by Ada Porat | Oct 23, 2017 | Cope with change, Decision-making, Fear and anxiety, Gratitude, Life transitions
In today’s world, change confronts us with major, life-defining crossroads more frequently than ever. For one person it may mean leaving a job that no longer works. For others, that life-defining moment is on a personal level: finding the courage to break free from addiction, leave a relationship or reclaim their health.
Facing life-defining crossroads as the captain of your own life can feel scary or intimating, but it need to be so. Crossroads represent more than disruption of the status quo: they are opportunities for our choices to determine long-term outcomes. The way we navigate them are critical: we can choose a path from a place of fear and survival, or we can choose from a place of faith and trust.
Whenever you encounter crossroads in your life, something deeper in you is being called forth and, once you answer that call, you know that life will never be the same. You can step to become a co-creator with the Divine, choosing a path that ultimately enriches your life.
When you first encounter a life-defining crossroads, you may be unsure about how to proceed. Inspired guidance has not yet come forth and you may feel as if you are lost between the past and the future. This stage offers you the opportunity to embrace the unknown rather than feeling afraid or stuck. How can you do this without going into fear?
It is helpful to remember that the experience of nothingness – the void of the unknown – is really the experience of pure potential. The place of non-material nothingness embodies pure, undifferentiated potential for a new reality to emerge in response to your intention, focus and faith. Instead of emptiness, this space contains the fullness of all possibilities. It offers you the opportunity create a new level of being for your soul to experience.
Facing the unfamiliar and unknown is actually a gift: it offers you a profound opportunity for conscious creation! Recognize that you are not at the whim of outside circumstances and random events here. This is an opportunity for you to attract optimal outcomes by using the timeless tools of co-creation: intention, alignment, trust and gratitude.
You can consciously guide and create events through your focused intention, which forms the core of any creative process. When you set your intention clearly and specifically, you signal to the energies out there to create a reality that resonates with what you hold in mind.
Next, you need to take responsibility for your feelings so that you are in emotional alignment with your intention, banishing any sense of fear, worry or doubt. Wherever your focus goes, energy flows. It is therefore essential to recognize any thoughts, feelings and emotions of fear, and to release these with compassion so your mind can be at peace – the true resting place of faith.
Finally, you have to let go of trying to control outcomes. Instead, present your desire or need to the Divine and then detach from it. Simply let go of all attachments and aversions related to the situation: both your attachment to the desired outcome and your fears of the alternative. Trust the Life Force to respond to your situation at the appropriate time and in the appropriate way.
Then, allow gratitude to fill your being: give thanks for Divine guidance, provision and support to flow into you with each breath you take. Let the Divine Presence which sustains your very being, surround and fill you with a deep sense of gratitude. This attitude of gratitude expands your perspective to recognize guidance, synchronicities and confirmation on your journey.
When you operate from this place of gratitude and trust, you will take inspired action rather than pushing to make things happen from a place of fear or control. You are indeed part of a dynamic feedback loop with Divinity; a co-creative relationship where you are holding space for answers to emerge through your intention, alignment, trust and gratitude.
Once you grasp the enormous potential inherent in this process, you will approach life’s crossroads as an opportunity to create optimal outcomes from the raw materials of faith. Co-creating with Divine inspiration, your mind can begin to grasp what it means to have all of time and space at your disposal.
Here are a few principles to keep in mind as you learn to become fearless in the field of all possibilities:
- Remain detached from both expectations and fears. Recognize that attachment breeds expectation and fear. Instead, focus on the Eternal Source of your supply and keep your focus on that Divine Source rather than on circumstances.
- Keep your perspective on the present moment. When we focus on the future, we feed fear and anxiety; when we focus on the past, we feed guilt, blame and regret. In the present moment, there is always enough grace to meet your need, no matter how overwhelming the circumstances. By staying focused on the present, you stay open to all the possibilities.
- Adapt quickly to mistakes. Rather than turning a setback into some judgment about yourself, the situation or somebody else, simply acknowledge your feelings of disappointment and take note of what you have learned from it. Then renew the process of detachment, surrender and trust so you can return to your ultimate resting place of peace.
- Be alert to tiny signals – major turning points of life often arrive as small signals at first. Learn to see and interpret the metaphors through which life speaks to you.
- Cultivate a healthy, balanced connection between your soul and body. You will be most effective at decision-making when you remain aware of your spiritual core guiding you through the physical challenges of life, rather than trying to disassociate from either aspect.
- Stay flexible in your understanding and embrace ambiguity. Transformation is sometimes a messy process. Flexibility makes it easier to release unrealistic expectations when they prove untenable.
- Be patient. You are a spiritual being that exists in eternity; don’t let human expectations and timelines rob you of peace. Surrender every fear, doubt, anxiety or worry as it surfaces, so you can hold a space of clear intention and trust the perfect unfolding of Divine order.
- Take excellent care of yourself. Nurture yourself with healthy food, exercise and rest so you can have the physical resilience and stamina to realize optimal outcomes.
- Allow your core values to guide your decisions. When your choices, actions and behaviors are aligned with your values, you won’t need to second-guess yourself.
- Honor healthy boundaries. Learn that “no” can be a complete sentence. It’s a healthy and necessary way to address external demands at a time when you need time and space to figure out major life decisions.
- Be discerning about the company you keep. During times of change, it is important to receive validation from people whose view of reality matches your own. Such encouragement supports your process of learning to trust your own inner guidance, whereas negative people deplete your energy.
- Take time for meditation or contemplation. This practice will help you stay centered and at peace. It is also a powerful way to re-connect to Divine inspiration and fuel for your soul.
Together, these principles can help you fearlessly face the unknown and embrace new possibilities. The cross-roads of your life can become a life-changing opportunity!
About the Author
©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit https://adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.
by Ada Porat | Oct 20, 2016 | Gratitude, Healthy boundaries
Human beings are strange and miraculous creatures. From our first moment in life we hurtle toward uniqueness and individuation. We seek it out individuation at all cost, yet this sense of individuation comes at a price: for every door we step through, any number of others are closed. We become who we are at the expense of who we are not.
Recognizing there is a cost to every path we choose and coming to terms with that, is not easy. Before we reach acceptance, we often resent the circumstances of our lives; we resist the limitations on our path and focus on what is lacking. We define ourselves by what we are not, and this leads to envy, resentment, anger and bitterness.
Once we accept the process and price of individuation, we can turn toward gratitude instead. We give thanks for the miracle of life and all it has brought us. We are humbled by blessings and double our efforts to build upon it, using our lives as vehicles to enrich the tapestry of humanity.
We learn to accept our brilliance with humility and to forgive our shortcomings with grace. We learn to respect our dreams, acknowledge our fears and measure ourselves against a simple standard: how we conduct ourselves to leave a living legacy for generations that will follow. Instead of envying what others have, we celebrate in them the gifts and blessings not present in ourselves, because we know their unique gifts are not threats to be envied, but gifts that offer wholeness and diversity to our world.
At times, we may look back and think our lives have turned out to be less than we dreamed of. We may even stumble or fall along life’s path. This is not a crime. The crime is in refusing to get up and continue, or failing to embrace others who have fallen in their own way.
We will probably never be as good or worthy as we wish to be. Yet if we can forgive ourselves for our failures, we find grace to forgive others theirs. Ultimately, it sets us free to make the most with what we have.
When I think of the life I have been blessed with, I am humbled beyond words. I could never have imagined this life at the start. Its unique unfolding is a miracle, a treasure of unexpected grace. Though I am not what I once thought I should be, I am more than I might have hoped for. The landscape of my life fills me with immense gratitude.
Today, I know that I will never be a wealthy philanthropist who can eradicate poverty and disease on a national scale, or a mother surrounded by extended family, or even a mystic leading a life of pure spiritual consciousness unencumbered by the cares of the world.
But I do know that I am blessed. I am privileged to touch and transform many lives one by one; my path allows me to offer nurturing and love to all my relations, human or otherwise; and I get to walk between the worlds of spirit and earth, nature and society, where I can help restore health, harmony and hope.
I am honored to play a part in healing the world we live in by making the most of the gifts and opportunities I do have. It is my way of giving thanks for the miracle of life.
About the author
©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit https://adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.
by Ada Porat | Jan 27, 2016 | Conscious living, Gratitude, Mindfulness
One of the most common yearnings expressed by individuals in the West, is the desire for happiness. The founding fathers of the United States declared that the American people have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And pursue it we have!
