Breathe, Smile, Create Happiness

Just smiling goes a long way toward making you feel better about life.
And when you feel better about life, your life is better.
- Art Linkletter

First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen?
Then prepare to accept it.
Then proceed to improve on the worst.
- Dale Carnegie

The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive.
The great opportunity is where you are.
- John Burroughs

Smile and the world smiles with you.
- Anonymous

Peace begins with a smile.
- Mother Teresa

Always do the best you can,
and everything else will take care of itself.
Focus your energies on doing what you can
rather than worrying about what you can't.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

A smile that begins as an effort and a pretense quickly grows to become genuine,
and given time, a habit of happiness. In the words of Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, "Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

Inner Smile Exercise:
1. Breath slowly, deeply, and consciously.
2. Close your eyes and set the corners of your mouth in just the slightest smile.
3. Visualize your smile growing larger and larger, and your happiness increasing.

Today's affirmation:
Every day in every way I am getting better and better.
- Émile Coué

Further reading: Ten Little Tips to Feel Happier Right Now

No Regrets

Beyond Your Worries
   

Creating Peace Takes EFFORT - Peace is NOT the Default State of the World

No one can find inner peace except by working,
not in a self-centered way, but for the whole human family.
- Peace Pilgrim

Let there be peace on earth.
And let it begin with me.
- Jill Jackson Miller

Stop! Breathe deeply.
Begin bringing peace to the outer world
by regaining your own inner peace.
Choose love, choose gratitude,
choose forgiveness, choose peace.
Begin with your own inner peace.
Then use that inner peace
as a platform from which
to approach the outer world
with perspective, understanding, and patience.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If you wish to experience peace, provide peace for another.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

Further reading: Peace IS the Way

Do God's Work

End Hatred

No War
      

Fully Experience THIS Moment

Fully experience THIS moment -
breathe in, breathe out - nothing more.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious
privilege it is to be alive -
to breathe,
to think, to enjoy, to love.
- Marcus Aurelius

Be Here Now
- Ram Dass

He who can give thanks for little
will always find he has enough.
- Anonymous

Further reading: Nurture Yourself Today

Give Thanks

Gratitude and Life

Be Fully Present in TODAY
     

Try the Inner Smile Exercise

 

Although it is always better to live with conviction and enthusiasm,
some days it is better just to go through the motions than to do nothing.
Smile even when you feel grumpy.
Meditate or Pray even when you have nothing to say to God.
Cook a healthy meal even when you are tired.
Walk or exercise even when the thought doesn't excite you.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Act the way you'd like to be
and soon you'll be the way you act.
- Leonard Cohen

Repeat anything often enough
and it will start to become you.
- Tom Hopkins

A smile that begins as an effort and a pretense
quickly grows to become genuine,
and given time, a habit of happiness.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile,
but sometimes your smile
can be the source of your joy.
- Thich Nhat Hanh

Inner Smile Exercise:
1. Close your eyes.
2. Breath slowly, deeply, and consciously.
3. Set the corners of your mouth in just the slightest smile.
4. Visualize your smile growing larger and larger, and your happiness increasing.

Further reading: Ten Little Tips to Feel Happier Right Now

Choose Your Habits, Choose Your Life

Grin your smile; giggle your laugh; unfurl your joy

Practice makes perfect - sometimes 

Tending the Garden of Our Lives

Overcome Being Negative
     

Let go of the need for approval

 

Move to your heart, Breathe.
Close your eyes and breathe deeply - slowly -
fill your lungs with love and gratitude -
exhale each and every trouble -
again and again - gratitude in, troubles out.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Inhale, and God approaches you.
Hold the inhalation, and God remains with you.
Exhale, and you approach God.
Hold the exhalation, and surrender to God.
- Krishnamacharya

The moment you start seeing life
as non-serious, a playfulness,
all the burden on your heart disappears.
All the fear of death, of life,
of love - everything disappears.
- Osho

Breath by breath, let go of fear, expectation, anger,
regret, cravings, frustration, fatigue.
Let go of the need for approval.
- Lama Surya Das

