Tag: Live The Fulfilled Life

Seeing Others Clearly

Happiness, Relationships, The Pathway To Fulfilment

When we go to the shop and we go to the till we often think of the person behind the till as just a Shop Assistant and our label of them stops there. When we see an irritating person we often think of them only in this way. The labels we use for people can often become all that we see of them.

When we stop at the label we put onto the person we are depriving them of their full humanity in our eyes and we do the same to ourselves. If you were to see a Shop Assistant as a full human being with a life outside of work, a family, hobbies and a social life then you end up treating them differently.

Of course we know that each person has these things, but we can become lazy in our labelling of the people we interact with. Labels can become prejudices that mean we see someone as a ‘type’ of person, and we put people into boxes, as if the complexity of a human life can be simplified so neatly.

When we acknowledge a person’s full humanity we remove boundaries and conflicts between us and them. We see ourselves in them and we naturally feel compassion and empathy for them. This is a powerful practice that will bring blessings into your life.

Believe In Yourself

Achieving Goals, Leadership, Success

No one will give you the perfect answer as to what you should do in any situation, because they are judging it based on what they would do, and they are not you. We need to make a choice and go try it, whatever it is. If it doesn’t work and we fall on our faces, we have learned something.

The trick is to know that you will always pick yourself up and try again. A bird does not avoid landing on a tree branch because it is worried that the branch may break, if they did they would never land on a tree branch. A bird’s faith is not in the branch not breaking, it’s faith is in the ability of it’s own wings.

Lean In With Empathy

Happiness, Relationships, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

There are things in life we feel we are not equipped to deal with or to do, so we pull back and avoid these things. This often appears in our relationships. We pull back or we avoid topics of conversation or ways of being that scare us.

In my job I deal with complaints, so the person I talk to is usually upset, angry or both. I learned recently that I find it difficult to deal with people when they behave a certain way, so I don’t and I come across as cold and detail driven.

However, if i was to lean in with empathy, the conversation would be more productive and the other person would feel heard and respected. If you lean in with empathy in your lives the human connections you have will be much more rewarding.

Making Positive Change

Happiness, Relationships, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

What we do and what we say shapes the world we live in. Through our interactions we co-create our relationships, which in turn creates our society, which in turn creates our nations and our cultures. How we choose to live our lives will influence everything else, even if just a little.

What we need is a harmony revolution, because the only sensible way to counteract division in our own lives is to bring people together in harmony. By harmony I mean, to use a metaphor, the bringing together of very different instruments into an orchestra to create beautiful music. When we come together as human beings and we share what makes us unique, then we can collaborate, cooperate, and co-create. We can make the world a better place to be.

The Wisdom Of Suffering

Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

No one likes to suffer, this is universal when it comes to the human condition. Suffering is a part of reality, in the sense that to be alive means, at some level, we suffer. We get hungry, we get cold, we don’t get what we want and we get what we don’t want. It could be either physical or emotional pain, or some might say psychological pain. Sometimes the situation we are in create unavoidable suffering. For these situations I hope you get the support you need.

However, generally speaking, how we interpret suffering will have an impact on our level of happiness. If it makes us feel helpless then we can fall into depression, if we are not careful. Though suffering can be a route to walk a spiritual path. Suffering can be a pathway to God or enlightenment, but we must be careful here. To use suffering to get closure to God or enlightenment does not work, you simply end up worshiping suffering.

Suffering can, however, be used as a tool to understand the human condition and how to live well. For example, certain situations would cause great suffering for us, but very little for others. This tells us that suffering is relative. It is relative because the amount to which it hurts us is linked to the amount we are attached to either our sense of Self, or Ego, or to things and experiences. When these are threatened or damaged the level of our suffering is often linked to our level of attachment. In this way we could ask how suffering can be a guide on the pathway to a life well lived.

Taking Ownership Of Your Life

Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

Our thoughts are largely made up from the information we have gathered from outside of ourselves through our five senses. Our understanding of who we are and how we should be comes from outside ourselves.

Our bodies are made up of the food and drink that we have too. If we eat an apple a couple of hours later our bodies has broken the apple down into it’s useful parts, which become our bodies and will be in the process of getting rid of the rest of it.

We are almost entirely made from that which we have gathered. However, what we do with what we gather is where we take ownership of our lives.

Attachment To Ourselves

Happiness, Relationships, The Pathway To Fulfilment

In many religious traditions there is a focus on non-attachment to the Self. Sometimes we can have different selves that we are attached to, because the way we see ourselves depends on the context we are in at any given time. We might behave differently at work than we do at home for example. This occurs because we are living our lives through our perceived expectations of others. In other words we are living in ways that fit with how we want others to see us.

