Choosing Happiness and Embracing Self-Trust

What if you could transform every moment of your day into an opportunity for growth and happiness? Discover the profound impact of choice on your well-being in this eye-opening episode. I share my personal journey, starting with a morning where a canceled call turned into a serene and productive start to my day. Through this experience, we explore how our responses to unexpected events can shape our overall experiences, emphasizing the power of mindfulness in simple actions—like savoring the aroma of freshly brewed coffee—to uplift our spirits.

By embracing the power of choice and self-trust, we can navigate life's challenges with a positive outlook. Hear about my journey toward intentional growth, shedding the need for external validation, and learning to trust myself. You too can find joy in small, everyday moments and recognize each experience as an opportunity for growth. We'll explore how every decision we make can lead to a more fulfilling life, and how recognizing that everything happens for our highest good can help us become the best versions of ourselves. Join us for an inspiring conversation on choosing happiness and responding positively to whatever life throws your way.

Chapters

• 0:00 Choosing How You Want to Feel
• 4:44 The Power of Choice and Self-Trust
• 14:29 Embracing Choice and Self-Trust

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:33

I woke up at 5 am this morning because I normally have a call at 6.30 every Monday morning. I woke up and laid in bed for a few minutes and took a few deep breaths and decided how do I want to feel today? I want to feel ease, I want to feel fun, I want to feel light and playful. And then I got up and I got in the shower. Of course I turned my music on and then I took in the smell of the shampoo and felt the water running on my hair and on my body and I was shaking my ass to the music. And then I got ready and was dancing while I was drying my hair and putting my makeup on. And then I came into my office, sat down and went to go get on my call and there was an email that said unfortunately, the call had to be rescheduled for the next day because the host wasn't feeling well. So there's two different ways that I could have handled that situation, because we always get to choose right situation. Because we always get to choose right. So I could have been really angry that I woke up extra early and frustrated that I had that time scheduled and what I had intended to do wasn't happening. Instead, my first response was oh my gosh, I hope she's okay and I hope she feels better. And then the next thought I had is oh, now I have some extra time this morning to maybe get something else done. So here we are we're having a conversation about choice, because every single day we get to choose, because every single day we get to choose, there's always things that are going to happen outside of you, that are out of your control, and every moment you're given an opportunity to choose how you're going to respond. So, had I chosen to be angry and frustrated, that wouldn't have felt very good. And the fact that she was prioritizing herself by taking that time that she needed, I love that for her and it's giving me an opportunity to hang out with you. So, choosing how you want to feel, how you want to respond to things, that's all within you. None of that is outside of you.

Speaker 1: 3:32

The other morning I went out to go make a cup of coffee and I had a dark colored mug that was like right in front and easy to grab and I like bent down, I have this cute little coffee bar set up in my kitchen. And then I looked around and I was like, oh well, first of all I wanted the purple mug, but it was dirty. So then I looked and I saw the yellow mug and I was like, well, first of all I wanted the purple mug, but it was dirty. So then I looked and I saw the yellow mug and I was like, oh, that's a happy mug, I'm going to use that today. And so then I took the mug and I put it in my under my Keurig and put the coffee in and hit brew. And then I just stood there and I smelled the coffee. I love the smell of coffee and I just took the moment in and was really present and it felt good to me. It didn't have anything to do with anything else other than I love the smell of coffee. I love the bright, happy mug, because those things make me feel good.

Speaker 1: 4:45

That's what being in the state of pure possibility is all about. It's really pausing and taking each of those micro moments and making a choice, because you get to choose. You get to choose what you want. It doesn't have to be all these big, massive things that are going on that can add a little bit of joy and pleasure into your day, as I'm sitting here having this conversation with you. The birds are outside and they're chirping and having a beautiful conversation. I have no idea what they're talking about, but I'm enjoying listening to them. It's about mindfulness and the awareness of what's going on around you, and we can look around and look at all the shit and all the bad things going on, but does it really hurt anything to see the beauty and the fun and take pleasure in the little moments in your day? And all of that is within you Every moment? You can pause and make that decision. The choice is always, always yours.