Hollywood advocates that that we will find happiness when we are rich enough, find true love, or encounter some magical event. We are conditioned to look for happiness somewhere else: in the future, in someone else, or in some outside situation.
Question is: how well has it served us?
When we look at the sky-rocketing levels of addiction, breakup, depression and unhappiness that run rampant in this society despite it being one of the most affluent in the world, it is clear that chasing after happiness outside ourselves, does not work.
You see, happiness is not out there; it is an inside job. And that means that you and I have the power to be happy right now, right where we are. If we are unhappy, perhaps it is time to take a look at the nature of happiness so we can stop dreaming about it and take practical steps to become happier. Yes, happiness is not something we stumble upon; it is something we create, something we become.
Researchers have found that we do not need to always get what we want in order to be happy. We can be just as happy if we don’t get what we want, as we’d be if we do actually get what we want.
In fact, we can manufacture our own happiness – and if we desire happiness, it is essential that we learn how to do this.
Researchers distinguish between two kinds of happiness: natural and synthetic happiness. Researcher Dan Gilbert defines them this way: “Natural happiness is what we get when we get what we wanted, and synthetic happiness is what we make when we don’t get what we wanted.”
Natural or spontaneous happiness is what we experience when things are going our way and fortune smiles on us. This is the kind we are most familiar with, but it is also fleeting, unreliable and intermittent.
Synthesized or manufactured happiness is the kind of happiness we create when we change the way we look at things; the happiness we synthesize when we learn to make lemonade from the lemons in our lives, and it is every bit as real as spontaneous happiness.
In fact, when we fixate on finding spontaneous happiness, we miss the opportunity to manufacture happiness with what is already in our lives, and we become miserable!
A good example would be looking at how the two types of happiness interact in relationship. In dating, we look to find what we want; in marriage, we need to find a way to like what we’ve gotten!
New relationships are marked by spontaneous happiness; whereas the challenge of marriage is to learn how to synthesize happiness with the person and situation we have chosen. Chasing after the next fleeting experience of spontaneous happiness won’t last; it is the process of manufacturing happiness within the constraints of our situation that brings lasting fulfillment and joy. Ironically, this process of synthesizing happiness works best when we are totally stuck or trapped!
Synthetic happiness acts like our psychological immune system. It works to keep us happy. In his book, Stumbling upon Happiness, author Dan Gilbert describes it as a system of cognitive processes, largely non-conscious, that help us change our views of situations so we can feel better about the situations we find ourselves in.
Author Wayne Dyer put it another way when he said, “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at, change.”
Our brains are notoriously bad at predicting our happiness. Experiments have repeatedly shown that we overestimate both anticipated pleasure and pain. Our prefrontal cortex simulates that getting something we want, is more important than it really is – it exaggerates the impact of events on our happiness, whether positive or negative.
For example, we overestimate that winning the lottery will increase our happiness or that losing the use of financial security or becoming a paraplegic will completely ruin us. In reality, individuals test at similar levels of happiness one year after winning lottery or becoming a paraplegic. In other words, both our desires and worries are overblown.
We can manufacture our own happiness from within – right now, with where we are and what we have. When we learn to synthesize happiness from within, the very events and outcomes we dread, can turn into new opportunities for happiness.
Studies further indicate that freedom and choice can negatively impact our happiness. When we have choices, we worry about opportunities lost. Think about that the next time you are in the grocery aisle trying to select a product!
Freedom is the enemy of synthetic happiness. While freedom can bring about spontaneous happiness when it offers what we want, it robs us of the opportunity to synthesize happiness. You see, we only learn to like what we have when we have no choice! It is when we are feeling stuck that we have the opportunity to create happiness from within by learning to appreciate what we do have.
Most of us tend to have a basic level of happiness that we revert to. Not everybody ascribes to the “bullying cheerfulness” of false happiness, as physician Andrew Weil describes the prevalent cult of happiness in America.
In his book, Spontaneous Happiness, Weil says that there is an inverse relationship between affluence and contentment: The more we have, the less contented we seem to be. In America, the cultural expectation that we’re to be happy all the time and our children should be happy all the time is toxic, and it gets in the way of true emotional well-being.