When we live this way, we are not being true to who we are in at least one of these places. Part of the work of living a fulfilling life is to figure out our beliefs, values and ethics and to live by them everywhere we are. A part of living a spiritual path is to move away from focusing on a separate Self and to recognise the oneness within which we live. These two journies are very much connected.

Break The Bias

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Leadership, Relationships, Success

Today is International Women’s Day, which celebrates the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. This is something that is needed to balance how women are seen in society. Many companies and organisations are equal, with women holding positions of CEO downwards, but not every company culture supports equality. This can also be said of society as a whole.

To me, equality is a sign of respect from one human being to another. We all have different skills and experience which allows us to thrive in some roles in both the workplace and outside of it, but not in others. Opportunities should be given without any assumptions being made about whether they will suit either a man or a women, and should be offered based on merit.

This brings us to the slogan of International Women’s Day, which is #breakthebias. In order for their to be true equality then the bias towards men being more capable needs to end. In order to love a fulfilling life we need to feel as if we are progressing, which means we need access to opportunities to progress. One thing you can do I to try and see past the stereotypes and judgements and see the other person as human first, the same as you. There is no bias if we are all seen as human beings.

The Work Of Being Happy

Happiness, Health, The Pathway To Fulfilment

There is an impulse in us to avoid negative thoughts and feelings at all costs. Some, however, dwell within the negativity and let it take them over. Neither approach, I feel, will be effective in the long run, if you want to be happy. It is better to engage our negative thoughts and feelings and invite them in for tea, so to speak.

Once they become familiar to us as aspects of ourselves then we can understand why they are there and resolve the underlying causes. This is the work of living a happy and fulfilling life. I recommend utilising both meditation and writing a daily journal.

When One Door Closes

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Leadership, Success

In life there are ways and processes that we find helpful and that make life easier, and when they are taken away we feel angry and frustrated. We ask why and complain about how it is not like it used to be. However, what is hidden in these turns of event is that there are other ways of doing these things and other processes. Often they are more helpful and make life more meaningful.

We get stuck in ways of doing things that feel comfortable or familiar or ways that have been drummed into us as the ‘right’ way to do something. We rarely question these ways of doing things, as we go about our routine filled lives.

At work this past week I found it difficult to help a customer as a process I had become used to changed. I spent some time moaning to colleagues, who join in with my indignation, before asking my Manager what I could do. My Manager gave me an alternative that I had never thought of before, which was a better option all round and allowed me to help the customer. When one door closes look for an alternative door, it may be a better one.

Ask For Help

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Health, Success

Often we get faced with problems at work and in our private lives that we struggle to solve. We may well try to figure it out ourselves and fumble through, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. Sometimes we will leave the problem untouched until it becomes a bigger problem that we cannot ignore.

The answer is to ask for help. A simple thing to say, but a difficult thing to do. However, there are people with different knowledge and experience that may well know how to solve your problem with minimal fuss. The hard part is asking.

We feel embarrassed, as if we should be the knower of all things, solver of all problems. Nobody is, we all guess and try things out and get it wrong, but this is how we learn. No one came out of the womb walking and talking, things take practice. We need help to do what we have never done before.

My advice is to surround yourself with people who will help you without judgement and also to avoid judging yourself, and stop assuming others are judging you, because most people are so caught up in their own lives that your problem is not even on their radar. To learn and grow we need to ask for help.

Balancing Opportunities

Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

Often opportunities come up in life that seem good for progression at work or in life but we hesitate. There are two questions that you should ask before you take any new opportunity.

First, ask yourself whether the new opportunity aligns with who you are. Meaning, does it connect with your values and beliefs, and who you want to be in life?

Second, do you have the resources to take on this new opportunity? By resources I mean time and energy. You need to balance your life, so no one area unbalances things. If you need chill time then don’t sacrifice it for any new opportunity. If you need time to recharge then don’t drain yourself by not giving yourself this time.

Many good opportunities seem beneficial, but you should figure out if they are worth it for you.

Improve Your Life

Happiness, Health, The Pathway To Fulfilment

When a person is depressed we give them antidepressants, which changes their bodies chemistry into a happier state. Our body chemistry is changing all of the time from situation to situation. If we are sleeping it will be one way, if we are exercising it will be another, if we are having an argument it will be another.

