A Photographer's Wife: April 2013

Sunday, April 21, 2013

I Pledge To

Follow These Steps To Happiness

There are some simple steps I’ve taken to maintain this happy state. If you’re ready to deepen your life experience, check out my top five tips for boosting your happiness. When you bring these tools into your daily life, you’ll experience powerful shifts–and by adding them up, you’ll create radical change.

1. Say how you feel!
It’s far too often that we make ourselves crazy by not expressing how we truly feel. When we deny our feelings, we make up stories in our mind that (sooner or later) drive us and everyone else totally nuts. These stories create chaos in our relationships and in our lives. By simply saying how you feel you can save yourself days, even weeks, of drama and inner turmoil. With love and kindness, simply say out loud to yourself or others exactly how you feel.

2. Breathe!
One of the simplest ways to shift your mood is to breathe. An easy breathing technique that I use regularly is to inhale for five seconds, hold my breath for five seconds, and exhale for five seconds. Whenever you notice tension in your body or a feeling of negativity take over, simply breathe in for five, hold for five, exhale for five. Do this several times and you will immediately feel centered back into your body and release the negative energy that holds you back.

3. Appreciate YOU
Women tend to spend a lot of time taking care of others. This is a beautiful quality, but it can easily make us lose track of our own needs and self-care. I suggest practicing random acts of self-kindness. They can be small (take a few moments to stretch your body) or a little bigger (make yourself your favorite meal, get a deluxe pedicure). Do simple things to show yourself some love and appreciation.

4. Laugh!
It’s easy to get caught up in the chaos of life, negativity on the news, or the self-inflicted fear that takes over our mind at any given moment. The key to quickly getting out of the fear spiral is to laugh. By simply laughing at our fear we can detach from it and choose to see a better perspective. If something silly is bothering you, this tool can help you let go of littleness and center back into your happy reality. Let laughter melt away the petty fears that consume you. If it sounds simple, that’s because it is. And it works.

5. “When you’re feeling helpless, help someone.” —Aung San Suchi
This is one of my favorite messages. Whenever I feel helpless I help someone. Helping others takes the focus off yourself and immediately shifts you from a “me” mentality to a “we” mentality. This is a very powerful tool for getting out of your own way through the service of others.

I love these five tips because you can start doing them anyplace and anytime—even right here, right now. The secret to happiness is that there is no secret. Anyone can be authentically happy and at peace, no matter what’s going on around us. Just integrate these five easy but powerful tips into your daily life and one by one the shifts will add up … until one day, seemingly out of nowhere, you realize you are, quite simply, happier. It’s not magic! It’s proof that you’ve done the good work to get there.

10 Ways To Live Better.... Tap Into Your Soul

1) Spirituality is not religion. It’s not the same thing that your parents or the guy in the suit knocking on your front door is pedaling. Spirituality arises from somewhere deep inside you. It is a belief that you harbor for no apparent reason. You believe there is more to life, and whilst you can’t quantify or fully explain what that belief is, you have felt it affirmed a hundred times – perhaps through intuitions proven correct, amazing coincidences, a feeling of oneness, or a sign from a dearly departed one that you just couldn’t argue with. Tap into this inner belief and hold it close. It may not be visible, but I believe it is very real.

2) One of the greatest mountains any spiritually inclined person has to cross is their own wayward mind and their egos. Part of becoming spiritual is about taking control of your own inner chatter and making it healthier. Mediation can help, but also just recognizing your own negative patterns, your own ‘Bitching, Moaning and Whining (BMW’ing)’. Spirituality is about trusting in the path of your life, and whilst sometimes that path seems very hard, or people are put there to cross you, it’s your job to think positively, and when relevant to release any negativity or foul thoughts you may have. Cleansing your mind and really taking control of your thoughts is a sure fire way to connect with your higher self and your intuition. When you do this, life becomes a little easier.

3) Life still goes on, hardships and all. We all know that life is full of death, destruction, pain and chaos, and yet when it happens to us we balk at the unfairness of it all. Being spiritual means taking a step back, trying to see how are hardships are in fact great educators. Think back to your last set of difficulties and consider how these have changed you as a person, for the better. Life is damned hard, but if we go with the flow of that hardship we stop fighting and we start learning. Try to remember that all things happen for reason, even the really awful things.

4) There are no mistakes. Stop beating yourself up about something you did, said or thought. Spiritual Living is not about being perfect. We are not here to float off into the divine ether quite yet. We are here to be human, we are here to mess up, and sometimes we mess up quite magnificently. We break hearts, we hurt people, we hurt ourselves. As long as we choose to learn from those mistakes and not to repeat them then we are living spiritually. Go easy on your self. You are a spiritual being in a human body for a reason. Allow yourself that human weakness, and choose to learn from it.

5) Don’t believe the hype. You are so much more than what you own, what you look like or what designer handbag you are carrying. We live in a very ‘dumb culture’ of products, labels and appearance. It’s not real. What is real is the very soul of you, the kindness you show and the love you offer. So what if you carry a Fendi bag or a plastic one with holes in it? As long as you get from A to B and scatter a little sunshine as you go then who really cares.

6) Love is not restricted to our personal partnerships. The Buddha recommended that we treat all people as though they were our kind and loving mother. Try it for a day. Even to those people you can’t stand. Offer out love and see how the world alters a little bit. Be patient, generous and thoughtful. Put others first. Spiritual Living is about getting back in contact with our souls and then the souls of others, to whom we are intimately connected. Offer out love and watch as the world becomes a little bit sweeter.

7) Take time out to explore the natural world. City dwellers visit the park or simply look up to the sky. Shamanistic people believe that all things, even the paper you are reading this on, have a spirit. In my life I have been granted signs and signals from nature, and I’ve enjoyed its restorative power. We are, after all, organic, living material, yet we close ourselves off with machines, bricks and walls. Get out into the open and feel the natural peace of nature. Notice the clarity that nature can bring to your frazzled mind.

8) Take time out to connect to your Soul. Follow your intuition, wherever it may take you. If you aren’t sure what your intuition feels like, then pay attention to your gut instinct, that initial feeling or thought that comes over you when you meet a new person, or are offered something new. Try not to override that instinct. Think of all the times when you have said ‘I wish I’d listened to my self’. Trust that intuition and see where it takes you!

9) Take time out to release your worries and your problems. We all spend so much time over thinking our ‘issues’, when thinking about them really solves nothing. Choose to believe in a higher scheme of things, believe that you are guided and cared for, and release those problems. Allow them to fix themselves. Stand back and take notice how things are resolved without you having to think another thought about them. Surrender and release your life to your version of spirit and allow things to go with the flow.

10) Choose to have faith, ask for a sign and be prepared to believe that sign when it comes to you. This is a powerful exercise that can transform lives. Make a little pledge in your mind right now, and simply ask that your faith be proven. The sign that comes will be totally unique to you, but can kick start an inner journey that will take you inward, outward and to a happier place of being. Ask for a sign, trust it will come, and when it does do a little whoop and holler of joy. Baby you are spiritual, now it’s simply time to start believing it!

Saturday, April 20, 2013

What I Love About North Carolina

Most of you know North Carolina has always had a piece of heart but I accidentally became a transplant to this beautiful state. Within the time moving here until now I have become a full blown North Carolinian. The Carolina's have this magical feel about them. I am blessed to live here and I will stay in the Tar Heels state until the day I die.

Here are some of my few reasons why I love North Carolina

Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina