Three Things You Can Do Today To Increase Your Happiness

Do you understand what gives you happiness? How do you describe happiness? It is not the giggling, jump up and down feeling. The definition agreed upon today involves feeling satisfied, content, and fulfilled.

What do you think would make you happy today? Most likely your answer is something like money, house, car or something that bring a momentary feeling of happiness.The happiness would fade as the novelty of the desired thing wore off. You are adaptable and the money, house, new car or accomplishments will decline to give you happiness. You will feel something is missing and want something else.

So what can you do? Living a meaningful life, utilizing your gifts and your time, and living with thought and purpose will help.

Here are three things to start today.

1. Gratitude: Tell someone every day that you are grateful to them, or write it in a letter or email. At the end of the day make a list of gratitude’s in that day. If something challenging has happened see if you can turn it around and find something to be grateful for in the situation.

2. Find ways to be kind to others, especially if you can do it anonymously.

3. Savor your life. Learn how to be mindful using all your senses fully in each moment. Mindfulness is a relaxed state of awareness of the present moment. You feel a curiosity and openness to life and others. You let go of judgments. This allows you appreciate what is present in your life now. It helps you become less adapted to what you have in your life now.

Are you ready to begin today? Try an experiment and do these three things for the next week. Check in with yourself and see if your happiness isn’t increasing, do you feel more content and satisfied? If your answer is yes then continue to remember these three steps and practice them daily.

Are You Experiencing a Spiritual Bypass?

Are you pursuing a spiritual path? Have you found yourself disappointed or frustrated? Either with the people or the outcome? Are you ready to give up?

Here is what I think is happening. There has been a great deal of interest in pursuing mystical, esoteric, spiritual mysteries. People have been jumping the band wagon of spiritual pursuit, both traditional practices and “commercialized” versions of enlightenment. What I am suggesting is that one needs psychological healing in psychotherapy before spiritual work is effective.


What is a spiritual bypass then? It is when you are not recovered from your psychological wounding,and you become involved in a spiritual pursuit in order to heal. Thinking this is “the answer" to everything that has been bothering you. The outcome often is feeling let down, one loses faith and trust.

The ability to trust, have faith and have discipline to practice true spiritual pursuits requires one to have a balanced psychological foundation. Without this you are bypassing work and jumping to spirit to find peace and balance. You have no foundation to support this work and it will collapse.

Here is one example of how this might happen. Early psychological wounding (first year of life) can result in an impaired ability to form healthy attachments. The wounding to early consciousness needs to be repaired in order to provide a balanced, solid foundation. Someone wounded in this way will attach to the people and practices of a spiritual tradition in a dysfunctional way. They might want to be controlled (taken care of), becoming dependant on, or becoming so disappointed by the humanness of their companions, that they reject all.

Do yourself a favor. Heal yourself in the emotional and mental realms first. Do not try to climb the ladder to the divine, until the lower rungs of your ladder have been repaired.

First make sure the basics in your life are handled. You have a secure home and way of maintaining your day to day living. Then heal your psyche.

Seek a therapist or group to work through any wounds, patterns, or beliefs that are destructive.Counseling can help you discern what is truely healthy for you. Now when you begin your spiritual journey, you are prepared to respond to the wonderful fulfillment as well as the disappointments, and frustrations along the way.

Are Your Feelings Getting You Into Trouble?

When my youngest son was four years old he decided he wanted to stay home alone while I picked up his brother and sister from school. HE WAS ANGRY, and said "I am not going". I said he was not old enough to stay alone and needed to come with me.

He ran behind the couch and I could see this was going to become a large battle. I said to him “I understand you are angry and you do not want to come. You can feel as angry as you want, but you still need to come with me". Then I took his hand and led him to car. For the first few minutes of the ride he sat with a scowl on his face,and his arms crossed. At one point he kicked the dash board. I said, "no kicking, you can feel angry but you can not kick".

A song came on we liked and before long his arms were uncrossed, and he was through his anger.

