Entries from May 2007 ↓

I did a little on the Step Out of the Stress Trap pamphlet today, but I’ve also spent a lot of time thinking about the first page of my site. It doesn’t really express what the site is about… yet. That’s okay…it will get there. Rethinking and rewriting is just part of the process, helping me to get some clarity and to give the site some power.

I also spent quite a bit of time learning to use the e-mail program at Host Monster, because I want to be able to send messages from StressToPower.com. It wasn’t always sending messages to my AOL account, for some reason, so I had to get that working. I only mention it because everything takes a long time, and you can’t predict what you’ll get done each day. So it’s important not to rush, to keep plugging along and enjoy the process. That’s especially true when you spend a lot of time on a seemingly insignificant detail.

In particular I was writing to Dawud Miracle about getting some advice about the site. Presumably we’ll schedule a telephone interview for sometime next week. The content is most important, but I’ll see what he has to say about the website design. I spend a lot of time looking at other sites, seeing what moves me and what doesn’t. I really want it to be a good site.

I went to an appreciation dinner for teachers over at the Unitarian Church this evening. I spent some time talking to a person who worked in the same division I did before I retired. It felt as if he was trying to make me feel bad because I wasn’t doing anything he considered worthwhile. I tried talking about the things that mean the most to me, but there was no way to make a connection there.

He can’t imagine what he’ll do when he retires in a few years. So I didn’t argue, I just got back to work when I came home…and was grateful.

I’ve just made some more changes to StressToPower.com. It’s at the fun stage now, where I have something on the web and I keep thinking of ways to fine tune it. I like the fact that the site is fairly concise and has an interactive blog. It did need more information about how the readers could get started in optimizing their stress. So I added an e-mail link allowing them to order a free pamphlet entitled Stepping Out of the Stress Trap.

The next step is obvious: write that pamphlet! The adventure continues.

 An aim in life is the only fortune worth finding, and it isn’t found in foreign lands, but in the heart itself. Robert Louis Stevenson

Ellen at ellenLiving is writing a series of posts on “4 Questions to Facilitate Change.” The questions are:

1. Where am I in my life right now?
2. Where do I most want to be in my life?
3. What within me is in the way of getting to where I most want to be?
4. What do I need to get to where I want to be?

Her explorations of these questions are well worth reading.

My own, very quick, answers to these questions are:

1. I’m on a path that includes writing for this blog and developing my website and blog at StressToPower.com.
2. I want to be exactly where I am.
3. What within me is getting in the way? Nothing right now. It took quite a while to get started doing these projects, though. I had trouble envisioning them so I relaxed as best I could and did a lot of exploring. Once I decided on the name for this site it was easy. And once I figured out that StressToPower.com should be a small number of web pages plus a blog it was a lot easier. The problem was there’s so much information available to us, and people are so different. What resonates with one person leaves another cold. So an interactive blog was definitely the thing to try.
4. What do I need to get to where I want to be? I already have it, thanks to a lot of great websites I’ve been visiting. I still have a lot to do, but getting something started was the hard part.

“There are few things more wonderful than knowing where you want to go and being on the path to getting there.”—Earnie Larsen

I’m not a religious person but the following part of the Prayer of St. Francis is a favorite of mine:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy;

…grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.

St. Francis was known to be a happy person.

I’ve wanted to write about Happiness as a Spiritual Practice for a long time, but that name was much too long for a web address. Then I came across Adam Kayce’s Monk at Work and the term “monk” resonated. I tend to wear very simple clothes, have never owned a house because it would take too much time, and basically agree with Thoreau’s sentiment,

Our lives are frittered away in details.
Simplify, simplify.

So, “monk” was definitely going to be in the name for this site.

The “cheerful” part comes from one of my favorite books, The Cheerful Cherub, a book of short, light-hearted verses about life by Rebecca McCann . The book has been enduring and is still available today, even though McCann passed away 80 years ago.

My favorite verse is

I’m sure I have a noble mind
And honesty and tact,
And no one’s more surprised than I
To see the way I act!

The thing I love most about McCann is she was never pompous. She didn’t take herself too seriously. And that, I’m convinced, is a crucial ingredient of happiness.

