The girl had her first softball game today. She has been waiting to play this for 2 years and it was fantastic to see her back on the field.
I love watching her do what she loves best. Happiness
Tag Archives: law of attraction
Dad’s ice cream
I have had some significant challenges presented to me courtesy of Mr. X in the last week or so, and have had to spend some time figuring out how to deal with them. It’s essentially been the culmination of my greatest fears, and now I have to decide how I am going to proceed.
I want to scream, hide in fear, cry, and yell about the injustices. But, I have realized a few things: he does not care, he becomes happier knowing he causes me pain, my pain does nothing to aid my healing, and one last thing that I read about today:
There are but two directions you can take, while time remains and choice is meaningful. For never will another road be made except the way to Heaven. You but choose whether to go toward Heaven, or away to nowhere. There is nowhere else to choose. (A course in miracles)
I continue to work hard on the forgiveness, faith, and healing stuff. And I have massive challenges thrown in my path that force me to chose which road I want to take. For a long time I wanted to take the road to God, but was so fearful, angry, and lost that I would fall off the path. But, it’s true – there are only two choices – either I chose to continue to heal and learn to forgive, or I don’t.
So, I’m going to walk ahead in faith.
This is how I walked towards Heaven today:
I thanked God for my mom who without a word stepped up, stepped in, and helped me
I read
I prayed
I meditated
I talked with girlfriends in my tribe
I hung with Drishti
I thanked God we are here and safe
I ate Dad’s ice cream
Dad used to make us his favourite dessert when he was alive – it’s one of my yummy childhood memories. I’m stuck between Dad’s ice cream and Grandma’s cinnamon toast for happy comfort food memories. Dad would take vanilla ice cream, put on real maple syrup, and then add some salted peanuts – fancy right? But, like the cinnamon toast the magic was in the simplicity and the love that was behind the treat.
And I sat with the feelings of insecurity and fear I am experiencing. Then I looked around. We are all safe, we are home, my daughter is playing with her cousin, my son is running around in his Chewbacca onesie laughing, I have them, I have my family and friends, I have Drishti, and I have developed this entirely different relationship with God. All of that is happiness. Real happiness that comes from within, that comes from the Divine.
And it’s springtime in Alberta which reminds me that there are possibilities of new beginnings, new ways of doing things, and that miracles happen all around us.
This is one of my Dad’s photos from the year before he died of our “springtime flower”.
coach on the field
The boy has taken an assistant position coaching flag football for his school and today, after a few weeks of early morning practice, was their first game. It was such a thrill to see him so involved and passionate about helping and guiding the players. Seeing my little boy who has so quickly grown into this amazing young man be so confident and excited about assisting coaching was such a thrill for me.
I can’t believe how grown up he is. He is way more together than I ever was at his age and I am so incredibly proud of this little human (not so little human). Seeing him thrive – that’s happiness.
Tea and talk
I met a girlfriend for tea and a visit this afternoon. When I get together with a good friend I always think of these two older ladies I saw one day when we were in Italy for my cousin’s wedding. Two ladies in their 80s were walking down the street arm in arm with their heads thrown back in laughter, and it was so easy to see that they were enjoying a great moment with each other. As I passed them I thought I need to make sure that as I get older I have girlfriends like this in my life. I’ve always valued my friends, but the older I get the more I understand just how important it is to have that close girl-tribe.
We laughed and shared stories today over our tea/coffee that made the man at the table behind us visible cringe – which of course made it that much funnier. If he ever really wanted some insight as to how two middle aged ladies talk he really got an earful today! I love these friends that you can just be so raw with, we were all over the place in our conversation – everything from divorce to death to children to dating to God – nothing is off limits and everything can be laughed about and put into perspective.
Thank God for my friends – this is happiness.
The River
Likely because I’ve been working so hard on forgiveness and surrender, I have been given the opportunity to really put them both to the test these last few days. I’m tired – really, really tired – and I know the only way to release the burden is to turn it to God and ask Him to carry it for me.
Sunday when we were at church we sang this hymn:
and I felt it in my soul. I downloaded it on Spotify and I’ve been listening to it non stop ever since.
Today as I felt completely wiped out by the stresses I’m dealing with in my life, I listened to this song over and over – playing it in the background as I went about my daily routine. It brings me peace – when I listen to it I can feel Jesus sitting with me, holding my hand, letting me know it will all be alright. It will be – and this time instead of reacting with rage and anger (which I really, really want to do) I’m going to just keep working on forgiveness, surrender, and strengthening my faith.
Lately I’ve witnessed a really moving example of people responding to malicious cruelty with kindness and compassion, and I have decided that I want to be more that kind of person than the one who responds to it with outrage and a victim mentality. The only thing I can really control is how I respond in this situation, and even that I can only do with God’s help. I realized listening to the hymn that I need to meet Him at the river. Not that I want to, or would like to, but that I honestly need to meet Him, I need help, support, and love that only He can give me.
If happiness comes from within (and I believe it does) then I can choose to stand in my own happiness and love no matter what is thrown at me.
Answered prayers
I have a cousin who has been quite sick the last few months. After many, many treatments and a hospital stay that lasted a few weeks, he sent a text today that his last scan was all clear!!!
This is the kind of news that just goes beyond happiness. I’m happy for him, for his family, for our family, just happy happy happy!
I know there have been people praying for him for months and months and I’m so grateful that the prayers were answered this way and that he gets to look forward to getting stronger and stronger.
Out the kitchen window
This photo may not immediately look like a happiness moment, but it is – and I will explain why.
I was in the kitchen making supper and I looked out the window to see my daughter at the barn with my cousin and her daughter. There was a newly orphaned calf in the corral and my niece was feeding it (I think – it was hard to tell exactly what she was doing from where I stood).
