Is Laughter Truly the Best Medicine?

Need some cheering up? Maybe it's time for a good belly laugh. You might be surprised to know there are many health benefits to having a giggle. Read more in my latest article, "Is Laughter Truly the Best Medicine?" at http://www.maketheworldmove.com/is-laughter-truly-the-best-medicine-by-jessica-stead-make-the-world-move/

Releasing and Letting Go

Have you ever noticed that when you are looking to buy a certain type of car that is all you see on the road? Or maybe when you know someone close to you is pregnant there seems to be pregnant women everywhere? What you spend time thinking about and focusing on magnifies. In Deepak Chopra’s fifth spiritual law of success, “The Law of Intention and Desire,” he says “Whatever you put your attention on will grow stronger in your life. Whatever you take your attention away from will wither, disintegrate, and disappear.”

Where is Your Focus?

What do you focus on in your life? Do you spend most of your time and energy thinking about the negative things happening in your life, or the positives? Is the glass half full or half empty?

If you are like me, maybe you get stuck in the ‘glass half empty’ mentality sometimes. In every situation you have a choice about whether you will focus on the positives or negatives. If you are focusing on the negatives, however, you may be wasting valuable energy. Chopra says that 90% of our obstacles are only perceived, and the remaining 10% you can transform into learning opportunities.

Don’t believe this statistic? I came across the 90/10 spilt when I read Susan Jeffers’ book, “Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway.’’ Jeffers also said that 90% of what you worry about doesn’t happen. I thought this sounded outrageous so I chose to track my worries for a few months. When I looked back, I too found that about 90% of the things I worried about didn’t happen, and the 10% that did happen, I coped with and learnt from.

The lesson...? Don’t let perceived obstacles consume or distract you. By shifting your focus away from perceived negatives and by paying attention to the positives you free up energy and optimism to live a happier and healthier life.

Becoming Intentional

By also forming an intention about what you want to get out of your life, your life becomes richer, more directed and ultimately more fulfilling. Chopra says that while attention energises, intention transforms. So instead of just doing things in your life, reflect and think about what you might be able to achieve while doing those activities.

For example, instead of just going for a walk around the block, set your intention that during your walk you will think about all the wonderful things happening in your life. In that way your walk becomes an intentional act of gratitude and encourages a more optimistic outlook on life which will have transforming effects on your whole life.

Letting Go

Once you have identified your goals and desires, Chopra says you then must release them. Sound counter intuitive? Have you ever tried to hold water in your hand? If you hold it with a fist, the water seeps through. If you softly cup your hand you can hold the water. Like the water, when you try to hold on too tightly to your dreams and desires, you often lose the very thing you are trying to retain.

By releasing your attachment to your desires, it’s easier to stay grounded in the present moment and remain open to life. Rather than getting stuck in what has been or what might be, you can stay focused on what is happening now. You can live your life with more awareness, while also being more aware of new opportunities.

“Relinquish your attachment to the outcome. This means giving up your rigid attachment to a specific result and living in the wisdom of uncertainty. It means enjoying every moment in the journey of your life, even if you don’t know the outcome,” says Chopra.

Part of enjoying your life journey is being able to trust that everything will work out. Chopra encourages us to say to ourselves, “I will release the list of my desires and surrender it to the womb of creation, trusting that when things don’t seem to go my way, there is a reason, and that the cosmic plan has designs for me much grander than even those I have conceived.”

I’m in no doubt that releasing my hopes and desires into the Universe, and trusting that everything happens for a reason, is the best and healthiest way to live. However, it’s easier said than done, isn’t it? It’s not easy to relinquish control. When you realise, however, that control is an illusion, and that you don’t ever know what’s going to happen around the corner, it makes sense to go with the flow of your life, rather than to fight it.

So readers, what do you find the hardest part about embracing life’s uncertainties and releasing your hopes and dreams? Is there an area in your life where less rigidity may actually help you achieve your desired outcome?

Jess xxx

Could Failure Be A Good Thing?

Can you give yourself permission to fail in order to succeed? Too often we live conservative lives for fear that we might 'fail.' In the process, however, we miss out on some of life's most amazing opportunities and lessons. Read more in my latest article 'Failing in Order to Succeed.'  http://www.maketheworldmove.com/failing-in-order-to-succeed-by-jessica-stead-make-the-world-move/

The Path of Least Resistance

Do you ever stop to consider how you use your energy? Would you be surprised to learn that how you think about your life, can either zap or generate energy? Following on from my last post, “Loving Your Life,” I will share with you three of Deepak Chopra’s ideas that will help you conserve and use your energy in life affirming ways.

