Living Life Inside Out – The Book

The day I’ve been waiting for is almost here … the books have been shipped. UPDATE: And they are here!

 

While waiting there are a few things I need to do to get beaglebirdpress.com ready so that mail order requests can be taken care of quickly. Hopefully that will be up and running before the books arrive.

It’s an exciting time as a vision and dream is coming true. And it’s also a time for new things as I set out to market my work to the world so that I can recoup what I’ve spent and hopefully turn my dream into a bestseller.

UPDATE: Go here to purchase your copy now.

Fun is Good

“Are we having fun yet?”
—Carol Burnett

If we cannot answer yes to the question above we probably are filled with stress and tension, aren’t getting good sleep, have aches and pains, and may be quite grumpy or even depressed. Life was not meant to be all work and no play. And when we neglect to have fun we pay for it in the end.

We are busy and stretch our time to get all we can out of life, but often we neglect to play. Children know how to enjoy life. Sure, they don’t have all the responsibilities that we adults have, but they can be good examples for us.

We need to find things that we enjoy doing; things that make us laugh like children. We can do simple things like play in a water sprinkler; go to an amusement park or ride the go-carts; go to the zoo and make silly animal noises; anything that gives us a giggle and relieves some of the daily stresses of life.

If we know any children to do these things with it will help because they are usually uninhibited and know how to have fun and be silly. Somewhere in the growing up process many of us lose the ability to let go and have fun.

When we incorporate play into our stressful lives we sleep better and are more effective in the things we do when we get back to them. We may be in a line of work that doesn’t allow us to laugh much so we have to make the best of the time we do have to be childlike.

Give yourself permission to act like a child sometimes and you’ll find that life is more fulfilling.

Feel Your Joy

“Remember, happiness doesn’t depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely upon what you think.”
—Dale Carnegie

Feeling joy is a good thing and one that we should allow ourselves to experience at every opportunity.
There are those who try to steal our joy. They are the negative people of the world, those who see the glass as half empty and are unhappy in their own skin so they prefer us to be that way in ours.

We don’t have to allow negativity from others infuse our lives. There is more than enough pain to go around, but joy stolen does not have to happen. If we are excited about an accomplishment, if we feel joyful about a situation, or if we just feel the joy of being alive, it’s ours to experience.

Feeling joyful because we are blessed in some way is our way of thanking God and the universe for our blessing. To find negativity in every situation is reserved for those who want to be unhappy.

Feel what you feel, good or bad, and your life will be fuller.

Challenging Our Minds

“I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt

Upon telling someone that I had begun to take lessons to play a musical instrument at an age well into my forties, I was asked: “Whatever made you decide to pick it up at this stage of your life?” And my answer was simply: “Why not? It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”

Doctors say that when we continue to challenge our minds we are less likely to suffer dementia. Some say to work puzzles that challenge the mind, but truly anything we do that makes us think is a benefit. Just as exercising our bodies keeps us in good physical shape, using our minds keeps them sharp.

Living, being a journey rather than a destination, is about being able to do things that make us happy. It’s not all about a dreary job that we may have to pay the bills, or the drudgery of certain chores, it’s also about having fun, experiencing joy.

If we’ve dreamed of doing something but have put it off, it’s not too late. Just because we may be too old to make a career of our particular interest, or to become great at it even, that doesn’t mean we can’t do it, or have fun doing it. And what if we just happened to find a hidden talent in whatever it is, at age 30, or 40 or even 60 or 70?

Life can be fun. We can fulfill a lot of our dreams if we just make the attempt and stop saying we’re too old for that. If the alternative is to be bored and miserable because we didn’t get to try something, we should just go for it.

It’s never too late to try something you’ve always wanted to do.

Finding Joy

“Joy is but the sign that creative emotion is fulfilling its purpose.”
—Charles Du Bos

Our lives are often filled with busy days and nights. We work too much, we do volunteer work, we care for our children or our parents, we have things we must get done before we ever feel like we can just do what would bring us joy.

Jim Croce’s song “Time in a Bottle” sums it up in a few words: “But there never seems to be enough time to do the things you want to do once you find them ….” And it does seem to be true that even when we know what will bring us joy and pleasure we have difficulty getting to it.

And sadly some people don’t even know what would make them happy. If we don’t know what brings us joy, it’s time to find out. Look for what brings you joy and do that.

Some people find it growing things in a garden, or building a deck, others in rocking a baby, or perhaps singing in a choir or learning a new instrument, and still others might create a drawing or painting. Whatever place that joy can be found it’s important to go there.

Even if someone told us we couldn’t have fun in life or we have always thought that we had to be serious all the time and only work hard, it’s time to let go of that thinking and find some joy.

Joyful people are more loving people because they love themselves. If a person is filled with joy they cannot help but spill that over onto other people.

Life does not have to be all about work. It’s OK to have fun. It’s OK to laugh. It’s OK to find pleasure and have joy.

Find what brings you joy and do it.