Program Your Sleep for Happiness

Posted on August 2, 2021 by Diana Rankin

What you watch on television at night can affect your mood the next day. So what are you doing watching shoot-em-up television shows or the news before you fall asleep, or please-don’t-say-it, even while you fall asleep? What pre-sleep suggestions are you feeding your mind? Do you really think you can feed yourself with violence at night and expect to wake up feeling refreshed and happy? Come on, you’re smarter than that!

Am I saying you should never watch television or the news? No. In fact, I believe we have a responsibility to keep ourselves informed about what is going on in our world. What I am saying is that you should be selective. Use discernment when selecting what to watch on television and listen to on the radio. The same is true for movies, film, books, and yes, even your conversations and your thoughts.

If you are going to bed angry, guess how you are going to wake in the morning. Certainly, sleep helps to defuse and cleanse a lot of our thoughts, but if you want happiness—if you truly want happiness–you have to give up feeding yourself unhappiness. Try this to help you do just that: Program your sleep. Spend the last thirty minutes or so before you go to sleep in peaceful contemplation, releasing any anger, frustration, or other non-life affirming emotion. Spend the time in meditation, reading uplifting or sacred text, journaling to release the day, thinking about the beauty in life, or just being in silence and listening to the quiet of the night sounds. Then as you give yourself over to sleep, give yourself the suggestion that you will spend the night in a peaceful, restful, and healing sleep for a specific number of hours, and that you will wake feeling happy and full of joy in the morning.

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On the Other Side of Negative Self-Talk

Posted on July 20, 2021 by Diana Rankin

Usually I’m a positive, optimistic person, but it wasn’t always so. It’s been a long and often difficult road to this inner joy that I now am grateful to experience.

There was a time, however, when I felt I was at the bottom of a deep well where the light was so far away I couldn’t see it. There wasn’t anyone walking past the well, so it wouldn’t do any good to even put my hand up and scream for help, yet scream I did, at myself until I finally got my attention. It was then I started listening to myself, started listening to my inner talk, that self-talk that either destroys or creates.

Here’s what I heard” You’re not good enough. You’re not smart enough. You’re not successful enough. You haven’t done enough. You’re not enough, etc., etc., etc. You’ve heard it all before. Unfortunately, most of you are saying some of the same things to yourself, and it’s time to stop. Yes, easier said than done, but we have to start somewhere, right? So, let’s get going, together, today, right now.  This very minute.

Let’s make the promise – come on now each of us – to listen a little more carefully to our inner voice so we can tame that inner bully and turn it into a voice of loving kindness toward ourselves.

This isn’t a one-day activity that once we make the commitment all our self-talk will be loving, encouraging us to be the truth of who we are. This is a lifelong commitment to be our best and live our best life. It may not always be easy listening to ourselves but it is well worth the effort. Even when that self-bully slips back into our thoughts, it’s worth the effort to ask it to leave.

On the other side of negative self-talk is joy and the creation of the life we want. We will have the life we want because we will self-talk ourselves into knowing we deserve it . . . and we do!

Come on now, who’s with me?

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The Smile

Posted on July 13, 2021 by Diana Rankin

Last night while reading a journal from 2006, I came across this message from Phillip, my spirit guide: “In the small works, we do great works.” As I thought about this message, I thought about the importance of a smile, and I was reminded of a time many years ago when a smile changed the world for me.

 It was the Christmas holidays. I was home from my first year at college. It wasn’t a particularly happy time for me. Having started school when I was five, I was younger than my college roommates, and looked even younger. I met new friends, but none were that close companion that comes from growing up together and sharing teenage girl secrets. My high school boyfriend and I had broken up. I felt alone and lonely. I was lost as to where I belonged and being in my mother’s home exacerbated rather than eased my loneliness.

Mother and I tried to bond. It wasn’t easy. We were so different. The love was there; the understanding of one another wasn’t. We both searched for that which we could do together that we’d both enjoy, those activities that allowed us to have fun together. One of those activities was to visit the Christmas windows of the downtown department store, Rike’s.

That’s what we were doing when a woman pushed her way through the crowd and stood next to me. She wasn’t dressed very well; her clothes were wrinkled. Mother noticed and tried to pull me away. I resisted.

Mother had always taught me to not smile at strangers. I didn’t listen. So, I smiled at this stranger in wrinkled clothes who stood beside me in front of a window full of animated elves and dolls smiling and singing. Not only did I smile, I turned to the woman and said something about the window display.

