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In Identity, Personal Growth, Relationships

Recipe for a Happy Life

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on Leave a comment
Recipe for a Happy Life

Do you want to be happy? For the longest time, I didn’t think it was a worthy goal to aim for simple happiness, but now I believe I was wrong.

Happiness is worthy, in and of itself. Today, on the eve of a brand new year, I’m reflecting on what it means to be happy. To cease striving for some future state of peace and joy and actually cultivate it right here and now.

Happiness equals choices. It gives us the right to decide what it is we need, and offers permission to go for it. This approval does not come from any outside source. Like all worthy pursuits, it’s an inside job. Our happiness does not depend on any outside person, circumstance or situation. We grow it in our own soul, tending it like a garden, until it bears fruit and flowers.

Happiness is not a competition. It’s not defined or regulated by what other people have or don’t have. Looking to the left and right to gauge your happiness based on theirs is the surest way to lose your sense of serenity. Make a choice to unhitch your internal state from anything external. Work on it from the inside, blowing on the ashes to bring the flame to life.

Recipe for aHappy LifeStop worrying about what other people are saying, doing or choosing. Their happiness is not connected to yours. Practice moving away from a fulcrum-type of life, where your feelings and experiences are hinged on someone else’s. This faulty worldview puts you at the constant mercy of the moods and whims of others. You are the master of your fate, you are the captain of your soul (so beautifully said in Invictus by William Ernest Henley).

Happiness is about nurture. You must identify what you need, at any given time, and become responsible for getting that need met. Don’t wait for others to notice you have needs and magically meet them. This is fantasy thinking, and all that comes from this is resentment, paralysis, and unacknowledged rage.

Nurture yourself. It’s no one else’s job to do this; only yours. Figure out what makes you happy and do more of that. This practice leads to a healthy life, but every choice you make should lead you in that direction and not away from it.

Happiness requires courage. Live boldly in order to be happy and at peace. Don’t waste any more time living other people’s dreams for you. This is it – your one precious life – and every moment is either leading you closer to your authentic self, your deepest dreams, your own sense of fulfillment and joy, or you are moving away from it.

Which one will it be as we collectively peer into 2016? What is your own unique recipe for happiness?  Will you summon enough courage to make healthy choices, opt out of bloodsport competition and nurture your own soul in order to get where you want to go?

In Identity, Personal Growth, Relationships

Real Surrender

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on Leave a comment
Real Surrender

I know I write a lot about acceptance, surrender, letting go of what we cannot change. This is because it’s so damn challenging for me. I think I have it under control, then something else happens to knock me off my game and I have no other choice but to practice this skill once again.

I find it hard to believe when people say they don’t struggle with acceptance. I’ve heard versions of “I just let it go” with a breezy flip of the hair and a general sense of how easy this is. Without fail, every time, I think to myself, “Bullshit.”

Real surrender over circumstances and people is hard. It’s a process, where you don’t get to skip any steps. It’s not easy for a reason. The meaning is found in the struggle. We should be wrestling with what wounds us. We have all been hurt, let down, lost, bewildered.

Real SurrenderWe can’t have it all. That’s a bold-faced lie. What we do have is choices. One after another, day in and day out, then each of these accumulated decisions determines the quality of our lives. Who we spend the bulk of our time with matters. We influence each other.

Wanting a healthy life requires courage. It doesn’t just happen, in and of itself. Our intentions determine our outcomes. We can’t simply float along, at the whim of other people’s decisions, opinions and beliefs, and think that we are in charge of our own destiny. That’s an immature, guarded and small way of life.

But stepping out, as our authentic selves, carries a price tag. You will disappoint some people, many of whom will be close to you. Grieving these lost and broken relationships will be painful. The sharp, piercing sadness will fade, but I’m a few years into it and it never goes away completely.

Especially around the holidays, when opportunities to practice letting go of expectations are all around you. We cannot control what other people say or do (or what they don’t say or don’t do). We must let go of the dream of how we want a situation to be. We just don’t have that kind of power.