What we are physically doing has an impact on our body chemistry, but our thoughts more so. A happy thought and a sad thought create very different states in the body. If we change our thoughts we change our body’s chemistry and we can elevate ourselves to a state of joy or excitement, all with our thinking.

Our thinking patterns have been hard wired into our brains by our beliefs about a variety of things. If we can identify the limiting beliefs and then prove to ourselves that they are untrue, we fundamentally shift ourselves towards a more powerful state of being.

Improve your beliefs, improve your thoughts, improve your life.

Building A Better World

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Relationships, Success

Today is Dr Suess Day and one of my favourite quotes from Dr Seuss books is “Don’t give up. I believe in you all. A person’s a person. No matter how small.” ― Dr. Seuss, “Horton Hears a Who!” I love all of his books, but this is one of my favourites.

We all have our highs and lows in life, our advantages and disadvantages. We are all fighting battles that others can’t see, some big and some small. The message that this quote gives me is firstly, believing in ourselves is necessary for progress to happen, it is is also necessary for others to believe in us too. You could be the person that causes someone to believe in themselves, to become their best self. There is power in believing in others.

Secondly, everyone has equal validity and worth. Therefore, kindness and respect should be a given with all interactions. If someone acts in a way that belittles or hurts others they should be held to account for their actions, but we should still respect their humanity. Never fall for thinking of others as less than human. This opens the door to inhuman treatment of fellow human beings.

Believe in others and they will believe in themselves. Treat all with kindness and respect. This is how we build a better world.

Possibility Blindness

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Relationships, Success

We are largely defined by the environment we live in. The opportunities we have in most western countries are very different to those in third world countries. Our opportunities, or lack of them, will have a direct impact on how we see life.

We are also shaped by the people we spend our time with. Our parents have a significant effect on how we see ourselves and what we are capable of. We learn from a young age views of how easy or difficult it is to make money, how easy or difficult relationships are, and what our self worth is to us, etc.

When we let the views and beliefs of others become ours, we become blind to the possibilities available to us. To see an opportunity we must first think that it is possible. If you are living your life small, then it is likely that you have some limiting beliefs acquired from others. If that is the case, it is time to rewrite your beliefs and become an opportunity seeker. To believe in the possibilities life has to offer. Don’t let the views and beliefs of others give you possibility blindness. Open you eyes and begin to believe that you can, it is possible, but first you must believe that it is.

Living Well

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

We often think of a good life as a full life, where we focus on the content of our lives. We cherish wealth and possessions and how other people see us. We cherish successes and we avoid failures. This is a busy life not a life well lived.

An apple tree does not have such objectives, its only objective is to thrive. It exists only to be an apple tree, but its branches provide homes for birds and its shade protection from the sun for all that rest under it. Its apples feed people and animals. Its presence in the world benefits those around it.

The context within which the apple tree lives is more important than the content of its achievements. It is connected to all life around it. If we are to thrive we need to focus on the context of our lives not the content of it. We need to try and thrive, as all life does.

Questioning Our Beliefs

Happiness, The Pathway To Fulfilment

Beliefs are conclusions that we assume to be the truth. We often say that beliefs come from faith, but a belief unquestioned becomes a closed door. When we say we belong to a particular religion we are often identifying with a belief system which has institutionalised beliefs into a specific way of seeing the world.

Though the guidance from religions can be beneficial, if they go unexplored and unquestioned this is not a spiritual journey, it is a spiritual roundabout. Beliefs are important, particularly religious ones, because they deal with the nature of reality. However, I feel these beliefs should not go unquestioned. If beliefs are seen as a working model of how the world works, we can then repeatedly test it to see if it produces joy, happiness and fulfilment. These are the measure of a life well lived.

Reaching Your Potential

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Success

As human beings we often think that knowledge is one of the most important factors in life. Much is thought of degrees, the school we went to and being a knowledgeable person. However, every piece of knowledge is a conclusion that we decide is fixed.

This creates a mentality of I am right and others are wrong. It also limits our human potential, because each conclusion becomes a dead end. This leads to stagnation in life. If we were to think of pieces of knowledge as an impermanent understanding then we are always open to learning new things and to the knowledge of others, which might prove us wrong.

In order to reach other full potential we must be open to new experiences and new knowledge. Growth leads to fulfilment.

Creating Value

The Pathway To Fulfilment

As I have begun the process of becoming more self aware I have realised that I have often tried to be seen as a Mr Fix It, by trying to be the one with the right answers. My realisation was that this desire to be seen this way was my Ego looking for praise.

