Living the Life you Love III

When Kaitlyn asked guest bloggers to write a post on “Living the Life you Love”, it occurred to me that while I’m not necessarily living the life I love, I am loving the life I live.

Loving everyday life, complete with work, chores, traffic and all the other myriad of annoyances isn’t necessarily something that comes naturally.  It is easy to love a special dinner, or a holiday, but how do you love a life where 95% of the time it is more about doing the washing and putting the garbage out?  I’m lucky enough to be a happy, cheerful, optimistic person, but I’ve had some tough times and I’m well aware how easy it is to become bogged down by the mundane and difficult aspects of life.

Over the past decade, I’ve learned a lot about myself but the key realisation has been that I am responsible for my life and that I can choose to be happy.

I was a bit of a failure at being a teenager.  In years when I should have been partying, having my first boyfriends, developing as an independent person, I was studying, reading, hanging out with my (admittedly awesome) parents, generally living in my own head.  As I moved into adulthood I continued that way, waiting for life to start, imagining the brilliant things that could be happening.  I had a fabulous life in my head but a pretty boring one in reality.

It never quite occurred to me that I needed to do something to get that fabulous life.  Even as an intelligent woman, I assumed a great life would just happen by itself.  Prince Charming would swoop in and sweep me off my feet (luckily being able to find me in my bedroom) and other people would instruct me how to live a full, exciting life.  I was mired in a comfort zone, where I felt safe, but not particularly happy and definitely not fulfilled.

There were two great turning points in my life and both of them were active decisions that I made. I had wanted to dance pretty much my whole life but somehow had always found reasons not to.  Finally, I decided to do it and it changed my life.  Dancing made me fit and strong.  It improved my confidence, my posture and my social life, as I discovered some of the most amazing friendships I could imagine.  It made me happy.  Even at my saddest, I cannot be sad on a dance floor.  But most importantly it made me realise if I wanted something in my life, I had to take the steps necessary to make it happen.

The second came after one of those days where I just felt happy for no reason.  It was a normal work day and yet I floated through it in a bubble of happiness the way you sometimes do.  As I drove home that night I wanted the feeling to last, so I made a commitment to pay more attention to the ‘good’ stuff.  As with dancing, I made an active decision to focus on happy things. To document them, I started my blog.  Every day for a year I found a happy moment to write about.  It wasn’t an easy year; I got very sick, had work issues, and a close family friend was diagnosed with and died of cancer.  But even on the worst, sickest, saddest day, there was something good and noticing it made all the difference.  To this day, I seek out good things, and I pay attention to them, so that I can blog about it later.

None of us get sunshine and roses every day.  I don’t claim to be perpetually happy – there is many a day when tears are shed or I just feel down.  But what I have created for myself is a life where those days are the slim minority and where happiness is my focus.

For me, learning to love the life I live has been about learning to spot the ray of light that makes it through the clouds and focusing on it instead of the gloom.  There is light and happiness in every day, it is up to us to find it.

To read more of Lisa's blog (Which is very fabulous indeed!) visit:

 http://blithemoments.blogspot.com/

Living the Life you Love II

I'm still on holiday for another two weeks. Today's guest post is from a fellow adventure traveller. She moved from Australia to Germany and keeps a brilliant blog about the experience. 

To Discover Your True Self Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone

Comfort zones are called comfort zones because they are precisely that.  When you are in your comfort zone, you know the lay of the land, you don't have to concerntrate on much and you fit into the well worn grooves of your life.  It is comforting and whilst comfort zones are important places to have to allow us to rest and recharge if your whole life is one big fluffy comfort zone, you are stifling your personal growth.

To find out who you truly are and what you are capable of, you have to throw off the comfy comfort zone and go and explore uncharted lands.  This can be doing something you have always wanted to do, but were afraid to do so, like taking a drama class or joining a choir or taking a cooking class.  Or if you are insane like me, this means moving your entire life to a foreign country where you can't speak the language and don't know a single soul.

