24 Dec 2012 Leave a Comment
in Awareness, Body and Mind, Pursuit of Happiness Tags: Buddhist, enlightenment, Happiness
I am not a Buddhist, but enlightenment, as I have come to know it is the process in which all of the experiences and wisdom of your past lives become available to your current life.
Merry Christmas everyone. I wish you happiness and peace.
Love,
TBO
28 Nov 2012 Leave a Comment
in Awareness, Living on Less, Pursuit of Happiness Tags: Happiness, Louisiana Powerball, Powerball
I live in Louisiana and as you may be aware of, the Powerball has just hit $500 million – a record number. This has caused quite a stir among the people here. I am currently doing consulting work for a company in which all of the employees are polling their money together to buy tickets. Everyone is putting up $20 and several people have asked me if I want to participate.
I have never been a gambler and so my answer was a polite, “No Thanks”.
One person decided to challenge me by stating, “But if you won you could do anything you want”. The first thing that popped into my brain was that, ” I can already do anything I want”. I also “have” everything I want. It is true! I am not just saying that. I truly, deeply believe that.
After all, I live in a wonderful country. I am smart, healthy and educated. I have three exceptional children and a fabulously supportive husband. I am employed by people who respect me and allow me the freedom I require. What more could I possibly want?!?!?
As a person who has amassed money, lost most of it, but yet still appreciates every little thing she has, money means little to me. I see it almost as an obligation. The thought of having a great deal of it, all at once, is not particularly appealing.
I realize that everything you acquire has a cost – whether it is given to you as a prize, you have stolen it, or you have earned it yourself. Unless something is earned, it is not valuable in my eyes. It is simply something more that you have to be responsible for.
Some people may call me naive or ridiculous, but I just like to think of myself as HAPPY, truly and really HAPPY!!!
I wish happiness for everyone, whether you win the Powerball or not.
14 Sep 2012 Leave a Comment
in Pursuit of Happiness, Work Life Tags: Happiness, inner voice, Recession, soul crusher
A dear friend of mine recently made a brave decision that I am so very proud of. She was able to walk away from a job that would have eventually been a soul crusher for her.
Despite the fact that we are in a Recession and that she is in her 50′s. Despite the fact that over a year ago, she suffered a devastating blow and was laid off of a good job that she had held for over 10 years. Despite the fact that after a long search, she landed a high paying IT management job at a large healthcare insurance company, my friend never forgot what was truly important.
A few months into her new IT management job, my friend realized she had made a terrible mistake. She quickly recognized that the stifling bureaucracy at her new company, along with the incredible limitations of her new position meant that she was “in danger”. She knew that such a job could eventually become so soul crushing that the things she found intolerable now, could eventually become “just the way it is”.
Rather than just drown out the inner voice that was screaming at her, she chose to listen to that voice and start looking for a new job – before it was too late. Within 3 months, she found a new job (a non-management job with lower pay) that was much better suited to her personality – and even better, her soul. She is now doing a job that she is proud of and that empowers her, rather than just draining her.
The amazing part is that my friend physically looks better than I can ever remember. I had lunch with her yesterday and was amazed at the transformation. You see, shortly after she lost her original job and took the management job, my friend began to change. The stress from the new job was having a noticeable impact on her appearance and behavior. She was not the perky person I had known for almost 20 years.
But yesterday, I was so happy to see that the happy and well adjusted person I loved was back to her old self. She was restored and even rejuvenated.
In today’s Recession many people are facing challenges just like what my friend faced. If you are one of these people, I hope this story inspires you to dig deep and find the strength you need to listen to your inner voice. You may be your families provider and it may be necessary for you to take a job, but don’t lose yourself in the process. If you do, you won’t be doing yourself or your family any favors.
Good luck and stay positive.
11 Sep 2012 1 Comment
in Awareness, Pursuit of Happiness Tags: DUI, Happiness, inner voice, Oprah, Oprah Winfrey, Own Network, Tracey Gold
Everyone that knows me well knows that I am a HUGE fan of Oprah Winfrey. I consider her to be my greatest mentor. Part of the reason I am such a positive and happy person today is because I have learned and applied so much from her show (and now from her OWN Network).
In 2011, as my life was slowly spiraling out of control, I was thankfully able to stop and recall an Oprah show I had seen years before. The show featured the actress Tracey Gold (from the TV show Growing Pains) and in the show she described a night when she drove drunk and ran off the road with her family in the car.