The feeling that came over me was one of incredible peace and happiness. My girl is as drawn to the barn as I was at her age and it’s so awesome that my cousin is so patient and shows her what is going on during their very busy calving season.
As I watched them from the window (before I ran out to join) I felt so grounded and happy. This is the kind of moment I dreamed about, this freedom, this connection, this easy joy.
I am so grateful for happy moments like these. 
Riding on the buckle
I realized today as I was tacking up Drishti that the only thing worse than being afraid of riding would be giving into that fear and being too afraid to ride.
It wasn’t that long ago that I was afraid of everything. I feel like over the last few years all I’ve done is face my fears, stand up to them, walk through them. Honestly, I’m kind of tired of it.
We went out in the field, I climbed my way up in the saddle, and off we went. My first instinct is to have a good, steady contact on the reins. Part of that is my English riding training where contact is a good thing, but the need to hold onto his mouth – that is fear. Drishti is not a fan of it, but I’m not ripping on his face so he’s taken a quieter, sneakier approach to getting me to let go. The longer we walk the more he stretches his head out. He will stop every once in a while and take big, long looks all around – which could be taken as curiosity, but I’m starting to realize it’s a very effective way for him to get longer reins.
I thought about how we are building this new relationship and how it will only work on trust. I know him well enough to know that at a walk he’s not going to buck and bolt on me, so I got to thinking – why aren’t I giving him his head more? I’m not schooling, we are just walking around – why aren’t I giving in. And bam! the reins went to the buckle.
And we just chilled and walked around the field – and it was happiness.
Happy for no reason
When you’re happy for no reason, you bring happiness to your outer experiences rather than trying to extract happiness from them. You don’t need to manipulate the world around you to try and make yourself happy. You live from happiness, rather than for happiness (Happy for No Reason by Marci Shimoff)
I have been reading these words over and over today and they have totally shifted my perspective of happiness. I have long known that happiness comes from within and that we can’t depend on other things or people to make us happy, but somehow reading these words helped it all fall into place.
When I started, I had to look for things to make me happy. I didn’t have any happiness inside, my life was scary and fearful. I had to start looking for daily experiences that made me feel happy on the inside – some days they were pretty hard to find. As I said yesterday, I’ve been realizing lately that my quest for happiness is shifting.
I am finding more and more happiness inside myself. I am starting to believe in myself and seeing my value in ways that not too long ago I didn’t think would be possible. Because of that, I am able to bring happiness to my moments instead of looking for moments to bring me happiness.
It’s powerful stuff. It’s happiness.
Fearful living, hopeful living
I have a confession to make – riding Drishi scares the crap out of me. Not because of him – he is awesome – but because of me. When I get on him I realize how my first reaction to a situation is fear. I’m scared he’ll take off, I’m scared he’ll buck me off, I’m scared I’ll just fall off, I’m scared he’ll trip and we will crash… basically I’m scared of getting hurt. Just like in the rest of my life – I’m scared of getting hurt.
Drishti is awesome, he is exactly what I prayed for even though I didn’t know all the details when I was doing the praying. I prayed for heaven to give me a big, beautiful horse who was still green enough I could put some schooling time on – one that I could ride out in the fields here but could also teach some things to. He is green and certainly could do with some schooling lessons… but make no mistake, the one doing the teaching here is Drishti.
I am learning so much from him.
A few years ago when I was in the pits of my dark night of the soul, my anxiety was so bad that I could barely function. Just doing the bare minimum to get through the day took all the bravery and strength I had and I think it’s important for me to remember that as I think of how I’m learning to face fears while riding. I have already experienced all the big things I was afraid could happen in my life in the last couple of years, so I find it interesting that these smaller fears can be so powerful. But life happens in the small moments and I want to make sure mine are filled with hope and peace instead of fear.
I was riding today and poor Drishti was upset. His friends are gone for the day and he was feeling quite sorry for himself being all alone. I also haven’t ridden him in a week and what he really wanted to do was go for a big long gallop across the field (not happening). I rode him around the field and really paid attention to how he was. He was looking at everything – cows over there, dogs underfoot, tractor over here… lots to look at. But he just kept walking along – he’s pretty much the same all the time. Me on the other hand was more like will he spook at the tractor? what if when he puts his head down to rub his leg he then grabs the bit and takes off? (thanks to some awesome childhood ponies this fear is real) What if he bolts back to the barn? Meanwhile Drishti is still walking along looking at the world.
Hmmmmm
It got me thinking about trust. The two of us are working on building an extremely close relationship that has to be built on trust. Does he trust me? I think so. Do I trust him? Apparently not so much. Have I ever done anything to betray his trust? Not really, but I hold onto his mouth a lot more than I should afraid he’ll bolt which shows a lack of trust. Has he ever done anything to betray mine? Besides that one time when he took off with a couple of happy bucks? No. And I totally got the happy bucks – he’s a horse, he was having fun, it was a beautiful spring day.
The trust issue is mine.
What I love about this horse – aside from the fact that he’s an amazing gift from heaven, that my soul is complete now that I have a horse again, and that he’s so incredibly cute – is that he’s teaching me how to trust completely and to let go of my fear. Learning how to reprogram how I approach my life and relationships – this is happiness. I love this guy.
I’ve been redefining happiness over the last few days with the understanding that I am now at the place that I need to be searching for ways to have happiness part of my life all the time and for no reason at all – just to have happiness be my way of living in every moment. I started this blog needing to find one happy moment in every day to give myself hope that I could have more happy moments. I think I’m ready for more – more hope, more happiness, more love.