Today's affirmation:
Slowly and Deeply, I Inhale a Calming Breath.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Breathe In, Breathe Out

Breathe deeply and rejoice

Feel Your Connection With the Infinite - a Meditation

Conscious Breathing to Relieve Stress
   

Free Your Mind, Become Centered

 

Breathe deeply and slowly.
Let yourself become centered - shut out all distractions.
Breathe out your worries; empty your body of regrets and resentments.
Breathe in eternal peace; let your body fill with unconditional love.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Breathe; let go; relax; forgive.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

A mind at peace, a mind centered and not focused on harming others,
is stronger than any physical force in the universe.
- Wayne Dyer

Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free.
Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing.
- Zhuangzi

Further reading: Conscious Breathing to Relieve Stress

Forgiveness: Path to Inner Peace

Breath by Breath

Gratitude for THIS Moment
   

Savor Some Quiet Moments Today

 

Pause to smell the roses, to breathe, to take a quiet moment for yourself.
Let today be a day to remember that you get to CHOOSE how you spend your time.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The quieter you become,
the more you can hear.
- Ram Dass

Listen or your tongue will keep you deaf.
- Native American Proverb

There is more to life than increasing its speed.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Spend time every day listening to what your muse is trying to tell you.
- Saint Bartholomew

In prayerful silence you must look into your own heart.
No one can tell you better than yourself what comes between you and God.
Ask yourself.
Then listen!
- Johannes Tauler

Create Some Quiet Time Today.

Further reading: God is Found in Silence

The Beat of the Universe

The Quiet Voice of Courage

Your Intuition is Your Guide

Quiet Time
   

Choose Inner Peace

 

The world has always been in an uproar, and it always will be.
Choose Peace. Choose to live with Peace.
Choose to interact peacefully with everyone -
especially those whose instinct is not to be peaceful.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

You are precisely as big as what you love and precisely
as small as what you allow to annoy you.
- Robert Anton Wilson

You may not seem able to change some outer circumstances
but you can start by changing your inner experience of life and yourself.
- Joy Page

Choose Inner Peace.
Nothing is worth losing your inner peace.
Take action as circumstances require,
but never surrender your inner peace.
Stop. Breathe deeply.
Close your eyes and breathe deeply again.
Then, and only then, take action -
from a peaceful heart.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We can never obtain peace in the outer world
until we make peace with ourselves.
- Dalai Lama

Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit.
Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever,
even if your whole world seems upset.
- Saint Francis de Sales

Further reading: Have Gratitude for THIS Moment

Slow Down and Focus

Focus on Peace

Kick Back
    

Trust in the Power of the Light

 

Exercise: Write your most worrisome trouble on a piece of paper and feed it to the fire. Send your troubles up in smoke. Breathe deeply and rejoice.

Trust in the Light.
Darkness is not a force -
it is merely the absence of light.
Observe that when a light is brought to a dark place,
the darkness disappears.
Sadness is similar -
when joy is brought to suffering, the sadness disappears.
Open yourself to the Light!
Hold back nothing, Trust in the Light.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

All the darkness of the world cannot
extinguish the light of a single candle,
yet one candle can illuminate all the darkness.
- Jewish Hanukah Prayer

I will gather myself around my faith,
for light does the darkness most fear.
- Jewel

Further reading: Feel Your Connection With the Infinite - a Meditation

A Light from Within

Radiate Light and Love
   

We are all one - the web of life

 

All things share the same breath -
the beast, the tree, the man...
the air shares its spirit
with all the life it supports.
- Attributed to Chief Seattle
but actually written in 1972 by screenwriter Ted Perry

Let children walk with Nature,
let them see the beautiful blendings
and communions of death and life,
their joyous inseparable unity,
as taught in woods and meadows,
plains and mountains and streams
of our blessed star,
and they will learn that death
is stingless indeed,
and as beautiful as life.
- John Muir

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
- William Shakespeare

When we try to pick out anything by itself,
we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.
- John Muir

We are all one - the web of life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Natural Web

