Choices

More Joy

Dobby the house elf is an important ingredient in this tale.  House elves can only be freed if a human gives them clothing.

One of the finest gifts life can bring us is friendship.  I have a dear friend of 39 years (OMG! That many?) who is as close a confidante as anyone could wish.  In spite of the fact that we have lived in different states most of those years and see each other seldom, we stay in close contact.  I can call and whine about anything and be totally supported.  If I whine about the same thing too many times she supports me by gently reminding me to get over it.  We like the same food and music and books and movies.  Harry Potter is a favorite, and Dobby the house elf stole our hearts. 

We talk often and laugh every time we talk, even when part of the conversation is about something sad or difficult.  We hardly ever send each other gifts because both of our houses are already full of too much stuff.  But every now and then…….

Last week we were mutually bemoaning the fact that our joints are in such a state neither of us can tolerate spike heels any more.  I told her I was making up for the loss by wearing brightly colored and patterned socks with my Sketchers.  She admitted to only wearing plain black, brown or blue socks.  We finished our conversation making cracks about our joints, (no pun intended) and laughing hysterically about some of the ensuing limitations.  We hung up and I had a sudden flash of genius, logged on to Amazon and successfully shopped for socks; brightly colored with patterns of peace signs or kittens or lightening.

She got the socks yesterday and immediately called.  “Dobby is free!  Dobby is free!” she squealed.  It took a minute, but when it hit me we were both laughing hysterically again.  If you knew us better you would understand the squealing importance of “FREE” but all I’ll say is that it has nothing to do with ever being jailbirds.

This story has everything to do with the joy of friendship; having one person who shares your likes and dislikes, joys and concerns, and rolls on the floor with you, laughing until you are both snorting, just because of a silly phone call.  It’s like we’re two eight year olds playing in a mud puddle, and as each year goes by we get younger.  We are getting very close, at least with each other, to being such  young innocents we have no knowledge of danger or suspicion or distrust or fear.  Acting like a little child is a very joyful thing.

Wishing you the joy of great friendship this holiday season and every coming year.

Choices

Choosing Joy

It’s time for me to ‘fess up.  This ongoing rant called Bonny’s blog is my attempt to become more conscious about my thoughts and actions and how they effect everything around me, and also to gain a community intent on becoming more conscious.  So, if you are following I thank you and if you choose to comment on any blog posting I’m going to get really excited.

On to the thought for this week.  The season of Advent generally is divided into four weeks, each one focusing on one attribute; faith, hope, peace, joy.  In some traditions love replaces one of those words, but in every tradition the fourth Sunday of Advent is about joy.  Faith?  Got it!  Hope?  Plenty of that too.  Peace?  I am at peace with all my family, finally!  So I’m going straight for joy this entire time.

Here is a question I found on a website I was exploring.  (www.lifebyme.com)  “What percentage of your decisions are based on how much joy they will bring you or those you care about?  More than 50%?  Less than 50%?  All of them?”

Well, now, joy?  I live a pretty happy life with many moments of joy, but it has never occurred to me to measure my decisions on the yardstick of joy.  Why ever not?  It makes so much sense!  Suddenly I feel like I’ve been walking around in a fog, shooting from the hip in my decision making, in spite of the fact that I pretty carefully consider every decision I make that’s more important than “what’s for dinner tonight?”

Ahhh; not true.  Way off track here!!  The question, “What’s for dinner tonight?” almost always has my joy or my family’s joy as part of the equation.  As a mom, grandparent, great-grandparent, spouse and enthusiastic cook, food is probably the arena in which I pay most attention to joy.  Oh, and here’s more.  Christmas is approaching and for the first time in twelve years all our children and grandkids will be gathered in the same place for a few days.  Every choice my husband Chris and I have made in the months it took to make this happen have all been about joy.

Another one; last month I used a colored marker to draw stick figures of Chris and myself, labeled with the names our four year old great grand daughter calls us, Nana and Poppi.  We sent it to her with a great big “We love you” at the bottom.  That was all about joy for us, and she has it taped to the wall just above her pillow and reminds us of it when we talk with her on the phone.

One of the things I’ve become more conscious about in this exercise is how quickly I judge myself as being less than adequate in what I do, such as not using a joy yardstick.  But after a couple of days of examining choices over years, I’m showing up firmly in the “over 50%” group.  Now that joy based choices are part of my awareness it will grow quickly.  Take a couple of days for your own self examination and I’ll bet you lunch you will come to the same conclusions.  We are all joy junkies because it’s encoded in our souls.  Let’s not settle for anything less any more.

The critical piece here is the consciousness of making decisions based on joy.  We all do it, but usually it’s automatic and subconscious.  So wake up.  There are lots of roses to smell.  Conscious choice is what brings true power to our lives, and there are no small things, no inconsequential choices. 

Signs of the Times: Five

More on gratitude

I seem to be stumbling on things about gratitude this month.  Personally I know a practice of focusing on gratitude is one of the fastest ways to improve your life in all ways.  Here are some familiar words.  Thoughts are things. Energy follows attention.  What you focus on increases.  As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is. (Proverbs 23:7)   It seems to me that someone with a grateful heart is likely to think and speak in such a way that all those around that person benefit.

One of the wonderful signs of the times is that medicine and psychology are more and more studying what makes people healthy instead of just how to heal problems.  If you have been on a spiritual path for any length of time you will have heard a lot about the power and importance of gratitude.  Here is an excerpt from an article published by the University of Texas.  To read the entire article, follow this link.  http://www.uthealthleader.org/archive/mind_body_soul/2007/gratitude-1121.html

STORY BY Drs. Blair and Rita Justice

“Gratitude is a vaccine, an antitoxin, and an antiseptic.”
— John Henry Jowett

"If you start practicing now, (October) you could be grateful by Thanksgiving. Not only that, your marriage could improve, you might be exercising more, feel less depressed, sleep better, have a healthier heart, more life satisfaction, and increase your chances of living longer.

This may sound like a late-night ad that comes with a free set of steak knives (...and that’s not all!), but a growing body of research shows that gratitude is truly amazing in its physical and psychosocial benefits. The benefits are so great, in fact, that it’s a wonder “gratitude gyms” aren’t already being franchised.

Robert A. Emmons, PhD, professor of psychology at University of California, Davis, pioneer in the research on gratitude and one of the leading scholars in positive psychology, is author of Thanks: How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier. What makes gratitude the “magic ingredient” is that it takes us outside ourselves so that we can see how we are part of the larger, intricate network of sustaining relationships -- relationships that are reciprocal."

If you have never engaged in an extended gratitude practice, give yourself a Christmas gift and start one now.  You just might find 2012 to be the best year of your life.  Remember, what you focus on increases!