Mahatma Ghandi perhaps put it best when he said: “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
Genuine happiness comes from within, and is synthesized by a lifestyle that integrates personal values, gratitude, laughter and forgiveness. In the long run, these qualities allow us to synthesize happiness as an enduring form of contentment and serenity, independent of external circumstance.
About the author
©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit https://adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.
by Ada Porat | Sep 23, 2015 | Abundance, Conscious living, Cope with change, Gratitude, Life transitions, Mindfulness, Self-awareness, Spirituality
Ask anyone in the Western world how they define abundance, and you are likely to hear them talk about material riches and prosperity. And yet, true abundance is so much more!
The definition of an abundant life cannot be satisfied by the presence of material things alone. Jesus knew this when he said that man shall not live by bread alone, but by the living Word or Spirit. He challenged the common assumptions of his time by pointing out that true abundance cannot be confined to merely physical terms.
The common, limited assumption of abundance as a merely physical notion prevails even today. To find lasting fulfillment in life, it is essential for us to question and redefine such limiting social beliefs. We need to understand that true abundance applies at the levels of body, mind and spirit.
In my work, I am blessed to see the power of questioning assumptions every day. Once we become aware of limiting beliefs and behaviors, we can change them. Along the way, we learn to look deeper instead of blindly repeating the same old habits to getting the same old outcomes. By identifying the hidden determinants of our behavior, our lives often shift spontaneously!
One of the primary areas where limitation shows up is in our relationship to abundance – or its opposite, scarcity. In an era of unprecedented abundance in the western world, many still struggle with feeling that there is not enough: not enough to feel complete, not enough to feel safe or secure. We keep accumulating material things that cannot fill the deep emptiness inside our souls.
During feudal times, all wealth was tied to land ownership and material prosperity was a zero-sum game. Abundance was defined by material belongings because there was only so much land, and only so many people could own it. Land owners could build fortresses and tax travelers passing across their property, leading to more wealth. This system led to separation between those who owned land and those who didn’t, the haves and the have-nots.
This belief system is still active as a powerful undercurrent in modern society. With each economic cycle, millions of individuals over-extend themselves to acquire physical assets and wealth during economic booms, only to find their fortunes evaporate when the boom turns into a bust. In some societies, cycles of war and civil unrest strip people of all forms of physical security they may have painstakingly amassed over generations.
But does the loss of physical assets really make you a loser? And does the presence of physical assets alone define you as a winner?
Enlightened teachers like Jesus and the Buddha taught that true abundance is not based on physical assets alone. They proposed that true abundance includes qualities such as integrity, honesty, service, and loving kindness to all forms of life. These teachings pointed to a higher and necessary concept of abundance that still eludes general consensus today.
Talk to people around you and you’ll find many adhering to the outdated belief of measuring abundance by material displays of wealth. Besides that, you’ll find the limiting notion of having to compete against others to secure these limited resources for survival.
Western society is predicated on this outdated assumption that there’s only so much to go around, and that we need to compete with others for these resources on a basis of win/lose. I have to get mine first before you can get yours or the limited supply runs out (think black Friday shopping mobs!)… if you win, I will lose… and on we go, pitting our limiting beliefs against others in an effort to survive. We expand scarcity consciousness to every facet of life: believing that for my faith to be right, yours has to be wrong; for my political party to win, I have to sling mud and make yours look bad; and so on.
If I believe you must lose in order for me to win, or that you must be shamed so I can have value, or that you must be wrong for me to be vindicated, or you must be suppressed for me to feel free, then my sense of happiness becomes dependent on your lack thereof. My experience of life becomes fragmented into opposites, and I end up suffering estrangement from my fellow humans and my true nature. A life lived from such outdated beliefs offers very limited love, serenity and security.
Many forms of duality-based limitations such as these cause untold suffering in the world. Turn to the news and you will find numerous examples of this scarcity-based thinking in us versus them propaganda, xenophobia, social upheaval and marginalization that pervades society.
The Buddha taught his disciples to free themselves from the vice of duality-thinking; to liberate themselves from the opposites of desire and aversion which propel the cycles of scarcity and suffering. It is only when we let go of this misguided struggle for a bit of material security at the cost of happiness, that we are able to poise our minds in peace.
How do we uncouple from the vicious cycle of chasing after material security and finding scarcity instead?
