and plan is almost always our best and strongest plan ... I’ll bet you’ve noticed that already. So why dwell on the bad trying to make it perfect. Bad cannot be made perfect, only handled. And each time you handle it, your happy becomes stronger, and a larger part of you.

Then you can focus on HAPPY ... Celebrate the POSITIVE! The more energy, thought and time you focus on happy the stronger that part of you becomes. Just like building muscles. The more consumed you become with seeing good, being happy, the harder it is for negative to touch you. It’ll become afraid of the powerful happy you!

The wonderful thing about focusing on happy, celebrating the positive, is how easy it is to get started. Go ahead and give it a try, quickly you’ll see how happy takes charge, and adversity becomes just a little seasoning in life. The main course is goodness, if you feed it.

Gitty Up, Dutch Henry

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