In Chopra’s fourth spiritual law, “The Law of Least Effort,” he explains that to do this you must free and re-direct your energy by learning the art of acceptance, responsibility and defencelessness. By doing this you can live a life with less resistance and more joy.

1. Acceptance

When you get stuck on what could have been, and stress over what might be, you deplete your body of vital energy...it’s exhausting. You can’t change the past and you can’t control the future, but you can choose how you respond to your present moment.

Chopra suggests that the first secret to living an easier life is to accept your present reality. He explains that this means accepting that ‘…this moment is as it should be.” However, it doesn’t mean giving up on what you desire. “You can wish for things in the future to be different, but in this moment you have to accept things as they are.”

What are the benefits of ‘going with’ your reality instead of resisting it? Chopra says “Any time you encounter resistance, recognize that if you force the situation, the resistance will only increase.” Does this sound familiar to you?

Have you been in a situation that you tried to force, only to end flat on the floor, exhausted, and no closer to your goal? I certainly have. I think Chopra is right, don’t push back against resistance or you will only meet more resistance. You will have expended all your energy and will have nothing to show for it, except maybe more frustration than you when started.

Instead of resisting what is, Chopra encourages us to have patience and to trust. Just like a good gardener, Chopra tells us to plant the seeds of your dreams and desires, to nurture them, but ultimately to wait for the right season for them to bloom. Too many times, you become impatient and begin to dig up those seeds looking for shoots, killing off any chance of your dreams taking root and then blossoming in the future.

When you realise that life unfolds as it’s meant to, you free yourselves of so much anxiety, fear and stress. As the Bible says in Ecclesiastes, there is a time for everything. In life there will be good times and bad times, times of success and failure, sadness and happiness, richness and poverty, health and illness. Understanding and accepting that this is what makes up life, you can begin to move through these times with confidence that you don’t need to resist the natural ebb and flow of life.

Free up vital energy by accepting your life as it is today, be patient and trust that good things will happen in the future, and redirect your energy in positive and loving ways.

How can you do that? Chopra’s next tip is to come to terms with your own responsibility in life and your own power to change how you feel about your circumstances.

2. Responsibility

Feel upset about certain events or how you have been treated in the past? It isn’t people or events you are reacting to when you get upset; rather, you are reacting to your feelings about those events and people, explains Chopra.

Want more control over how you feel about your life? Stop blaming anyone or anything else for your situation and begin responding to how you feel and change it, says Chopra. He encourages us to look beyond the issues you are dealing with to see what you can learn.

“All problems contain the seeds of opportunity, and this awareness allows you to take the moment and transform it to a better situation or thing…you will have many teachers around you, and many opportunities to evolve,” says Chopra.

3. Defencelessness

Lastly, Chopra’s third suggestion is to give up the desire or ‘need’ to convince others of your point of view. This is a major energy zapper and often has little impact. Not only shouldn’t you argue your point of view, Chopra encourages us to have an open mind explaining, “You don’t want to stand rigid like a tall oak that cracks and collapses in the storm. Instead, you want to be flexible, like a reed that bends with each storm and survives.”

If you are like me, then you will also need regular reminders that joy and peace aren’t found by resiting your life, but by embracing your life with acceptance and responsibility. You only need to look back on your life to see how true this fourth spiritual law is.

Recently I was resisting my life and getting increasingly agitated that things weren’t unfolding as I had hoped and expected. I was getting further and further into a hole, created by my own mindset and my gritted determination to ‘make it happen.’ Needless to say, nothing did happen. I was stuck in an utterly frustrating holding pattern.

It was only when I accepted things as they were, chose to re-direct my energy into new ideas and projects, and decided to let those other issues unfold as they needed to, that things began to really change.

Within a week the goals I had been pushing for months, were realised! Yes, it took longer than I had hoped, but it had happened. I sat back and thought “wow, what a waste of energy that was getting so agitated when things felt like they weren’t moving.” I hope next time I meet life’s roadblocks I can remember that everything unfolds in its own time, and not to get caught up in what I think ‘should’ be happening.

Do you need to accept your life as it is, and free up vital life energy to create new and wonderful things in your life?

Jess xx