Practice the powerful healing emotions of compassion, forgiveness, gratitude and realistic optimism.  These are the portals that will open us to a life filled with achievable opportunities, positive relationships and love.  Resilience is less about our innate qualities and more about how we think about ourselves and interpret the world around us.  You are in charge of how you think and how you feel – choose positive thoughts and emotions, choose happiness. Practice is the hardest part of learning yet a daily practice paves the road to transformation and resilience.

Begin by being thankful for the miracle of being alive and really feel gratitude for this gift; your gratefulness will lead to compassion and forgiveness for yourself and for others. Science has proven that our positive emotions change the boundaries of our hearts and minds expanding our outlook on our environment. Our hearts and minds obey the warmth of positive emotions just as a flower’s petals open, obeying the warmth of the sun.

Cultivate a happier attitude by not entertaining negative thoughts, start a gratitude journal and write in it every day, practice realistic optimism (i.e. cup half full rather than half empty) with achievable goals, start a daily ritual you enjoy e.g. meditate (science has proven that meditation will improve our well-being and slow our rate of cellular aging), celebrate small wins, perform acts of kindness incognito, tell jokes – laugh (a lot) even if they are not funny, volunteer.  Invent your own happiness motivators or begin a yoga practice.

With positive emotions you see more possibility and more ideas of what you might do next than if you are in a neutral or negative state.   Positive emotions create the positive energy that will propel you to act on your newly recognized opportunities.  Positive emotions alter the DNA of your cells thereby transforming who you are in the future – a happier human being.  Positive emotions shape mindfulness to stay present, improve close relationships, reduce health problems, build skills and boost your health.  Positive emotions creates positive outcomes while fostering a resilient and joyful life.

Just as the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ states forgiveness requires a daily practice, so too do all positive human values (e.g. compassion, kindness, friendliness, self-love, etc.), new skills and interests, self-care techniques and daily rituals, etc.  Much has been studied with respect to transforming new learnings into daily habits and behaviours with twenty-one to sixty-six days being touted as benchmarks. Irrespective of benchmarks, we are here to learn and life provides us with abundant opportunity to perfect… so practice, practice, practice with an open heart and an open mind and you will eventually transform to live a joyful resilient life.

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What if our religion was each other
If practice was our life
If prayer, our words
What if the temple was the Earth
If forests were our church
If holy water - the rivers, lakes and ocean
What if meditation was our relationships
If the Teacher was life
If wisdom was self-knowledge
If love was the center of our being?
- Ganga White

5.  Notice