I’m learning to focus on the good that has resulted from the losses I’ve sustained. If I make a list of the benefits I enjoy on a daily basis from the hard decisions I’ve made with some relationships, it ends up as a long and rich accounting. Focusing on what has been left behind only paralyzes me in grief. If I want to keep moving forward (and I do), it’s necessary to celebrate what has made my current, joyful life possible, not what or who might be absent from it.

To anyone feeling lost and bereft in these days leading up to Christmas, you are not alone. Surrender. Let go. Allow yourself to accept all that you cannot control so that you can see the good things and people in your life that you feel grateful for.

Try not to fixate on what’s gone and what may never be again. Let it run through your fingers like sand. Turn to those who are there for you – who love and accept you, exactly as you are – for they will make up your future. This is what matters; not what is gone, but what you have gained by your honest choices and what will continue to bloom in the years to come.

In Identity, Personal Growth, Relationships, Speaking

Ground Rules

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on Leave a comment
Ground Rules

I did my first literary salons in grade eleven and twelve English classes a few weeks ago. I approached it as an experiment, hoping that seventeen and eighteen-year-old students would be interested in the art of open-ended conversation on meaningful topics such as loss, hope, pain, regret and letting go.

I began by laying out three key ground rules for the salon:

  1. Only say what you are comfortable sharing
  2. What is said here remains confidential
  3. This is not a debate

I spent the most time elaborating on number 3. I said, “You are not trying to prove a point, or change someone’s mind, or be right. The salon is not about ideas. It’s about experience; we are trying to connect with each other by finding those ‘me too’ moments of identification.”

ground rulesWhat happened in both classes was astonishing. After a brief warm-up round of questions drawn from a bright blue bag, the small groups of six teens each moved on to deeper subjects. Everyone participated by sharing and listening. The very air in the classroom warmed up as we all focused on each person’s story. The braver someone got with their individual answer, the more intense the connection became from person to person in that group.

I floated around, as did the teacher, and we both shared from our lives where appropriate. I was amazed by how different the experience was from regular conversation because of the ground rules, particularly the reminder that we were all there to listen and share, not to convince anyone of anything.

I’m still mulling over the power of this experience, because an idea is germinating somewhere in my soul about how healing and important this type of authentic connection is with one another. Ground rules for the process of willingly engaging with another person’s experience, with no judgement or criticism, seems to be a key piece of this interaction puzzle. But how do I take this concept from the relative safety of a high school English class and bring it to the rest of the world?

I’m still working on that. I hope an answer begins to materialize to this worthwhile question. I know that something significant shifted and changed in me as we were talking. When a student inevitably said something I disagreed with, I took a deep breath and steered the group conversation back to the specific question at hand because the ground rules said I couldn’t debate an idea or philosophy.

Instead, I tried to connect with the person’s unique experience, and search for places to identify with him or her on a human level. This strategy increased the level of vulnerability and connection we all felt, instead of adding more angry voices into a discussion on who was right and who was wrong. Every one of us gets plenty of that already on the Internet.

This experience was gentler, softer, more real and insightful. I want endlessly more of that, and it’s up to me to grow it in my own soul and then give it away when it blooms.

At the end of the salon, students said that they saw each other in a new way as a result of the group conversations. They realized that no person is any one thing. We are more alike than we are different. We all hurt, worry, hope, dream and fear.

When we agree to hold another person’s dignity in a safe relationship space, we find freedom to be honest, open and genuine. Observing the ground rules changes us, allowing for compassion to grow, and this in turn has the power to change the whole world.

In Identity, Personal Growth, Relationships

The Gift of Uncertainty

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on Leave a comment
The Gift of Uncertainty

Walking the thin line between uncertainty and planning is a killer. For those aggressive Type A personalities out there, like myself, you just want to KNOW, dammit, so you can confidently head in a specific direction.

Places of uncertainty stretch us, like Gumby (for those of you too young for this reference, Gumby was a green 80s figure pliable enough to bend into various poses). It’s uncomfortable. It’s awkward. It can really, really blow, because it asks us to live in the now; to give our undivided attention to this moment.