Tears wet her eyes. What have I done? I’ve upset her. I stood quiet, transfixed on her eyes as tears seeped forth.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

I can still hear the breath she took in as she looked up toward the heavens and then looked back at me. She explained that her daughter was in the hospital, which was where she had spent the last few days and nights. She was on her way home to change when she felt compelled to stop to look at the window display. “When my daughter was little, we always came here together,” she said.

She didn’t know why she stopped, she said, not until I smiled at her. “Then I knew. I knew when you smiled that my daughter is going to be okay.” She looked over at my mother and thanked her for raising a daughter who smiles at strangers. “She is an angel,” the stranger said.

I turned and looked at my mother. She smiled at me and in that smile we were no longer strangers who lived in the same house. We were mother and daughter.

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3 Ways to Enrich Your Life

Posted on July 7, 2021 by Diana Rankin

We all want rich, meaningful lives, and in these times of powerful-and often conflicting-energies swirling around us, living the lives we desire to have is not always easy to obtain. The following practices will help you instantly change the energy within you, which will change the energy around you. Over time, the practices will change the old patterns and help you move into living a happier, more fulfilling life.

  • Move into gratitude. When life overwhelms you and you don’t know how-or if-you can take the next step, move to gratitude. Start writing, or speaking aloud, those things for which you can find even the smallest feeling of thankfulness. Maybe it’s the sunshine on your face. Maybe it’s because you have a friend who cares about you. Maybe it’s because you have a memory that makes you smile. Maybe it’s . . .
  • Read a note to yourself. Write down a goal you want to reach and include why reaching that goal is important to you. Post the goal and its importance where you can read it often. When the going gets tough, read aloud that goal to remind you of where you are going and why it’s important to get there. Then take one step toward that goal.
  • Bless the other or the situation. When another person-or a situation-starts getting to you and the tape in your head is on repeat, stop the tape of ugly negativity by simply saying, “I bless (name of the person or situation)” and then bless yourself. You may have to bless the other person through gritted teeth when you begin. Do it anyway. Eventually you will feel forgiveness and even generously toward the other.

Living rich, meaningful lives is not always easy. Sometimes it seems easier to just stay in the gloom or anger or fear. Yes, it takes effort to rewrite old patterns but it’s well worth it to live a happier, more fulfilling life.

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Countering Negativity

Posted on July 7, 2021 by Diana Rankin

The phone rang one morning while it was still too dark to open my eyes. I was too groggy to even roll over and answer it. I waited for the caller to leave a message, but none came, just the jarring and persistent ring that jerked me awake – twice. The caller still didn’t leave a message, when they called back the second time.

I thought about why someone would call long before the sun yet had the idea of creeping over the horizon, and I wondered why they didn’t leave a message and why they called twice. I didn’t recognize the phone number, so I guessed someone had the wrong number. Maybe they called the second time just to make sure they really did have the wrong number.

It seemed rude to me that they didn’t bother leaving a message. It doesn’t take much to apologize and admit you have the wrong number, so please ignore the call. As I pondered on how rude the caller was and how polite I am because if I reach the wrong number, I do leave a message, and how rude it was to call at this hour of the night and how I wouldn’t do that . . . I found myself feeling a bigger person than the caller, better than the other person. Uh oh! Then I laughed. Talk about rudeness!

Once I got out of my loop of negativity, I started asking myself when else have I been rude to another person. I didn’t have to think long. Call it karma for how rude I behaved toward the customer service representative on the phone the other day. Ouch. Or how impatient I was with the shopper in front of me at the grocery, or how irritated I was with one of my cats because she wanted my attention and I wanted to read. Ouch, ouch, and ouch again. We don’t always want to look at the truth about ourselves, but we need to look. We don’t have to like it, but once we become aware of a truth about ourselves, it does set us free. . . that is if we take the next step.

We do not want to get stuck in a negative pattern, beating up on ourselves once we become aware of, and admit to, our own negative behavior. With a strong intention that we are sincerely sorry for our negative behavior, we need to apologize and send love to the person we displayed negative behavior toward, and then apologize and send love to ourselves. This can be done by simply saying a prayer or consciously holding the other in our thought for a moment, and then turning the prayer or thought on ourselves.

This practice allows us to look at the other’s negative behavior in a different light. Instead of feeling the other is wrong and we are right, we begin to thank the other person for mirroring for us those pockets of negativity we need to root out within ourselves so that we may live in greater grace and joy. As we excavate our not conscious thoughts that add negative energy to our lives and to the world, we are able to counter them with positive thoughts of compassion, consideration, respect, charity, thoughtfulness, care, kindness – thoughts of love.

In this way we evolve our own lives, and we evolve our world to one of greater humanity for all.

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