Speaker 1: 6:13

I've been doing some intentional growth work over the last several weeks. I'm always growing and learning, but this has been very intentional because I'm in a class right now and something that has come up for me is surrounding allowing other people in, and I know I've talked about how I used to look outside of myself for my happiness, and so then I've gone within, and I've gone within pretty deep, so I don't allow a lot of people to get really close to me. I obviously love to be of service to other people, but I don't share a lot of my own innermost thoughts and feelings. Apparently, I'm doing a better job of that now that I have a podcast. But it's been really interesting because I realized that I would look to other people not just for my happiness but for advice, and I had zero confidence in my decision-making skills. So if I ask other people for their opinion and their thoughts, if I listen to them, then I don't have to take personal responsibility if it doesn't work out. If whatever that decision is, if I can put that onto somebody else and not take that radical personal responsibility if it doesn't go the way I intend, then that lets me off the hook. So it occurred to me that not only would that let me off the hook, I could blame other people and I didn't have to take any personal responsibility for anything.

Speaker 1: 8:17

So how often are you making decisions in your life, looking to others to validate that decision? Because you don't trust yourself with your decision-making, or you're making decisions because of how you believe other people are going to think or feel or respond to whatever decision you're making in your life? I'm really looking for that approval as to not disrupt other people. What's the worst thing that happens? What's the worst that could happen if you make a decision about something and it doesn't work out the way you expect. Probably the worst thing that would happen is that you would gain an experience and learn something so that you could choose different next time. Everything that's happening in our lives is an experience or a lesson that is meant to help us grow and step into the version of us that we're meant to be.

Speaker 1: 9:31

So if I put that expectation on other people that they need to do things to make me happy and I put it on them to help me make my decisions, so that I can then blame them or hold them accountable for me making the wrong decision or not necessarily there's really no right and wrong, they're just decisions and then we learn and move on. But then I'm constantly looking outside of myself when I know deep down inside, everything is always happening for my highest good. Everything is always happening for my highest good, and even when I look back at decisions I've made, I guess that's the thing. So, okay, here's the real deal. I was writing out this whole thing about some things that had happened in my life and I ended up writing I don't trust myself and then, when I went back and read it again, I thought is that really true? Is that really true? So I then was able to come up with several reasons to completely disprove that.

Speaker 1: 10:59

So if you have a thought or a belief because a thought is just a belief, is just a thought that you keep having over and over and over again, right and question yourself, ask yourself is this really true? Is this always true, or are there times when it's not true? You don't have to believe everything that you think. It was just really fascinating to me to realize that one of the reasons that I don't open up to other people is because not only could I put that blame on them. The truth is, when I look to other people to validate my ideas or my decisions, then I would find that I was so easily influenced by what they had to say that I wasn't making my own decisions. I would take what they had to say and agree because I didn't trust myself, or I would make a decision based off of what they thought. But why on earth would I think that anybody would know what's best for me? I know what's best for me, and what if I actually believe that I know what's best for me? The most important relationship that you have is the one that you have with yourself, and if you don't trust yourself, do small things to start to gain that trust, or stop and ask yourself is this really true all the time? Because I was shocked when I reread that. I was like, well, that's not true. That's not true. That's not always true.

Speaker 1: 12:55

So today you get to choose. Today and every day, you get to choose. Get to choose how you're going to feel. You get to choose how you're going to respond. You get to choose what kind of day you want to have. You get to choose whether you're going to allow all this shit going on around you to throw you into a spiral. To throw you into a spiral. You can choose to listen to the birds. You can choose to pick the happy mug. You can choose to shake your ass. You can choose to find the things in your day that are gonna make you feel good. And when you're not feeling good, you can get up and move your body. Or sit in your chair and move your body or shift a thought to something that maybe feels just a little bit better. Or you can cry and you could scream. You could scream into a pillow, you could have a temper tantrum. You can do all those things and release those feelings and move forward.

Speaker 1: 14:00

When I came into my office, I lit a candle, I have flowers in here, I surround myself with things that make me feel good, and you can choose to do that too. It doesn't all have to be and you can choose to do that too. It doesn't all have to be shitty. If we look around and we're going to see what we're looking for, so if we're looking for the bad, the negative, the yuck, that's what we're going to see.

Speaker 1: 14:30

So choose. You get to choose, you get to choose. And I hope you choose to look for and allow yourself to see the things and take the control that you have in those little moments throughout your day to feel good and learn to trust yourself, even with the small decisions, because you will be okay no matter what. No matter what, everything is always happening in your highest good, even when it doesn't feel like it. In that moment, it's a lesson or an experience to help you move forward, to become the very, very best version of yourself. I hope you have a beautiful, beautiful day. Thank you so much for listening, much love.