The feelings you have are valid, it is when you act out this feeling in a destructive way that trouble comes. You have choices how to act on the feeling. Feelings provide fuel to your actions. When your actions are propelled by anger, you often act impulsively without thinking things through, or out of revenge to hurt others back. Try this: feel the feeling, and then slow down before you act. You can choose what action to take, rather then act on impulse.

Feelings of fear often paralyze action. In this case confront you fears, by first talking about them and finding what you are afraid of. Break the action into smaller steps. Just take the first step. Gain confidence and courage with each step you make.

Think about putting the feeling into words. If you tend to act your feelings out, this is probably causing problems in your relationships.

For more about this and other informative topics visit my web site http://debrajoygoldman.com/

The Money Flow

Are you worried about paying your bills? Have you or your partner been laid off or lost your job? Here is a story that could help you to think differently about money.

One of the spiritual principals about money is that the more you hold on to it, the less you have flowing in. By allowing money to flow out to pay your bills, you allow room for more to flow in. Now if you are worried about money you might feel inclined to hold on tight to the money you have. When bill paying time comes you feel reluctant to pay out what money you do have for fear there will be no more coming in. Feel familiar?

About ten years ago I was experiencing those exact feelings. It was holiday time, my husband was job hunting and the bills were due. We had the money to pay them, but once paid, the bank balance would be too low for my comfort. Since I understand and attempt to live by the principal of flow, I was trying to get comfortable with paying the bills. The fear was making it tough to act.

So, I go to the Green market, a weekly market of local fresh vegetables, flowers, etc. I bought a basket and put the change (many one dollar bills) into my coat pocket. I missed the pocket and the money landed on the ground. At that moment the wind came up and blew the dollars into the air. They scattered in all directions. At first I started to chase the money. Then I stopped and started laughing. There was no way I could catch the money. I surrendered and laughed. As I stood there laughing, others began to catch my money and return it to me. Before long, all my money was brought back to me. Someone on the side lines watching said "That's why we call it the Green Market".

So the lesson, when I surrender and let money go (laughing) it was all flowing back to me. I immediately got the analogy and went home and paid the bills. Now if I can simply remember this when the fear returns, I will live in the money flow. Try it and see what happens.

For free downloads and articles visit www.debrajoygoldman.com

Simplify Your Life; Divest Yourself of What has Little Value for That of True Value.

You have so much stuff! Are you continually amazed at how it grows?

Our last two moves were from larger homes to smaller ones. Each time I purged so much “stuff”. When I get motivated to organize and sort there is still more stuff to get rid of. A few years ago I was in one of these cleaning out moods. A friend was selling things on e-bay and I thought I would let go of some of the stuff I still had from my wedding (at that time 25 years ago). I found in the dark recesses of the kitchen cabinets a beautiful tray. I had never parted with it because each time I cleaned out I thought it was too pretty to let go. I looked at the tray and wondered when the last time it had seen the light of day. I realized that I would rather let it go, clear out the space, and use the money for something I would enjoy. And use today. Some one else would use the tray and be happy with it.

I was amazed during this process the attachment that I felt for something that I had not thought about or seen for a long time. Why was I keeping it, moving it from place to place with me all this time? Whatever attachment it has to me or me to it, I wanted to let go. By letting go of stuff, you can let go symbolically of the things that enslave you.

Stuff enslaves you. So many times people talk with me about all the stuff they have. How it creates chaos and mess. You need to take care of it, sometimes spend money to rent storage space for it. It takes energy to have stuff; it pulls on you all the time. It speaks to you silently, “take care of me, and use me, keep me”.


My experience when I clean out the stuff and let it go is that something opens in my life.
Divest yourself of stuff and fill your life with what is of value to you in this moment. Free yourself and transform your life into one filled with joy of using, and taking care of, and appreciating what you have. Keep only what you truly value or use. Simplify your life.
For free downloads and articles visit www.debrajoygoldman.com

When Bad Things Happen

I still remember the phone call. It was 3:00am in the morning on a Sunday in 1999.
The police were on the phone. "Some one broke into your office and set fire to it, get here as quickly as you can".