As I looked deeper into this is I saw that the underlying motivation was to help others live well, and it was the application of the Ego that was morphing this motivation. A better method of helping others to live well is to try to create value in every interaction I have with others. Sometimes this is not trying to fix anything it is just being with someone in their hurting.

Often we try to fix a situation for someone, but all they really need is someone to listen.

A State Of Flow

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

There is a concept you may have heard before, the concept of flow. The state you are in when everything you are doing is effortless and time disappears, because you are fully engaged and really enjoying what you are doing.

In Taoist thinking this is referred to as Wu Wei, the art of non-action. To our Western ears this sounds paradoxical, but it has finally sunk in in my head recently and I finally get it. Wu Wei is flow, it is effortless action, it is doing, not worrying or planning or speculating, it is the act of just doing.

Living life through Wu Wei is, as Bruce Lee had said, being like water. He said, “Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it.” As with many Eastern things, this is an art more than a science.

My advice would be to try to do everything that you are doing with joy, and then this flow state will be more accessible. As Sadhguru has said, “Anything you do joyfully is always effortless.”

Don’t Always Set Goals

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

In life we need to set goals, progress is an essential aspect of living a fulfilling life. If we had no progress we would feel a sense of stagnation and a lack of motivation. Goals are important, but sometimes they are a reflection of who we think we should be. There are goals that we think we need to achieve in order to be a success, after which we will be happy.

Success does not automatically equal happiness. If the success is in something that does not align with our fundamental values, for example, then it can never really be happiness inducing. What we need to understand is what happiness and success look like for us, based on our values, beliefs and ethics.

Sometimes we also set goals in order to feel like we are working towards success, but in fact we are avoiding figuring out what we really want. Doing the work of figure out who we are and what we want out of life can seem too difficult, so we take someone else’s model of success, or the model that is currently seen as popular, and tell ourselves it is what we want. In a way it is a form of procrastination.

So, set goals, but do the hard work of figuring out what you really want out of life first.

Your Lifelong Journey

The Pathway To Fulfilment

The day before yesterday it snowed where I live and for a few hours everything was white. Then the snow turned to rain and washed away the snowy scene. The snow flakes were big and fluffy and fell through the air with a kind of grace.

Each snowflake was made from a drop of water that passed through streams of air, some of which began to freeze the water into crystals. As the drop of water passed through the atmosphere it began to freeze more and more and the water formed larger and larger crystals, its path through the ever changing atmosphere was unique, caused a unique crystal pattern to form. It is the path that the snowflake takes that determines its shape and size.

We are much like snow flakes. We all pass through the atmosphere of life, but we each have our own journey to take, growing as we travel. The experiences we have shape who we are and how we behave in the world. They say that every snowflake is unique and the same can be said of each human life. We each have experiences and memories, knowledge and wisdom, intentions and goals.

Your life is an unchartered journey through wonder and danger alike. You may wish to follow in the footsteps of those greater than you feel you are, but what you will learn and what you will do along the way is uniquely yours.

Feeling At Home

Happiness, Relationships

I have a few places where I feel like I belong. One of them is being at home with my wife and daughters. This is my home base, to use a baseball euphemism. To extend this euphemism further, I feel that when it comes to my religious beliefs my Unitarian chapel is my religious base. I feel at home in any Unitarian church or chapel.

When it comes to feeling connected to the natural world, being near trees and grass, flowers and all of the animals, birds and insects that share the Earth with us, feels like being in my natural world base.

You will have places and situations which are your bases, places where you feel a connection to something outside of yourself, and this is a very good thing. These bases are spaces in which we should spend time just being, and exploring all that it means to be a human being, and more than that, being the individual human being that we each are.

Meaning In Life

Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

We are all here connected to the interconnected web of all existence. We are connected to the tree that have become the wooden chair on which you sit, if you are, and the life that this tree fed and sheltered. We are connected to all that has come before us and all that will come after us, when we are again returned to the universal elements from which we are now composed.

These elements will be as useful in the grand fabric of the universe as they are now, in this very moment. All of this underpins whatever our beliefs may be. If we believe in God or we don’t, if we believe in an existence after we die, either in heaven or through reincarnation, or we don’t, we are all still part of the same ocean of existence.


According to the website ‘www.actionforhappiness.org  “Meaning in life can feel like a mysterious or esoteric topic, one that philosophers through the ages, and later psychologists, have tried hard to pin down. At its core, it’s a sense of being connected to, part of, and/or contributing to something bigger, beyond ourselves.  This might sound huge but it isn’t, we are all connected to the world around us in a myriad of ways which means there are many ways we can make a difference.”