When I moved to Germany, almost 2 years ago I had just a suitcase and a job offer and only knew how to say Hello, Thank you and Goodbye in German.  I was thrown way out of my comfort zone and into a strange foreign land and I had only myself to rely on.  If I wanted to buy groceries, find out where to buy train tickets or navigate the tricky land of German health insurance, then I had to do it myself.  Of course I had help from friends, but I had to build those support networks from scratch.  Those early months were some of the toughest in my life, but through them I found out just how capable I was.  I was able to throw out parts of my personality I didn't like and cultivate the parts I did like.  I had no one around telling me who I should be or reminding me of who I was. However, if I stuck to what I was like in my comfort zone, I would probably still be sitting in a small studio apartment not knowing a single soul, instead of having a wide range of friends, both German and expat and having the time of my life.

Of course, not everyone is going to get such a life changing experience that will allow them to basically reinvent themselves.  However, you can stretch yourself and test your limits by getting out of your comfort zone.  By doing something you have previously been afraid to do, you find out just what you are capable of.  By joining a new social group based on a common interest, you get to explore part of yourself you might have kept hidden through fear of ridicule or people expecting you to act a certain way.  Also, you never know who you might meet and what impact they will have on your life.  One of my mottos is that you can never have too many friends and you never know if the next person you meet will be someone who will change your life for the better.

Get out of your comfort zone.  Explore your city like you are a new arrival rather than a long-term resident.  Gather up all your courage and do something new, because you won't find out who you truly are whilst sitting on the couch. 

For more brilliant writing from an exPat Aussie, visit: 

http://geekmadel.com/

Living the Life you Love I

I'm off on holiday, seeing my family and catching up with all things Canadian. I didn't want to neglect my wonderful readers though so I've collected some fantastic guest entries from fellow-bloggers.

St. Andrews Lynx describes herself as an 'International Chemist and Adventurer'. I discovered her blog some months ago and find much of her writing to be reflective of my own beliefs and values. She's an awesome-sauce blogger and today's guest entry is from her:

I know I’m taking my life in the right direction. I know this because I wake up every morning wanting to get out of bed. I never need to hit “Snooze” on my alarm clock, however early I need to be awake or how sleepy I am. Life for me is something I want to go out and experience, ups and downs. 

For me it isn’t about the specifics – job, location, personal circumstances – as much as attitude and philosophy, how we deal with the not-so-great bits. Here’s a collection my attitudes that shape my life:   

• Wide-lens view. Do you believe everything happens for a reason? Can you see the positive in everything? Is life a series of lessons learnt or a series of traps trying to break you? If they have their own way, difficulties do all they can to fixate and drag us down.  Being able to look at challenges in a positive light helps break their hold on us.
• Look for the beauty. There’s beauty in everyone, in everything and in every day.  Look for it. Life is beautiful. If you can stop and admire a gorgeous sunset at the end of a long and tiring day then life isn’t too bad. 
• The key to happiness is a sense of humour. My sense of humour is one of my most valued possessions. Life without it would be very dark. Not only would I be unable to see the funny side of challenges, I would lack the means to express complex or difficult feelings.  For me humour isn’t about trivialising events – it is about processing and communicating them. 
• Control the small things and the bigger pieces will follow. After going through a rough patch where multiple issues collided (work, education, personal), I decided to start the recovery…by drinking more tea. It really helped.  Taking 10 minutes to relax with a cup of tea gives me time away from my problems; helps me de-stress and reminds me of just how wonderful life with tea is. Of course, in a vacuum won’t solve my problems, but as a small and seemingly unrelated change it helped me more than I expected. 
• Control the big things that you can. I can’t control everything in my life. I believe in taking responsibility for and controlling what I can.  I accept responsibility when I make mistakes; I make pro-active decisions about the future of my work, my education and my life direction.  Thus I become my own person leading my own life – not a person endlessly subjected to and defined by the fates.  

http://standrewslynx.wordpress.com/