All Life

All Brothers and Sisters

Unity with Spirit and All Creation
     

Smile

 

Just smiling goes a long way toward making you feel better about life.
And when you feel better about life, your life is better.
- Art Linkletter

First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen?
Then prepare to accept it.
Then proceed to improve on the worst.
- Dale Carnegie

The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive.
The great opportunity is where you are.
- John Burroughs

Smile and the world smiles with you.
- Anonymous

Peace begins with a smile.
- Mother Teresa

Always do the best you can,
and everything else will take care of itself.
Focus your energies on doing what you can
rather than worrying about what you can't.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

A smile that begins as an effort and a pretense quickly grows to become genuine,
and given time, a habit of happiness. In the words of Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, "Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

Inner Smile Exercise:
1. Breath slowly, deeply, and consciously.
2. Close your eyes and set the corners of your mouth in just the slightest smile.
3. Visualize your smile growing larger and larger, and your happiness increasing.

Today's affirmation:
Every day in every way I am getting better and better.
- Émile Coué

Further reading: Ten Little Tips to Feel Happier Right Now

No Regrets

Beyond Your Worries
   

Work for Peace

No one can find inner peace except by working,
not in a self-centered way, but for the whole human family.
- Peace Pilgrim

Let there be peace on earth.
And let it begin with me.
- Jill Jackson Miller

Stop! Breathe deeply.
Begin bringing peace to the outer world
by regaining your own inner peace.
Choose love, choose gratitude,
choose forgiveness, choose peace.
Begin with your own inner peace.
Then use that inner peace
as a platform from which
to approach the outer world
with perspective, understanding, and patience.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If you wish to experience peace, provide peace for another.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

Further reading: Peace IS the Way

Do God's Work

End Hatred

No War
      

 

THIS moment

 

Fully experience THIS moment -
breathe in, breathe out - nothing more.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious
privilege it is to be alive -
to breathe,
to think, to enjoy, to love.
- Marcus Aurelius

Be Here Now
- Ram Dass

He who can give thanks for little
will always find he has enough.
- Anonymous

Further reading: Nurture Yourself Today

Give Thanks

Gratitude and Life

Be Fully Present in TODAY
     

Smile even when you feel grumpy

Although it is always better to live with conviction and enthusiasm,
some days it is better just to go through the motions than to do nothing.
Smile even when you feel grumpy.
Meditate or Pray even when you have nothing to say to God.
Cook a healthy meal even when you are tired.
Walk or exercise even when the thought doesn't excite you.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Act the way you'd like to be
and soon you'll be the way you act.
- Leonard Cohen

Repeat anything often enough
and it will start to become you.
- Tom Hopkins

A smile that begins as an effort and a pretense
quickly grows to become genuine,
and given time, a habit of happiness.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile,
but sometimes your smile
can be the source of your joy.
- Thich Nhat Hanh

Inner Smile Exercise:
1. Close your eyes.
2. Breath slowly, deeply, and consciously.
3. Set the corners of your mouth in just the slightest smile.
4. Visualize your smile growing larger and larger, and your happiness increasing.

Further reading: Ten Little Tips to Feel Happier Right Now

Choose Your Habits, Choose Your Life

Grin your smile; giggle your laugh; unfurl your joy

Practice makes perfect - sometimes 

Tending the Garden of Our Lives

Overcome Being Negative
     

Breath by Breath

Move to your heart, Breathe.
Close your eyes and breathe deeply - slowly -
fill your lungs with love and gratitude -
exhale each and every trouble -
again and again - gratitude in, troubles out.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Inhale, and God approaches you.
Hold the inhalation, and God remains with you.
Exhale, and you approach God.
Hold the exhalation, and surrender to God.
- Krishnamacharya

The moment you start seeing life
as non-serious, a playfulness,
all the burden on your heart disappears.
All the fear of death, of life,
of love - everything disappears.
- Osho

Breath by breath, let go of fear, expectation, anger,
regret, cravings, frustration, fatigue.
Let go of the need for approval.
- Lama Surya Das

Today's affirmation:
Slowly and Deeply, I Inhale a Calming Breath.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Breathe In, Breathe Out

Breathe deeply and rejoice

Feel Your Connection With the Infinite - a Meditation

Conscious Breathing to Relieve Stress
   

Flow...