Blaming Others

Happiness, Relationships

We blame others a lot for the negative things that happen to us, but we hardly blame others for the positive things that happen to us. Blame works both ways.

We have evolved to focus on the negative, because in a life or death situation we survive if we see the danger. This has an adverse effect now we have less danger in our lives. We are also fed negativity in the news, and the media generally, because it is what we pay attention to and it increases their number of views.

If we let ourselves only focus on the bad things that people do in our lives we tip out of balance and it wears away at us over the years. There needs to be balance. Blame people for the good they do more than the bad. Rebalance the way you see people and you will feel more blessed and less depressed.

Stronger Together

Happiness, Relationships, The Pathway To Fulfilment

When you get knocked down in life you have two choices. Stay down and give up or find a way to rise again. Sometimes we can rise alone, if we have the internal resources to do so, but usually we need the help of others through the relationships we have and new ones we form or the wisdom in books and online content.

It takes courage to stand after you fall, but often we should not try to stand alone, we should seek support. We are always stronger together. It is often seen as a weakness to ask for help, but it is the most courageous act we can do when we have been knocked down by life. We can stand alone again in the future, but take the support when it is available.

Being Courageous

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Success

For some, acting with courage it is getting out of bed and leaving their bedroom. For some it is standing on a stage and giving a speech. For some it is challenging the abusive behaviour of a loved one. For some it is stepping into the unknown. For some it is failing and trying again.

With every act of courage there are three things present, a decision, vulnerability and fear. There are many other aspects to courage, but these three are less recognised, especially the last two. For many, when we think of courage we think of being fearless, but you cannot have courage without fear. It is simply not courage if you are not scared.

You are also vulnerable when you act with courage, because you are either stepping into the unknown or you are letting others see who you really are; both of which make you vulnerable. The decision to act with courage is usually made in alignment with a person’s values, beliefs or ethics, or some combination of these.

There has to be a reason why an act of courage is needed, something more important than playing it small and being safe. When we act with courage we are also usually helping others directly or giving others around us permission to be courageous.

A courageous life is a life well lived.

The Key To Positive Interactions

Happiness, The Pathway To Fulfilment

I used to work in a special needs school working young people with conditions like Autism and ADHD and I was thinking today about how we often assume everyone else experiences the world in the same way that we do. It is an assumption that we don’t necessarily decide on, it is just there.

Some Autistic people struggle to understand social rules, empathy and some find facial expressions difficult to process. Seeing the world as someone with Autism sees it is very different to someone who does not have Autism. We all also see through the lens of our own experiences as well. Our experience of the world is in fact unique to us. This means that it is unique for everyone else too.

So, when we interact with other people it is best to try and listen to understand the other person’s experience and how they understand that experience. Empathy is the key to successful relationships of any kind. If you understand where someone is coming from and why, then compassion is often the next step in connecting with them. If we assume we are always right, we will never learn anything new. Every interaction with another person is an opportunity to learn something new.

What Should We Unlearn?

Happiness

Our reality is largely what we are told that it is, from the explanations and examples of our parents to the education we receive to the religion or lack of religion that we follow. Our starting point for understanding our place in the world, or the universe, is received from other people.

It is only later in life, as our childhood becomes adulthood that we really start to question the foundations of understanding that we have been taught. Some understandings, particularly religious ones, it seems, can last a lifetime without being questioned.

There are many understandings of things, both religious and non-religious, that create divisions, which are further worsened by seeing a them and an us. More and more I am starting to believe that there are no divisions or categories or labels except the ones we create to understand the world and the universe, to give us a framework from which to go about our daily lives.

Don’t get me wrong, without such things we would not have science or medicine or a great many other things, but there is much, I think, that we have to unlearn about how we see each other and our place in the grand scheme of things.

Spread Some Love

The Pathway To Fulfilment

Today is Valentine’s Day, a day when expectations are high and romantic gestures are a plenty. It is also an opportunity to be kind to each other. My 2 year old brought home a Valentine’s card for us from nursery and it said on the front ‘Thumb Body Love’s You.’

She had dipped her thumb in red paint and made lots of red thumb prints on the front, which the nursery staff had turned into ladybirds. It was an opportunity for our 2 year old to learn the importance of kindness.

Valentine’s Day is certainly a day for couples, but many people are single and find this annual date difficult. Many people find every day difficult. So, single or attached, use this day to be kinder to one another, everyone deserves kindness in their lives.