A few days before I had called my landlord to tell him I was going to lease the space for another two years. Now it was pretty much a total loss. Have you had a shock like this in your life? Did you feel angry, scared, confused? I asked, "Why is this happening, how could this happen, what do I do now"? Are these the kinds of questions that go through your mind when bad things happen to you?

If you want to make the best of a bad situation, then find the good. What do I mean? I suggest you evaluate what is happening.The word evaluate has the meaning of "find the value in".What was of value in my office burning up? At first it was hard to understand how this could hold any value.

What the fire did was move me into a new space, which changed my practice. I am a psychotherapist. The building I was in was filled with people in the healing profession. There were other psychotherapists, massage therapists, chiropractors etc. I moved into an executive suite with insurance, real estate, and financial planners. A totally different atmosphere. The direction of my work changed. This led me to where I am today. This is of value to me. The fire gave me a push that was needed to propel change into my life.

So what value you can find in your "bad"? Find it, evaluate what is happening. You will find that this is the fastest way to peace of mind and happiness. Now you just have to DO IT.

For more ideas and tools to keep on making changes visit my web site at http://debrajoygoldman.com/

You Can Stop Giving Your Old Beliefs Power

You can stop giving your old beliefs power

As a child I discovered that on  days with events I was looking forward to happily, time would drag by slowly until the event. On a day that I had a doctors appointment at the end of the day (which I hated) the day would breeze quickly by, and we would be heading to the doctor. I would not want time to go so quick, how could that be? It was my attitude that was different not the flow of time. It changed my experience of time.

It’s not life but the attitude you bring to life that creates your experience.

Another words what you think, what you tell yourself, what you picture in your mind, how you direct your thoughts in your imagination, your words, and internal dialogue directly relates to how you feel and experience your life.

You may also notice that thoughts are attached to feelings. The times you have something pleasant planned in the future and think of it, you feel pleasurable feelings. You could give yourself that feeling when ever you want, simply by imaging the activity.

Sometimes you might notice that certain thoughts you think are habitual, For example: you often worry about paying the bills, thinking about how much they will be and if there will be enough money to pay them. You feel fearful. These thoughts and feelings have most likely been happening for a lot of years. You have gotten by and managed. Is fear and worry the feeling you want to live with around money? Does the fear and the worry lead to the choices about money that you want to be making? Are you shaking your head NO?
This is what you can do:

Here are three steps to take. Do an experiment, try this for 3 days.

Awareness: Become aware of the signs that the pattern is present. Clues: thoughts and feelings.
Acknowledge: Do the work to understand and explore yourself, so in the moment of awareness you can remember what is happening.
Correct it: What is the change? What is the new choice? See it, feel it, think it. Create a momentary, in the present, experience of this feeling. You may have a memory of something you experienced in you life that already gives you this experience.

Now follow these three steps through out the day. Practice this for three days. Pay attention to what happens. What inspires you, what are your night dreams, what is happening? Is anything different?

Here is correction about money.

1. Sit with your feet flat on the ground, hands palm down in your lap. Eyes closed breathe out through your mouth long slow breathe, as if you are blowing out candles on a birthday cake. Then breathe in through your nose, short and easy. Does this breathe a total of three times? As you are breathing think to your self this is your new perspective on money exercise.

2. See, sense, and feel that you are up high looking down on a river flowing, know that there is always ongoing eternal flow. Feel the peace and settling down. Breathe put through your mouth and open your eyes.

Habitually thoughts come back and need to be noticed, acknowledged and corrected again.

You can learn to respond to what is happening outside in the experiential world with a fluid corrective internal response in the inner world. This helps you stay connected to peace and balance.

Try this for three days, do an experiment. Notice what’s different. May be you would like to continue. Go right ahead. Enjoy!