Breathe deeply and slowly.
Let yourself become centered - shut out all distractions.
Breathe out your worries; empty your body of regrets and resentments.
Breathe in eternal peace; let your body fill with unconditional love.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Breathe; let go; relax; forgive.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

A mind at peace, a mind centered and not focused on harming others,
is stronger than any physical force in the universe.
- Wayne Dyer

Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free.
Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing.
- Zhuangzi

Further reading: Conscious Breathing to Relieve Stress

Forgiveness: Path to Inner Peace

Breath by Breath

Gratitude for THIS Moment
   

CHOOSE how you spend your time

 

Pause to smell the roses, to breathe, to take a quiet moment for yourself.
Let today be a day to remember that you get to CHOOSE how you spend your time.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The quieter you become,
the more you can hear.
- Ram Dass

Listen or your tongue will keep you deaf.
- Native American Proverb

There is more to life than increasing its speed.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Spend time every day listening to what your muse is trying to tell you.
- Saint Bartholomew

In prayerful silence you must look into your own heart.
No one can tell you better than yourself what comes between you and God.
Ask yourself.
Then listen!
- Johannes Tauler

Create Some Quiet Time Today.

Further reading: God is Found in Silence

The Beat of the Universe

The Quiet Voice of Courage

Your Intuition is Your Guide

Quiet Time
   

Seek Inner Peace

 

The world has always been in an uproar, and it always will be.
Choose Peace. Choose to live with Peace.
Choose to interact peacefully with everyone -
especially those whose instinct is not to be peaceful.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

You are precisely as big as what you love and precisely
as small as what you allow to annoy you.
- Robert Anton Wilson

You may not seem able to change some outer circumstances
but you can start by changing your inner experience of life and yourself.
- Joy Page

Choose Inner Peace.
Nothing is worth losing your inner peace.
Take action as circumstances require,
but never surrender your inner peace.
Stop. Breathe deeply.
Close your eyes and breathe deeply again.
Then, and only then, take action -
from a peaceful heart.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We can never obtain peace in the outer world
until we make peace with ourselves.
- Dalai Lama

Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit.
Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever,
even if your whole world seems upset.
- Saint Francis de Sales

Further reading: Have Gratitude for THIS Moment

Slow Down and Focus

Focus on Peace

Kick Back
    

Trust in the Light

 

Exercise: Write your most worrisome trouble on a piece of paper and feed it to the fire. Send your troubles up in smoke. Breathe deeply and rejoice.

Trust in the Light.
Darkness is not a force -
it is merely the absence of light.
Observe that when a light is brought to a dark place,
the darkness disappears.
Sadness is similar -
when joy is brought to suffering, the sadness disappears.
Open yourself to the Light!
Hold back nothing, Trust in the Light.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

All the darkness of the world cannot
extinguish the light of a single candle,
yet one candle can illuminate all the darkness.
- Jewish Hanukah Prayer

I will gather myself around my faith,
for light does the darkness most fear.
- Jewel

Further reading: Feel Your Connection With the Infinite - a Meditation

A Light from Within

Radiate Light and Love
   

Nature makes the whole world kin

 

All things share the same breath -
the beast, the tree, the man...
the air shares its spirit
with all the life it supports.
- Attributed to Chief Seattle
but actually written in 1972 by screenwriter Ted Perry

Let children walk with Nature,
let them see the beautiful blendings
and communions of death and life,
their joyous inseparable unity,
as taught in woods and meadows,
plains and mountains and streams
of our blessed star,
and they will learn that death
is stingless indeed,
and as beautiful as life.
- John Muir

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
- William Shakespeare

When we try to pick out anything by itself,
we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.
- John Muir

We are all one - the web of life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: Natural Web

All Life

All Brothers and Sisters

Unity with Spirit and All Creation