The power lies in our thoughts. Our thoughts contain the seed forms of potential; making change possible in our consciousness, our belief systems and our world.
Physical reality manifests from our imagination and ideas about how things are. As humans, we are gifted with the ability to change the way we think, and hence create different outcomes. We can change the way we look at things and thereby change the outcomes!
Instead of seeing the world as a physical pie and ourselves competing against others for a slice of it, we can consciously change our view. Perhaps it is time to recognize that energy is never destroyed; it simply changes form. We can expand our definition of true abundance to include all its myriad forms: the material as well as the mental, emotional, psychological and spiritual. And perhaps we need to acknowledge that there is enough for all of us, and then share our resources from that perspective.
Changing old mindsets for more appropriate ones may not be as clean or predictable as we’d like. Evolution is messy and uncertain. A clear outcome is not always apparent. To the minds of westerners who like control, reliability and certainty, this can be nerve-wracking. Yet, the alternative is to allow greed to destroy balance in our world and to render humanity extinct.
Times of change call us to trust on a grand level. We need to trust in our Source, ourselves and each other as we redefine true abundance. When we do so, times of upheaval can give birth to new paradigms that better fit our needs.
About the author
©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit https://adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.
by Ada Porat | Sep 30, 2014 | Change bad habits, Conscious living, Cope with change, Fear and anxiety, Gratitude, Life transitions, Mindfulness
Is it just me, or does life seem to be happening at a faster clip these days? At times, if feels as if we live our lives like passengers on a runaway train, distracting ourselves with small details while the outer landscape whizzes by at dizzying speed.
The frenetic pace of life is one reason why meditation – stilling the mind – is so necessary to ensure a less nauseating ride. It sometimes feels as if we’re witnessing a collision between the world we wish to live in, and the world that actually surrounds us. We may find ourselves stuck at critical junctions, faced with major decision points that we are not prepared for.
We may not even know what questions to ask when things go wrong, let alone how to navigate past the challenges.
How do we navigate thru all of it? Where is the delicate balance between setting intention, holding on to the dream, and surrendering attachment to the outcome? One thing is certain: holding on too tightly can make for a bumpy ride!
We may do all the necessary groundwork to prepare for a successful journey, and it may still not be enough. We may even feel all calm and confident, interpreting the signs along the way as confirmation of being guided by a Divine Hand until BAM! Something completely unexpected, inconvenient and even painful happens! How do we deal with this?
Let me give you an example. I’ve been involved in a minor building project (also known as a brilliantly disguised life lesson) that has escalated and morphed into a major undertaking for the past five months. The experience has stretched me far beyond my comfort level in many areas.
And I’m not talking about the minor inconvenience of noise and dust here… I’ve had a crash course in being a general contractor on a building project without any prior experience and dealing with the daily headaches of back-ordered materials, wrong deliveries, construction setbacks, inclement weather and work schedules, all while trying my level best to juggle these demands with the intense requirements of counseling and coaching in two locations.
Last weekend, the end of the project finally emerged within view – after three weeks of waiting in limbo, the manufacturer shipped the roofing material. I could almost taste the final stretch – and to celebrate completion of the project, I made plans. Yes, I’d worked intensely hard for months and finally, I was going to play for a whole weekend… I was going to sleep, rest, relax, catch up with some friends, read, sit on the deck and watch the sun set. I was so ready for a break!
Until life intervened.
Of course, in all my planning, I forgot about the Yiddish proverb that says: “Der mentsh tracht und Gott lacht” – indeed, humans plan and God laughs.
The roofing materials were delayed by another week. And then Hurricane Odile hit.
Now, I am very blessed that the eye of the hurricane did not pass over my home and destroy it; the weather system simply dumped buckets of rain across Arizona as it moved northeast. Once the rains started, it kept coming down in torrents. Parts of the state flooded as record-breaking rains pelted down, and flash flood warnings were issued statewide.
I listened to the rain pelting down on the unfinished roof, soaking through the temporary particle board and dripping onto the floors… the leaks turning into trickles of water that became steady rivulets… and still it kept on raining. There was nothing I could do but watch. The pouring rains steadily washed away my best plans for a well-deserved weekend of rest, replacing them with assessment for recovery and damage control.
I took some deep breaths… From experience, I knew that the question we tend to ask first is typically the wrong one: “Why? Why me? Why this? Why now?”
