Advocate for Happiness

I’ve been thinking about what makes us happy.

I’ve been thinking (and there is nothing new to you about this) that what makes us happy is time, room to breathe, hanging out with the friends and family that we love, letting our minds wander in free space without the intervention of screens or technological platforms of any kind, good sleep, good books, nourishing food, regular exercise of one kind or another and being in nature.

Therefore we need to reappraise what we mean when we talk about prosperity - true wealth is not an affluent life, but a happy one. As humans we should not be proud of our riches, but proud of the quiet, contented joy of living a good life.

Therefore the idea of economic growth is an outdated concept and we need instead to focus (at an individual and a national level) on personal growth, which is to do with knowing and valuing our own worth and integrity, which is to do with good relationships (with ourselves, with others, with nature), which is to do with having enough, not having more.

I’m not advocating for a hairshirt-wearing life of sanctimonious self-denial. That does not bring happiness. I am advocating for a careful life of gratitude and choosing wisely. Choosing wisely what you buy and who you buy it from, how you spend your time, how much exercise you get, what you look at on your phone and how often you do it.

How might the world - education, health systems, working environments - look different if this was a shift that we all made?

And this is what we do here, in this tribe of ours: we advocate for happiness. It’s what we encourage and celebrate in each other. When we are pulled too far one way (work, no time, exhaustion, headache, stress) we make space to draw back across to the other side (breath, peace, moving slowly, gentleness), so that we learn how to spend most of our lives in quiet happiness, helping and serving in our communities, thankful for this simple and healthful practice that changes us for the better, basking in gratitude for what we have, who we love and who we are.

Long may we continue.
So grateful to know you x

Cobwebs

I like to imagine that my body is a cobweb.

We were born to be free and clear like a brand new web - life should breeze through us and past us, as the joys and sorrows come and go. But it doesn’t.

Sometimes life throws us something that is so knotty and difficult that it gets lodged in the clear web of ourselves. Losses and bereavements of all kinds, the small wounds and tribulations of a normal life. We are unable to let them go straight away and sometimes we hold onto them for years, as we quietly go about the process of attending to our heartache.

Occasionally we get attached to those knots and we start to think that they define who we are. We are wrong of course, but we are human and prone to making mistakes of this kind.

Other times, we manage to work through our knots and we learn how to release them - perhaps even to be grateful for the gifts and wisdom those injuries have left in their wake.

As all spiderwebs demonstrate, a mended web takes on a new and magnificent shape - there is beauty in the repairs we make to our soul. We are clear again, but in a new way.

Work at clearing your web. Locate those things that you are ready and strong enough to release, let go of your fear. Understand and appreciate the many ways that you have tended to your web over the years. Know that the work is never done, but that we approach our web building with more finesse as we grow older and we spend less time risking the integrity of our web in the face of the strong winds of what others say and think or in wilfully causing ourselves pain or on that awful waste of time - trying to prove our worth to others.

Happy spinning.

Viveka

We know what does us good, don't we?  Even if we are only just now learning what it is that we truly want and need in our life in order to live in the fullest, most vibrant, most generous way, there are certain things we know that we need.

We need the support of good people; we need regular sleep; we need to not drink too much alcohol or eat too much sugar and fat; we need regular exercise of the kind that suits our constitution as it is today (not how it was 20, or even 5 years ago); we need connection and movement and light.

How can this be so hard to maintain?

Somebody asked me: 'If I know that those people are no good for me and that hanging out with them makes me ill; if I know that drinking that much and staying out that late interferes with my life in a bad way, why do I still do it? '

Bless his heart, that man.

What he is looking for is VIVEKA: the discrimination with which we choose wisely.

At first, our efforts at viveka are stymied by our lack of self-awareness - when we are starting out it is so difficult to realise except by trial and error, what serves our best self and what does not.  Perhaps it is the human condition to want everything and to have it all, or perhaps it is that we live in a capitalist society that entreats us all the time to have more, want more and do more.  More likely, it is just the case that part of learning what does suit us, is learning what does not.

I'm not going to list here the choices you make every single day and I'm not going to make value judgements around herbal tea vs. a cup of coffee: sometimes a nice glass of wine is a Very Good Thing.  You are a grown-up; you know this stuff.

But I am going to suggest that you set yourself a few boundaries around what you are allowing into your life, your day, your soul and I am going to encourage you to take time every day to consider the choices you are making (and if you don't have time in your day to take some time to breathe and consider the choices you are making, then you definitely need to take some time every day to ponder why you don't have the time).

Somebody told us that we can have it all; this is not the truth, but we can have a full life and a happy one, we can be the best versions of ourselves. It only needs that we choose wisely. We must learn to say no to the things that harm or deplete us, without guilt; we must learn how to keep ourselves well.

So be well, my friend, be healthy and happy. Set boundaries so that you can stay wholehearted and generous even on the days when the sadness in the world makes you want to lock the doors and hide inside.

Sarah x