At one point in the show, Oprah asked her how many times she had failed to listen to her inner voice. Oprah went on to explain, “Because my theory is…you’ve heard a whisper, you’ve had a message. … If you don’t get the whisper, you get a little pebble upside the head, you get a brick, you get a brick wall, and then you get the whole wall falling down. This is your wall.”
For myself, 2011 brought about several pebbles, followed by bricks being thrown at my head. It all ended a year ago with the whole wall falling down and my second arrest for DUI. To say I was completely devastated would have been a gross understatement. The day after my arrest, I walked to a large park in my small town.
I spent the entire day wandering around in the woods and creeks that were part of this vast and beautiful park. I thought about everything, including that Oprah show from so long ago. I decided that the night before was going to be my bottom. No longer was I going to be a victim of life. No longer was I going to sit around feeling sorry for myself and ignoring all the voices in my head.
From that point on, I have never looked back. I have changed everything that went wrong in my life that year and the year before. I have reversed all the misfortune and re-established a life that is beautiful and vastly rewarding – a life that I am very proud of.
I know that there are a lot of people out there that are suffering right now (as I was in 2011). What I want you to know is that you are truly choosing to suffer, but that you can choose not to. As much as you feel like your life is out of control, it is not. As long as you are still alive, you have the chance to change everything you don’t like about your circumstances. It may not be easy, but it is poss
ible.
Please stop and listen to your inner voice. Trust yourself and know that someone is always trying to help you – and that person IS YOU!
Take Care,
Sara
14 Aug 2012 1 Comment
in Body and Mind, Pursuit of Happiness Tags: eat, eat well, exercise, exercise hard, good times, Happiness, hard times, sleep, sleep long
I have been through quite a lot in the last few years – no doubt about it! And, even though I did fall down the rabbit hole, I managed to crawl right back out and I am happy to say that my life is VERY much back on track.
What gave me the strength to crawl out of that rabbit hole, you may ask?
Well, all sorts of things I suppose. BUT, there are three things that I can say for sure “saved my life” and I am quite sure they are not optional for anyone that is handling hard times – or even good times for that matter.
As you have probably guessed (given the title of this post), those three things are:
The good news is that even if you only eat garbage, you sleep less than 4 hours a night, and the only exercise you do is bench pressing the remote, you can still benefit from even a modest increase in each of these areas. Rome was not built overnight and your better, healthier side does not have to either.
BUT, IT DOES HAVE TO HAPPEN – EVENTUALLY – GOT IT!?!?
13 Aug 2012 Leave a Comment
in Awareness, Pursuit of Happiness Tags: Adapt and live happy, Adapt or die, Happiness
For several years I have been on a conscious pursuit of happiness.
During that time, I have had MANY ups and downs. Sometimes I get everything right and sometimes I get everything wrong. And sometimes I get everything right and yet everything still goes wrong. That is just the way life is – for everybody.
The trick to finding happiness, in my humble opinion, is to truly accept that you have no control over anything – and unfortunately, this includes even yourself at times.
YOU DON’T AND NEITHER DO I!!!
I know that can be hard to accept (it sure was for me – a self-professed control “FREAK”), but now that I have accepted it, life and me 
are getting along much better.
You have most likely heard the phrase, “Adapt or Die”. Well, I think it should be changed to “Adapt and Live Happy”.
Have you ever been faced with a bad situation that became so much better once you accepted the fact that you could not control the outcome and you just adapted to the situation instead of trying to change it?
I would love to hear from you if you have…
31 Jul 2012 2 Comments
in Broken Hearts Club, Never Give Up, Pursuit of Happiness Tags: DWI, foreclosure, Happiness
I wanted to share this wonderful poster from the folks at www.livelifehappy.com:
I know life can give you crap that you never expected and certainly never deserved, but that happens to EVERYBODY!
What can separate you from everyone else is the fact that you do not give up just because of those bad things.
Take me, for example. This time last year I had no permanent contracts (or temporary ones either) and therefore no income. It had been that way for quite some time (over 2 years really). But that was just the start or rather the symptom of my real problem.