I didn’t post anything yesterday because I’ve been developing a new website: StressToPower.com. It’s about living life fully in spite of the challenges we face. In it I quote an ancient Sanskrit poem:

Look to this day!
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course
Lie all the truths and realities of existence:

The joy of growth,
The splendor of action,
The glory of power.

For yesterday is but a memory,
And tomorrow is only a vision;
But today, well lived, makes every yesterday
a memory of happiness,
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day!

That strikes me as a great spiritual practice to try to live by. I, for one, am giving it my best shot.

Yesterday I included Three Quotes:

Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

Helen Keller

I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.

Albert Schweitzer

It is essential to know that to be a happy person, a happy family, a happy society, it is very crucial to have a good heart, that is very crucial. World peace must develop from inner peace. Peace is not just the absence of violence but the manifestation of human compassion.

The Dalai Lama

I’ve been thinking about those quotes a lot today. I certainly agree with the Dalai Lama, attitudes such as love, compassion, acceptance and generosity of spirit do add to everyone’s happiness in life. And I believe Helen Keller and Albert Schweitzer were great people, but I don’t believe I’m up to spending that much of my life serving other people. I do a lot of volunteer work, but I do it in ways that I can use my talents and keep learning and growing. I think developing and using one’s talents and contributing with joy is also important.

Photo by babasteve. License by Creative Commons.

Can happiness be spiritual? Some people think so. Consider these opinions:

Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

Helen Keller

I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.

Albert Schweitzer

It is essential to know that to be a happy person, a happy family, a happy society, it is very crucial to have a good heart, that is very crucial. World peace must develop from inner peace. Peace is not just the absence of violence but the manifestation of human compassion.

The Dalai Lama

What do you think? I welcome your comments.

Yesterday’s post was a real stretch for me. Baring my soul to anyone who might stumble across this site. Hmm. Am I ashamed that I love deeply? No. Do I feel exposed and vulnerable? Of course, and that’s fine, too. What does that have to do with the purpose of this site? Just about everything. I’m not selling anything so I don’t have to worry about people’s reactions, even assuming anyone actually visits here. In one sense the purpose is to affirm my deepest values by being open and honest about them. Then if anyone does visit they’ll be contacting an open and authentic human being, with no social masks in between.

In a recent post Adam Kayce suggests:

“1. Take a moment (or two) and reflect on your patterns: your life patterns, your work patterns, the habitual ways you go about doing things, the rhythms you’ve settled into as a result of living in the way you’ve been living.

2. Now, get in touch with your heart. Connect with your heart’s sense of knowing (using the Remembrance is a great tool for this), and ask to be shown the place where some evolution would be good for you and your growth.”

Stepping out of my comfort zone and publishing this afternoon’s post was a major breakthrough for me. Thanks, Adam.

I didn’t plan to be so intensely personal today, but Ellen’s post struck a chord. It indicates where the passion for Happiness As a Spiritual Practice comes from. This was my comment to her post (slightly edited):

“Oh, Lord, that really pierced my heart. A couple of weeks ago I dreamed of my mom, cooking in her kitchen, offering me some food. She looked so incredibly happy. Then my dad appeared next to her, with a huge smile on his face. I woke up crying, not with sadness but with a love almost too intense to bear. I’m back in that state now.

Did I have a happy childhood? Well, my sister thinks we were emotionally abused and is still angry about it, I think. My mom went through a period of depression because she felt so trapped. I was only 15 months younger than my sister, and Mom told me years later that when she found out she was pregnant with me she sat down and cried.

I was depressed in the summers, feeling that typical struggle to get out of bed in the morning and make it through another day. My dad was happy when he drank.

I’m the peacemaker type, I wanted everyone to be happy, tearing myself up when that didn’t happen, rejoicing when it did. And we did have a lot of happy moments, it wasn’t all dark by any means. The thing I remember most is how close my mother and I became as we tried to help one another.

I wrote in my first post yesterday that when I was 17 I realized my calling in life was to understand what a happy life was. Obviously the whole thing started years before that, as we struggled together as a family. Things got a lot better when Mom went to work and bought a home that she loved and I went to high school and college and got the intellectual stimulation I needed.

Do I wish my childhood had been different? I’m with you, Ellen, my main feeling is intense love and gratitude. A friend of mine once said, ‘Love is what you go through together with someone.’ That was certainly true for my mother and me. I wouldn’t give that up for anything. ”