Joy

Happy Monday! Abundance and Faith. No season manifest these better than the reality of Christmas . Nope. I am not talking about shopping. I've always thought of abundance as a feeling of "not lacking" more than a flooding of blessings. It is not overwhelming, but rather calming. Thoughts like... .... there's plenty of that where that came from ... i'd always be taken cared of ... someone will always have my back ... there is a solution here somewhere ... everything happens for a purpose Abundance is always a state of happening... its only a matter of time. Christmas eve was a long time coming in human history. Yet, it was at the center of it all from the very beginning. They say that if you want something to manifest in your life, act as if you've already received it (fair warning to those who shop excessively, you only get enough to pay debt if you accumulate it, so think). Faith was the same, is the same. We hope. Yet we act with courage,...

“Self-care is often a very unbeautiful thing. It is making a spreadsheet of your debt and enforcing a morning routine and cooking yourself healthy meals and no  longer just running from your problems and calling the distraction a solution. It is often doing the ugliest thing that you have to do, like sweat through another workout or tell a toxic friend you don’t want to see them anymore or get a second job so you can have a savings account or figure out a way to accept yourself so that you’re not constantly exhausted from trying to be everything, all the time and then needing to take deliberate, mandated breaks from living to do basic things like drop some oil into a bath and read Marie Claire and turn your phone off for the day. A world in which self-care has to be such a trendy topic is a world that is sick. Self-care should not be something we resort to because we are so absolutely exhausted that we need some reprieve from our own relentless internal pressure. True sel...

Happy Monday! Open communication is mind blowing! I guess I have always known this but I'm officially including it in my checklist of joy inducing requirements. Two of my friends who are practically sisters have always said, "We are not 'nice' friends". Meaning we can be brutally honest with each other and just the fact that we know each other so well no one can bu!#$h×t each other is in itself binding. We must always be aware of our level of friendship/relationship with people before letting our tact guard down, though. You know if you are not yet there. Pause. Compose your words so they come out right. This is why it is so liberating to be with people you can be "unguarded" with. Its like being home: unmade, slouching, hair in a mess and just babbling your brain out. New Rule: If I need to be careful talking to you, I'd put myself in a very very safe distance from you. Far, far away from you. Ahahaha. Let me break that d...

Happy Monday! Fear is crippling and it stands in the way of a peaceful mind. Things we fear: 👀  The future 👀  Failure 👀  Hurt 👀  Shame 👀  Weaknesses 👀  Illness and death Anything common to all? Yes. They are inevitable. We do not become happy preparing for a perfect, unscathed life. We become happy preparing ourselves to face the unknown, the matter of fact, the things that will not go as planned (because we always plan for perfect). How can we face the inevitable with courage? 1. Admit that you can prepare but cannot control outcomes. The sense of control makes us feel we are entitled to a result when we try to achieve them. News Flash  ⚡ : we are not. The best mental balm though is that we TRY. 2. Be courageous in little things to prepare you to take courage in bigger circumstances. Say the truth. Turn down anything that does not reflect your values. Try that diet again  😣 . Take on a task you don't know then figur...

Happy Monday! What have you got to lose? Sometimes, stress comes from making choices where we feel we are pushed to the wall and is left only to respond to what is there, what is urgent and what seems to make more sense. We make our decisions based on 1. Deadlines 2. Step by step processes 3. Responding to the situation at hand as it has always been handled 4. Relationships 5. Common sense The world we live in now, however, gives us one big advantage: we can change how games are played. We are free to revisit what has always worked and what seems to be working only to a certain degree because it has always been addressed in fixed, sequential, practical manners. Thinking out of the box, thinking in non-linear manner could be liberating. You don't need to be handling complicated stuff looking for alternatives to be able to practice this. 1. Observe your way of thinking. In what areas do you say "That is the way its always been" or "I have no say in that...

Because you can. Happy Monday! It is a shame I could not remember the movie, nor the complete line where I got my header for this Monday's inspiration. What I do remember though was that this was spoken by a dying person to her friend. It stuck because it was not spoken because the other one already had the talent nor the attitude to achieve things. It was merely because that friend had time left to do things with her life, whilst she was running out of it. Everyday is a gift. In times like these, when we are tired from a long, happy weekend, it is easy to forget that what we have now (time) is as precious as the ones that just passed. I feel sluggish today, but it is no reason to throw away what I can do today just because I am not up to it. I will not gain back a morning thrown to the winds on a whim. I share the same thoughts to you. You have time therefore YOU CAN. You can plan. You can learn. You can forgive. You can care. You can practice. You can take a r...

Are you living the finite or the infinite game? Happy Monday! In one of those days when I suddenly wake up at 3:00am and find myself unable to sleep, I chanced upon the talk of Simon Sinek regarding his new book about the Infinite game. In principle, he says that (ok, this is how I understood it) we should always be focusing on the long haul rather than the short wins. Examples: 1. We should look at ourselves being ahead or behind others, not winning or losing against others. This is because the game is not over until it is.. by that we mean, THE END. 2. Our decisions should not be focused on short, intermediary values of profit, a deal or one time sale if in the end, we sacrifice our values, our long term relationships and partnerships. 3. Focus on lasting skills, on things that makes you flexible and resilient because you are not playing in a game with fixed rules but rather, a game that is constantly changing (lifestyles, businesses, communities). 4. Treating the e...