You see, in 2009, I suffered a devastating unforeseen blow when the second man I married (who I seriously thought was the love of my life abandoned me after only 10 months of marriage). Even though I tried to pretend like nothing happened, things fell apart rather quickly. Within two years I had no income, I had used up all the savings I had, I was forced to go on Medicaid, I was losing my house to foreclosure and on top of all that, I was arrested (not once, but twice for DWI). I actually spent two nights in jail.
Trust me….it don’t get much worse than that.
Despite all that misfortune, I made a conscious choice to turn it all around and I have. I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself and do whatever I had to do to change what was happening or what I had started happening.
Fast forward to today:
And the BEST part is that on April 20th, I married the REAL love of my life. A man that I actually met 26 years earlier. My first love and it turns out, “my ONLY love”. I would have missed all of that if I has stayed stuck in PMD mode.
So, let this be a lesson to you all.
YOU CAN ALWAYS TURN THINGS AROUND NO MATTER HOW BAD THINGS MAY SEEM – JUST NEVER GIVE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I didn’t and no matter what else comes my way in life, I NEVER WILL!!!!
23 Jul 2012 Leave a Comment
in Pursuit of Happiness Tags: Action for Happiness, Happiness, psychology, Sonja Lyubomirsky
I recently joined an online group of people dedicated towards spreading happiness throughout the world. You can join too at actionforhappiness.org.
As I was surfing their website, I came across the following graph which shows that 40% of our happiness is derived from activities and relationships. We have total control over this. What is even more interesting is that only 10% is derived from Income and the environment.
Now, in College I majored in statistics, so I can’t help but to question all graphs such as this (especially when the website did not cite a source). All is not lost though because a simple Google search led me to the source of the graphs information.
It seems that a Psychology Professor named Sonja Lyubomirsky, PhD has been doing solid research about happiness for the past 20 years. In 2008, she published a book based on her research titled, “The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want” (Penguin Press, 2008).
Next time you find yourself down in the dumps (as we ALL do – just some of us more often than others), try to remember that you do have the power to change these feelings. You can do something about how happy you are. I am not saying it will be easy, but it is possible.
Let me know how it goes for you…
18 Jul 2012 Leave a Comment
in Broken Hearts Club Tags: broken hearts, fairy tale, Happiness, Jason Mraz, Katie Holmes
If I could write Katie Holmes…this is what I would tell her:
“You’re an island of reality in an ocean of diarrhea…But, the good news is that Everything will be just fine!”
That statement would be to break the ice and prepare her for the fact that no matter what she thinks is reality right this second, next year at this time, she will think entirely different.
What will she be thinking and how do I know all this?
Well, it is not because I was married to Tom Cruise. However, I was briefly married to a man that I envisioned in my head. A man that turned out to be nothing like what I envisioned.
I thought this man was ideal and that a relationship with him would be ideal. I thought that I could balance him and be the special person that he deserved. I thought that if I just focused hard enough, I could get everything I always wanted.
I was wrong!
So, I know what it is like to go into a relationship that starts as a fairy tale and ends as a nightmare. I know what it is like to one day be 100% convinced that the man you are marrying is your soul mate and then a short time later realize that you were completely wrong.
It is like being dropped out of a plane without a parachute. It is like landing on the ground and breaking all your bones, and then getting up (because you are so super strong) and marching straight back into your life as if nothing happened.
Of course, all your bones are broken and everything inside has turned to mush, but you think that if you can just focus yourself, you will come out of it all unscathed.
Wrong again!
Oh, and if for some crazy chance, Katie Holmes does read this email, please touch base with me sweetie. I would love to talk to you and tell you that everything will truly be all right. I would love to tell you that there will be a better future ahead and that you do deserve it. I would love to tell you this every day, because I know there will come a time when you will start to doubt.
You will doubt yourself, your family, your friends and society in general. You will feel like the whole world is coming down on you (and unfortunately for Katie Holmes, who lives under a microscope, this will not be far from the truth).
HOWEVER (and this is the most important part), IT WILL GET BETTER!!!!
And to help you get there, I suggest immediately purchasing a copy of Jason Mraz’s album titled, “We Dance, We steal Things”. There is a song on there called “Details in the Fabric” that if played over and over again (like a mantra), it just might save your life. Listen to it as many times as you need to until you can sing it word for word in your head. This song WILL get you through the storm that lies ahead.
So, hold on Katie and know that no matter how bad things get (and they WILL get worse), eventually EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE!!!!
