Does Finding Peace Mean You have Found Happiness?

My first reaction to this question would be yes, but then I reflected on it for a moment and I have to say the answer becomes no.

Peace certainly can bring happiness with it. There is no argument there, but peace can also bring the turbulence of growth.

Here is what I mean…

If I am hurting and frustrated with something in my life that usually means that I am in a state of emotional arousal. I can feel sometimes in these conditions, that nothing I chose works, that I am beating my head against a wall, or that in extreme instances there is no way out.

In these cases peace provides me with the ability to calm down, think it through, and start taking positive action. These things do not necessarily bring happiness. They always bring growth, but growth, peace, and happiness are not mutually exclusive.

Peace can very much be a tool that helps a person clear their head and take positive action towards a decision. Then the hard part of committing to that change comes in and this is not always a happy thing.

Happiness comes later after the storm has past, after the steps have been taken, and after the growth is adjusted too. Peace is again an agent at work in this case too.

They key in all this is the ability to find happiness again, especially when the change is not something you wanted in the first place; peace is the mentor of this end and when you find you are able to be happy in this circumstance you can find your peace and happiness walk hand in hand.

“Joy is a choice, not an outcome.”
― Beth Johnson

 

Slowly but Surely Wins the Race

I am not the most patient person in the world, but I am working on it.

The long and short of my thoughts today are this; I completed my BS, I am currently in my MS and all I want to do is coach.

I am not talking like sports coaching, I am talking life coaching.

In all my own life experience, and now in my educated experience I can confidently narrow down the 2 things that cause most of the problems in the world. They are;

1.) people’s ability to effectively communicate with themselves and each other.

2.) people accepting responsibility for their circumstances.

If you think about it all of social living is communicating. We have language in order to live together and express our inner thoughts, we have laws and justice in order to express through language how we expect each other to behave in society in order to live peacefully. We have philosophy, psychology, sociology, art, and everything in  between in order to express ourselves.

The most basic unit of life is the family. All of us are born from a mother and a father, and it is in this very precious and early part of our human development that we begin to form how we communicate, and especially whether we are effective or not. The family dynamic sets the stage for our effectiveness later on.

So, communication is a fundamental element of human social living, but how effective are you?

When people  seek therapy they are looking to heal a form of communication gone unhealthy, BUT when a person seeks a coach they are looking to take their level of communication into a form of exceptional.

Just like an athlete that hires a coach will go further usually then one who strikes out on there own.

This is all I want to do. I want to inspire people and hopefully help them find their exceptional selves. I can only hope that my patients pays off, and soon I am able to begin this next leg of my journey.

Have a great weekend!

Weekend Realization: Relaxation…

When life gets stressful its time to engage some coping strategies.

A coping strategy is anything that is a positive way for people to relax, de-stress, and find some centering.

I think one of the questions I get asked a lot is how I am able to handle the stressors in my life without panicking, crumbling, or throwing my hands up in defeat.

My answer is coping strategies. I have lots and lots of them and I use them regularly in order to decompress and just diffuse those nasty high stress bugs.

Stress is a good thing. Or its better to say, it can be a good thing because it keeps us changing and growing and moving forward. The problem comes when we sacrifice control of ourselves to the stress and it becomes us, overwhelms us, or just destroys us.

Finding the right coping mechanisms can be tricky on an individual level, do not wait another day, seek and you shall find the power to relax.

The Have and the Have Nots on Inspiration

I have noticed that at the end of the day there seems to be 2 definite kinds of people in the world. Those who are looking for inspiration, and those who are not. I think we all have potential, gobs of it, but we also have a choice to either grab on to our potential and reach for inspiration or to put our heads in the sand and forfeit our potential.

What do you think? Are you looking to be inspired or not?

Podcast Friday…

I added a new podcast to the left, have a great weekend!

How Do You Live?

Just a few thoughts for this Friday morning. For me it is all about honesty and integrity; if you have those qualities, nurture them, and act from them, you will always be able to find success. Have a great weekend.

It Was Time to Stop!

I hope everyone had a good holiday weekend. I took the week off, went camping with my family, and just tried to decompress from all of life’s little prickly thorns.

I slept a lot while we were camping. I did not realize how intensely I was holding myself until I relaxed my grip a bit.

I have to laugh at myself sometimes that this lesson of balance continues to elude me unless I am really looking for it and consciously adjusting to it. I can be a bit like the mouse from The Bugs Bunny Show, Speedy Gonzales, flying here and there and joyously tearing through life in order to squeeze every drop of living out of it I can. The thing is, some of the best things in life require peace, quiet, and delicacy.

Balance.

It is all fine and good to have goals, they are necessary to achieving new heights. However, it is also important for me to remember that sometimes the goal should be re-grouping, relaxing, and rejuvenating the soul.

So many times I run, jump, and climb my way through life, and then when I reach a summit; instead of sitting down and enjoying the view I am looking at the next mountain and planning my next climb.

Enough already. I feel better for just sitting down this week and taking in the view. I feel as if by doing this I am better able to gain a more complete perspective and a calming down of my hungry quest for the next challenge.

It is when we unclench ourselves and let things settle that we can really see how the machine is running, and what we need to be healthy going forward.

Quality of life should be just as important as quantity.

Life Loves Curveballs…

Have you ever thought to yourself, “Wow things are going just perfect and this is wonderful!” and then maybe you forgot to knock on wood (I can be a little superstitious) because suddenly you are standing in a world of drama and frankly in the %$@#?

I find it utterly amazing how life can spin on a dime. I am sitting back this morning and just staring at the volatile situation that dumped on my sisters life, which means it is spilling into mine because we are a tight knit family.

I can say that the positive for me is that realistically this is not my disaster so I have a vantage point that is much calmer, but because of my concern for those involved I hurt for them. The positive for those in thick of it, being my sister and her children, is that they have us. They are not alone.

Later today my mission is to make sure she feels this truth, sees this truth, and accepts this truth in order to ease her suffering.

Natural support from loved ones is one of the greatest gifts in life. If you have it during your curveballs thank the Creator. If you can provide it during others curveballs please do not hesitate.

Many times it takes just a little bit of help to unwind the knots in life’s yarn and get a person knitting again.

 

New Podacast!

I added a new podcast, please check it out!

Re-Group, Re- think, and Try Again…

This is the mantra of successful people, but what does success mean? Success to me is any time you set a goal no matter how small and accomplish it. Success is also trying again even after you failed the first time. Keep going, keep trying, keep setting goals. The only way to move up and forward is with conscious action.