There is a better question to ask and I knew it, too. “How could this be useful? How could I best learn and grow from this?”
The answer lay in surrendering to what is, not resisting it. The roof was leaking, the rains were here to stay for days and there was nothing I could do about it, except surrender to what is. I could choose to resist and experience more struggle, or I could surrender to what is and trust in Unseen Hands lovingly watching over me… even in this situation.
As soon as I released the urge to struggle, I felt myself relaxing. In the midst of the chaotic, messy, half-finished project around me, I felt a sense of peace breaking through to replace the denser emotions of worry, fear, anxiety, frustration, and overwhelm. Even though I was faced with the inconvenient truth that the situation was not going to miraculously change, I felt calm and at peace. There was no need to struggle against anything; there was simply the awareness of what is.
Sometimes, life slaps us sideways despite our most sincere efforts at doing our part. As much as we’d like to believe we are in control, we are not omnipotent and circumstances have a way of showing us that. The unexpected happens, life interrupts our flow, and our best laid plans go wrong!
At times like these, it is important to remember that we still have a choice. We can choose to struggle or to surrender; we can choose to focus on what went wrong or we can celebrate what is going right. We don’t need to figure out the why; we simply need to master the how.
©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit https://adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.
by Ada Porat | Apr 22, 2014 | Abundance, Conscious living, Gratitude, Life coaching, Spirituality
Everyone in the world wants to be happy; and yet everyone suffers in some way. People the world over eagerly search for happiness as if it were a highly treasured secret.
The search for happiness has led many to explore religion, because all wisdom traditions teach that virtue is a precondition of happiness. Virtue may be defined differently by various traditions, yet the search for it invariably calls the seeker to personal introspection and self-honesty.
Times of social upheaval often serve as a catalyst to ignite this individual search for meaning and happiness. It is when the known certainties of our lives crumble, that we start looking for deeper answers. We may embark on this journey to find meaning in the death of a loved one, mourn the loss of a job or relationship, or survive the turmoil of financial instability.
Seekers often believe that the source of meaning and happiness lie outside themselves. They may seek for it in words, books or teachings from those who have been anointed by modern society as the guardians of spiritual truth.
Buddhism takes a contrasting view: it teaches that true knowledge and meaning cannot be found in any outside power or agency. Instead, it is found in the deep knowledge of truth that resides within each of us, even when we try to hide from ourselves.
Why would we want to hide from our inner truth, you may ask? Because we do not want to see our flaws, faults, weaknesses, and excesses. We fear that they’d make us feel too vulnerable and guilty. We are ashamed to admit to ourselves that some of the things we want are forbidden, illegal, unethical, or fattening.
We also hide from inner truth because we are afraid to face our fears. Although we may appear to be self-confident, we are all vulnerable to failure, defeat, humiliation, loss, pain, and death. We fear these things and so we repress those fears. And so we struggle to repress the truths within that we are not able to face, until it seeps through our defenses to haunt us in nightmares, anxieties and everyday worries.
This unwillingness to see things as they are, is the primary obstacle to happiness. It is the chief cause of our self-inflicted suffering; a form of self-denial that the Buddha called ignorance.
If ignorance is the underlying cause of our self-inflicted suffering, then awareness is the remedy. The keys to the kingdom of happiness lie in becoming self-aware. True self-awareness enables us to change the things we can, to accept the things we cannot change, and to know the difference.
Self-awareness can be cultivated through meditation, introspection and reflection. It requires us to witness our inner state of being without reacting to it. The very act of honest self-observation gives us the necessary insight to change our habitual patterns of thought and action.
When we embark on the journey within, we learn to access the truth that offers true happiness. As we come to understand our own resistance to truth, we learn how to transform it. We learn how to change our habits of negative thinking, repressed emotions, and fear-based action into courageous openness, honest awareness, and joyous equanimity. We learn to accept and relax into existence as it is, rather than to anxiously reject and fight it.
We begin to see how we, ourselves, are the primary cause of our own sorrow. And we come to understand that we can also choose to be the cause of our own release and happiness. We learn to find harmony between our inner being and our outer environment, so that peace and happiness flow.
This process of diligent and honest introspection has the potential to radically change our lives from within and restore a true sense of happiness.
©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.
