Living Out Loud

LoveCat Friday

It's Friday - time to spread the love.

Over at My Secret Spiritual Dance (what a great name!) Pamm's article on Law of Attraction: Money and Flow reminded me of an important lesson just when I needed it: trust that all is well, no matter how it looks.  It is a wonderful post about how our current financial situation reflects our current relationship with our higher selves.

Kirsten's Tips for Meditation post was also really helpful.  One of the reasons I've been struggling with meditation on and off for the last couple of years is thinking I've been doing it wrong!  Lately I've been meditating consistently (thanks in no small part to Leo's May Challenge at Zen Habits) despite that belief, thinking that "someday" I'll get there.  Having read this post I'm now completely at peace with my meditation practice.

"Aiming for better is admirable, possibly even noble... but striving for perfection is stupid...The moment we stop chasing perfection and start aiming for enlightenment (self-awareness, self-realisation, a different way of thinking and being) is the moment we start to move towards genuine happiness."  In Happily Imperfect, Craig Harper urges us to shed our obsession with perfection and learn to love our imperfect selves. 

Raymond at ZenChill.com introduced me to wonderful Easy World, a place I live in sometimes.  My intention is to spend more and more time there, hopefully even retire there (and sooner rather than later).  If you'd like to live in Easy World too check out How to Make your Life Easier.

I'd also like to thank Rosa Say for her very generous community profile on Joyful Jubilant Learning.

That's it for this week.  Have a lovely weekend everybody - I'll be back on Monday with another Thought for the Week.

Simply Successful Secrets - The Master List

Over 150 people (see the list below) participated in Aaron Potts' Simply Successful Secrets group writing project.  Aaron read every post, containing between five and ten habits each, and gathered all into a master list of success secrets.  And to make it easier on the rest of us (well, we're talking a minimum of 700 tips and more likely to have been in excess of 1,000), he categorised them all into 62 themes.  It must have been a phenomenal task to undertake, and you can reap the benefit from it by reading his round up post.

I was delighted to see that all eight of my own habits were included in the top 20 - eventhough it's all about what works for you, it's encouraging to see a commonality in the success of how you approach things.

I'm going to set myself a new challenge: to read at least one of these posts every day until I've read the lot.  I'm sure I'll learn plenty along the way, and discover some more great blogs to follow.  Care to join me?  Here's the list and links:

LoveCat Friday

I was away from all things internet this week, so haven't had a chance to read any blog posts at all.  (I cheated with the two posts I put out, by pre-programming them last week).  So this week, my love links go to Nneka and Miguel for including me in their Personal Development and Happiness carnivals, and to The Carmine Swan for adding me to her blogroll while I was away.

I appreciate the love guys, and I share it here.  Have a lovely weekend everyone.

How to Live Out Loud

This is a post by Aaron Potts of Today is that Day.  It's all about happiness (my favourite subject) and it echoes the name of my blog.  Reading it made me realise that when I set up this blog I didn't outline what my own understanding of Living Out Loud actually is.  But Aaron has encapsulated all of what I would have said so beautifully, that I'm reprinting it here with his permission (Thank you Aaron).

Did you ever stop and wonder if your life is hurtling past you while you just hang on trying not to fall off, rather than you consciously creating a life that is full of happiness and joy?

Having just returned from an absolutely wonderful weekend in Panama City, FL where my wife and I attended the wedding of one of my closest friends, I have had the chance to give some serious forward-looking as well as retrospective thought to life in general, and posting those thoughts for the benefit of my readers immediately came to mind.

My desire is for everyone to enjoy life on this planet as much as possible and in as many ways as possible. The phrase "live out loud" popped into my head, and I saw that as a great way to describe a life that is consciously created to be full of fun and frivolity. Here are some tips on doing exactly that!

LoveCat Friday

I haven't spent much time in the blogosphere this week, as I've been preparing to spend all of next week in the wild, wild West (County Sligo), with no telephone or internet.   To get organised for this time out (planning, reading & writing), I had to limit my time reading blogs.  However, I did manage the odd ten minutes here and there, and following are two posts I particularly enjoyed:

In my eyes, the true path to happiness is to be found not in the destination but in the journey.  In Savor the Moment - Hungry for Life? Alan argues against instant gratification. "The most wonderful part of being conscious creators of our life, is the thrill of watching our creation unfold piece by piece before our very eyes."  I couldn't agree more Alan!  Check it out over at Made to be Great.

I read somewhere recently that only when you lose your fear of death do you really begin to live your life.  It makes sense to me.  And I'm always banging on about not postponing being happy until all your ducks are in a row - my motto is: go out there and live your life, and be happy right now, cos you never know when your time is up.  So, Craig Harper's latest post Don't wait for the shark to bite your leg was a winner for me.

I hope you follow them up and enjoy them as much as I did.

All the best,

Hilda xx

LoveCat Friday

"I feel great compassion not for those who die, but rather for the inherently broken way we’re socially conditioned to view death.  We’re taught to root ourselves to the temporary — the perfect recipe for guaranteed suffering." ~ Steve Pavlina

I attended two funerals this week against the backdrop of reading The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.  The message I'm digesting is centred around preparing for death through how we live our lives, rather than fearing death (it is inevitable), so reading Steve Pavlina's post Making Peace with Death really resonated.  As Steve says, ask yourself the question "am I ready to die now?"  If your answer is no (mine is: I'm not sure) then I highly recommend you read this post the whole way through to the end.

I recognised myself in Karen Lynch's post on Live the Power where she talked about letting go of, versus holding onto, posessions you once loved but which now hold an energy that is not aligned to who you are and where you're at in your life.  If you know you need to let go of some stuff, but are resisting it, read High Heels and Struggles - it'll help. 

In Knowledge is Not Knowing Nneka posts about looking to our internal wisdom rather than knowledge to be found in external resources.  I learned two fabulous new words as well: grokking and (my favourite) insperience.

I hope you have a lovely weekend - another long one in this part of the world :-)

Friday's Link Love

I've been appreciating this habit of sharing on some of my favourite blogs, and starting this week I plan to get in on the act of sharing some of the posts I've most enjoyed during the past week.

This week, I loved this post on ZenChill.com Power Tool Blog.  Raymond David Salas described his method for requesting (and receiving) miracles in his life.  Head on over and learn for yourself how the power of gratitude, forgiveness and a miracle journal can help you to bring "something wonderful" into your life.

And speaking of miracles, Wendy Piersall of eMoms at Home described how a miracle in her own life, at a time when things were looking very dire indeed, taught her what she says is the most important lesson she ever learned - to listen to her heart.  Read all about it on The Biggest Blogpost of My Life.

All of my clients know that I'm very big on self-care.  I do believe that there is no greater way to find happiness than to be of service to others BUT in order to be of the utmost service to others you need to take care of your own needs first.  So Nneka at Balanced Life Centre's dual posts Serving yourself serves others and Serving others serves you really resonated with me.  Thank you Nneka for these valuable reminders.

I hope you'll take the time to check out some of these posts for yourself and gain the full benefit of what the authors have to say.

Have a great weekend!