Uncertainty reminds us that we are not in control of everything. It invites us to trust: in timing, in goodness, in an invisible safety net that we hope is there even if we can’t prove it.

acceptanceOn the plus side, not knowing what the outcome will be sharpens our senses. It’s like going to the optometrist and marvelling at how crisp those letters can be with the right prescription. We suddenly notice what we’ve long taken for granted, because something has shifted in us and we know that nothing in this life stays the same forever. We change, and so do the people around us. Circumstances shift, children grow up, the snow comes to end the autumn.

Once again, this comes down to surrender. As the brilliant Cheryl Strayed writes, “Acceptance is a small, quiet room.” When we choose to give up our right to know what will happen, we turn our soul loose on this present moment and space, believing that we are enough for whatever challenges and triumphs are coming.

We can’t see them, and we must come to terms with that. We all have limits. Twenty-four hour days, three-hundred and sixty-five day years, one mortal body we cannot exchange or upgrade, an enormous world that we can only make our home in one minuscule part of.

But our spirit is limitless. It can soar, dream, expand, transform. We have external limits, but no internal ones – except for what we impose on ourselves. Every so often we discover a fresh perspective, renewed gratitude, a surge of optimism. We stretch. We feel pulled by what we cannot anticipate, manipulate, or control. But when we get through that, we are different.

The key is not to break faith with the process. To believe that something wonderful might be around the corner, slightly beyond what we can see, instead of fearing a dark and scary experience. Staying anchored to the now helps us believe in a better future, because we are fully alive. Equally surrendering our fierce grip on the past and the future offers us peace for today. And that equips us for whatever is coming.

In Identity, Personal Growth, Relationships, Speaking, Writing

Why I Need a Mentor

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on Leave a comment
Why I Need a Mentor

I have a kick-ass mentor. I say this because she is amazing, but also because she metaphorically delivers a swift kick to my rear when I am in need of it.

We have lunch once a month, and at our November get-together I felt mopey and frustrated about a few things. She listened to me talk over our scrumptious soup, lasagna bites and red velvet cake at Canadian Brewhouse, and then she asked me several questions.

“Do you think you might be giving too much of your energy to other people’s opinions and not enough to your own abilities and intuition? Just because someone says something doesn’t make it the absolute truth. Trust yourself. Don’t give that power away to other people.”

MentorDeep down, I knew she was right, but I still spent a few minutes arguing my reasons for why I did what I did. She listened patiently, then circled back to her point. She said, “You do best when you rely on your own abilities and interests. Maybe it’s time to take a break from what other writers are saying and doing online and simply focus on your own career path. You know what you want. Stop searching for permission from strangers or even friends. You don’t need it to keep pursuing your goals.”

Again, right on the money. This was still digesting, along with my food, when she hit me with, “How about slowing down and trying a calming practice like yoga? You’d benefit from deep breathing as a way to stop your mind from racing ahead. Live in the moment. Enjoy the journey. Don’t approach your career as a race to the finish line. Writing is supposed to be fun! Take it as it comes. Every step matters as it leads you to the next stage.”

This piece of stellar advice has been slowly sinking in over the last week. I am terrible at staying in the moment I’m living in. I can get off track far too easily. This is why my mentor is so important to my overall health. She can see when I’m veering from my true path and lovingly guide me back to the right place.

She helps me work through various sides of an issue or conflict but doesn’t hesitate to administer some tough love when required. I love it when she gently reminds me how far I’ve come and that I am capable of doing hard things. She cheerleads, at the same time as she challenges. I desperately need this. I think we all do.

A mentor is anyone a little further down the path from us. Mine has been writing, editing and speaking for seven years longer than me, so I have a lot to learn from her. And I’m constantly inspired by her authentic spirit, her ability to be herself in any situation, and her hopeful optimism. She gives me more light to live by. She tells me the tough things I need to hear to stop feeling sorry for myself and get moving in a positive direction again. She cheers, she coaches, she inspires.

If you don’t have a mentor like this in your life, I urge you to be on the lookout for one. Find someone you want to be like and spend some time in his or her company. If they will tell it to you straight, but with love, and occasionally make you snort with laughter, bravely ask that person to mentor you. I’ve had mine for four years now, and my life is better in every way because of her guidance, care and a carefully-timed kick to the ass.