JOY TO THE FISHES & THE DEEP BLUE SEA

"Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves

 to recognize how good things really are."

Marianne Williamson

I have a gift  - a talent - something I took for granted for so long because I thought it came easy peasy to every body.

I know how to access my JOY.  I know what it feels like in my bones - I know how it feels to open my heart.   I know how to shahahare it and spread it so others feel it too.  

It's something I practice daily.  I jump for joy.  I dance.  I sing.   I laugh in the sea.  I lay back in the water and let her hold me gently.  I open my mouth and make a sound - hahaha.   I hear it with my ears submerged under the water.  Feeling vibrations in the waves as I flow.

I didn't realize that peeps have become disconnected with their joy.  Misery does love company and peeps love to complain and focus on the one gray cloud in the sky rather than the vastness of  blue and the occasional white cloud ballet.

Most people think that JOY is something outside of us - to be found or acquired.  Actually, it's an energy we knew how to access as children and over the years, we forgot.

JOY is a fire from within. An energy of HAhaHAppy that gets ignited by touch, smell, sound and memory. It's a feeling - a birthright - that we get from the simplest of things.

JOY is about finding the pleasure right NOW. Accepting ALL that is in our lives with grace. Surrendering to the circumstances with gratitude.   For me, this means focusing with an attitude of gratitude on everything that is within and surrounds me. Enthusiasm for my time RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW on this heaven on Earth. Joy at the simple pleasure of being alive and breathing.  Joy at the freedom I have to rise and stretch.  Joy at putting my fingers in paint and plastering a piece of paper with color.  Joy at the opportunity to sing with the birds in the early hours of dawn.  Joy to move and shake and dance - woohoo.

I've spent the last ten years of my life remembering how to shift my focus from outside of me to within. Learning to redirect my energy and attention to a vibration of gratefulness for all the abundance I am blessed with.  Doing this with kindness and compassion for me as I delve deeper into the OMazing miracle of life.

This last week, on Day 12 of Oprah & Deepak's 21 Day Meditation - the theme was Living Laughter.  Deepak shared that: "pure, innocent laughter is the most obvious sign of the joy we feel in our hearts. It is also a powerful and instant way of spreading that joy all around you."  

This gift is so easy and yet so difficult to achieve.   It is so much easier to complain and stay in the negativity. It takes work to shift this mindset and raise our altitude.  It takes just a MOMent to open the heart and share our true nature.   There is no other way to the LOVE that we are.

This spiritual discipline of HAhaHAppy - LAUGHTER - keeps me in the flow of bliss.  I connected to this truth years ago.  I saw people's eyes light up with laughter and I wanted this magic in my life.  I wanted the lightheartedness of spirit that I felt and the energy of ecstasy that I witnessed.   As I let go of things that no longer served me and became a Master at the Art of Doing Nothing, I built my laughter muscle.  I remember recapturing the feeling of childhood and expressing my joy through laughter. It felt so good to relax muscles and organs and just be free to express my heart's haHAhappiness.  Today, the joy i feel in my heart shows up as laughter on my lips - a deep appreciation for all that I have and am in this moment.

"Joy to the World, all the boys and GIRLs.

Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea,

Joy to you and me."

- thahahank you Three Dog Night (see video below)

ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE

 OUR TRUTH - ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE

  "I am so blessed , I am so blessed, I am so grateful for all that I have."   

                                                                          - Karen Drucker

These words are the lyrics to Karen Drucker's song (see the whole song in the video above). The words of this song set the tone for my day, each and every morning.  I focus on what is truly important - how blessed I am and grateful for all that I have.

2014 is my year of Gratitude.  Checking in, halfway into our year - I've shed so many skins, loosened so many layers and let go of all things that I have no control over. The weather, the news, traffic, other people, death, aging....  

What I can control - what I have 100% autonomy is my ATTITUDE.  I choose how I will respond or react to any situation that crosses my path.  My research, over the years, shows me that the only attitude that really works and gives me what I want (health, happiness, abundance) is GRATITUDE.   Here are more things that my gratitude research reveals or 3 things that I know to be true about gratitude:

Truth:  GRATITUDE IS A MUSCLE

Gratitude - saying thank you on the INside and out - to each and every thing that comes my way, no matter what it looks like when I receive it.   

This was not allways my way.  

I would go from experience to experience without taking the time to digest and savor.  

Now, I stop and breathe and process all the juiciness that is in my life.  Expressing gratitude when I first wake up for the legs that let me stand, for my heart that beats, for the arms and hands that let me move and feel.  Singing gratitude for what my eyes see and my mouth tastes.

When I get lost in my thoughts or lose my focus, I stop and breathe and get down on my knees and get gr8full - counting my blessings and thanking the Universe for all the chaHAhallenges and opportunities in my life to LOVE.  

The Universe works in mysterious ways and what I see is not always what is.   

Being in gratitude allows me to chaHAhange my perspective - have aHAHA moments and appreciate this life I have.

Before I go to bed, I get quiet and do a Pussy Ritual.  

I put my hands on my core - my sweet spot (the sacred space with 8000 sensory nerve endings designed for pure pleasure ) - I meet up and I feel theall the pleasure in my life and I give thanks - 12 times.  12 things that I acknowledge that brought me pleasure and I am truly greatFULL for.  12 things that I love about myself and how I be in my world.   12 people that touched my life today.

I flex and strengthen this attitude of gratitude.   I work it out by putting words on paper and writing thank you notes or doing a Act of Random Kindness (ARK).   I expand my muscle by knocking on a neighbor's door or calling a friend and just listening.  I cultivate gratitude by sitting in the grass and taking in the nature that surrounds me - hugging a tree and talking to the squirrels and being One with my surroundings.

Truth:  GRATITUDE IS A MULTI SENSORY EXPERIENCE

Gratitude is more than the words we say.  It's a feeling - deep inside - of reverence and irreverence for life.

It's feeling GREATfull for the smell of a fresh peeled orange in the morning or squirting lemon in my glass of water.  It's feeling pleasure for the cotton modal fabric I adorn my body with and the lotus flower that sits on my tush when I put my yoga pants on.  

It's tasting the dew on a leaf outside my door as I prepare for a walk with .  It's breathing in the sunrise as the clouds dance and change colors.  It's touching my cat's fur and feeling her purr in response as we dance, fingers to fur.

Using my senses to experience gratitude heightens the experience.  It keeps me in that delicious vibration of aBUNdance as more comes my way.  It brings me delightful and pleasurable experiences.

Truth:    WHAT I FOCUS ON, I GET MORE OF

As my understanding of myself shifts - my perspective chahahanges.  As my attention resides with what is good in my life, I find myself noticing more all the little things I take for granted.   

I focus on my breath and being healthy.  My world expands so I find the right teachers and arenas to make small adjustments for optimal alignment and balance.

I focus on my family - all the Wee Ones - I get to see them all in one weekend - six nieces and two nephews, three sisters and two brothers.

I focus on my ability to laugh, at myself, and with myself.  
I focus on the joy of being outside in nature every day.  
I focus on the freedom to be and do, in my pleasure.

It took the lens of GRATITUDE to see all the yummy and exhilarating life lessons that have created me, Goddess Diana, the human bean that I am becoming. Looking at THEN and seeing how it has shaped NOW. And finding the gifts of THEN in the NOW. 

I am so grateful for THEN. I am so blessed for where it has brought me NOW.  I am so grateful for this PRESENT.