The dog woke me up a half hour early this morning. We’ve taught her to ring a jingle bell on the door when she needs to go out. Adorable, but not at 6:30 am. I might have just rolled over and gone back to sleep, but she had her last walk sort of early last night, so I decided that in the interests of keeping my rug clean, I ought to get up. This was one of those times when you start thinking, “Why didn’t I just get a cat?” But my friend Colin once said, “The recipe for unhappiness is to create a scenario in your head that is different from the one going on right now, and then prefer it.” So I got up, pulled on sweatpants and fleece, leashed Pandora and walked out into the pre-dawn morning.
The key to enlightenment is to BE Here Now, according to Eckhart Tolle. It’s also the secret to pleasure. Our pleasure and enjoyment of life is a direct result of our ability to take in the data of our senses, and then to let it nourish us. So as I walked my feisty dog, I opened all of my senses. I saw and appreciated the beauty of how the sky was a midnight blue velvet, lightening to baby blue on the edges. I felt the breeze on my face, slightly damp, and moist, like a lovers kiss. I heard the rustle of leaves, cars in the distance and the occasional harsh caws of the half dozen crows that regularly grace my yard. I smelled the loamy scent of earth and some plant that I can’t identify, but I associate with my new home here in Asheville. My lips tasted like the remnants of last night’s lipstick. And last but not least, I experienced the sensation of conceptual thought, as this blog post began to write itself in my mind. I got a warm glow of connection, thinking of all of you reading it, and love expanded my heart. I felt the joy of being alive, aware and awake at a time when most people were still asleep.
If the recipe for unhappiness is to wish that things were different, then the recipe for happiness must be to celebrate how things are now. We experience changes in our lives, our bodies and our relationships, and it is easy to prefer how things used to be. If you want help discovering the pleasure in your life RIGHT NOW, and making sure that your tomorrows are even more pleasurable, I can help you. Give yourself the gift of a free Gratified Life Appraisal with me. Together, we will explore what works in your life and what you want more of, and you will get suggestions of resources for cultivating your juicy, pleasurable, gratified life.
Pleasurably Yours,
Rebekah
PS – I have space for three people in my Lighting the Fire Program. Write me today to find out how you can be one of them
