How to feel a sense of happiness and love your life...both of those emotions can feel a little elusive at times on the daily. Are we being unrealistic to feel this everyday? That is often something I'm asked.
Not everyday is full with excitement, travel, wonder and winning at life. It's the greatest challenge of being in the 'now' isn't it?! That so often the 'now' doesn't feel exciting enough. Often a day just feels like another day and the future is what feels shinier and brighter.
We woke up, got out of bed, arrived into work, did what we had to do, ate, if you have children you've dropped them off somewhere in the morning and come afternoon you're picking them up and depending on their age you're taxi'ing them around before it's time to come home, cook dinner and then collapse on the couch.
For many of us that sums up five of our seven days in the week until we reach the weekend. When we then try to catch up around the house, catch up with friends and do the groceries in readiness for the next week ahead. It's not a recipe for discontent but it's not necessarily a recipe for happiness and loving your life either.
If you've been following me along on my social media (you can find me on here on Instagram and Facebook) you would have seen that I've taken up swimming this year - for both my emotional and physical health.
Swimming has worked beautifully for me because it encompasses something special - it taps into all of my values and everything I appreciate doing, being and having in life. Keeping active, healthy and ourdoors, my personal growth and flowing past my comfort zones and having positive connections and relationships in my world.
I would not have described myself as happy in myself at early parts of this year with some life stuff that all happened at once.
And while my Grandad passing away in April was definitely the catalyst for this life pivot, my only sadness now is that he didn't get the chance to see me living as my fullest expression of myself or be a part of it - even though he always sensed it and tried to pull it out of me more.
What 2020 did do for me was leave me in a very reflective space about some of the choices I'd been making. The priorities I was making. And it lead me to swimming as a way of coming back to who I really was.
In 2020 I came to realise that life and some of my relationships had actually taken me further away from the person that I actually was on the inside. And I realised that this was actually the reason why I was feeling the way I was in myself and why some of the things left my life like they did - they weren't actually right for me or meant for me.
I'd lost touch with me and my life had stopped growing in alignment with who I was and what I really valued.
We can't change all the things we have to do in our lives- everyone has a handful of those must do's that are not in full alignment with how we value spending our time.
I need to go to work, I need to cook dinner for instance!
One thing we can do however is get clear on what we actually value doing outside of those must do's instead of continuing down the mindlessly doing path of consuming and picking up the TV remote. So what am I talking about here?
I'm talking about what it is that makes you truly light up. What puts a smile on your face. What makes you feel like today was a great day and this weekend ticked all my boxes.
Please grab a piece of paper...
And on it I'd love for you to write down what makes you feel happy when you're experiencing it, whether it's daily, weekly or every now and again. For me these are things like getting out into the sunshine, visiting the beach, travelling, brunching with a girlfriend, going for a swim, having flowers in my house, reading a book, going to a personal development day with other women, catching a sunrise or sunset, creating something new and exciting for my business, wine time with my friends, doing my pilates workout, connecting and working with like-minded women, feeling fresh in the morning and starting my day with a fruit or veggie based smoothie, cuddles and quality time with my daughters, learning and exploring something new.
Fill your page and when you're done look over everything you've written down and circle all the things you haven't done enough of lately or at all.
In those things you've circled is the secret to why life feels amazing, or only feels just ok, F-I-N-E or perhaps even a little hamster wheel like.
So what to do about this...
Grab another piece of paper! And on it write "On most days, if I did this for me I would feel amazing inside and out..." and then write down what would completely light up your day. For instance for me this reads something like:
Wake up early before everyone else, catch the sun rising, drink my coffee or smoothie in peace, glance over my diary and feel organised at the start of my day
Breathe in and feel a sea breeze
Get out into the sunshine and water and move my body
Music, music, music
Create something
Engage, connect and smile with others and make someone laugh
Support someone to shine even brighter in their own life with passion, purpose and excitement
This is Carla living as her fullest, brightest expression of herself. The question now is what is unique to you? And can you find one activity or purpose that encompasses everything that lights you up? That's the real magic spot there.
Writing down what we value helps us to get clear about what we truly appreciate spending our time, money and resources on and it helps us to see how in alignment we are with our values. Or not. On paper it really does become quite clear how far away we are living from them or not.
It is our own unique secret sauce to personal happiness! If we follow the recipe we get the result.
With love
Carla x
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Need help to change and uplevel what you are attracting into you life? Support to know what to do next?
Carla Da Costa is an experienced Law Of Attraction Coach based in Perth and the Director behind The Rising Woman Foundation an Australian based charity that supports women from marginalised circumstances to access personal development.
In her work here she supports women to shine brighter and bolder in life, love and business through her program Back To Fab and through her one on one consultations. Carla’s approach is heart-centred and holistic rather than a one size fits all approach. You’ll feel on purpose, excited and enthused about moving forward.
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