Happiness

What reminds you of who you are?

So many things show us the distance between us and happiness.

But the distance is greatly shortened when we remember who we are.

Nothing outside ourselves provides us with happiness.

When we see something that lights up our heart, it is our response to it that creates happiness within us.

When we are moved with compassion toward someone or a situation we become aware of, it is that uplifting spirit which helps create happiness.

When we take action to correct a situation, we are helping lift it with a higher practice.

Who we really are is someone who can perceive answers, steps, feelings.

We can recognize them.

We can think of ourselves as who we really are.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

In Balance

When you plan a project, then it is time to sit back and let it mature in your thought.

Even if you have all the materials, sometimes it is not quite time to start.

I find myself pushing to get something done and when I do that, nothing happens.

After a whole though, when I am thinking and working on something else, a little tiny thing will fall into place and my original project will take place very quickly.

There is a balance to working and waiting, planning and resting, being active and being patient.

I know I love the planning stages and I am learning to relax and let the Universe shape my project and grow it and mature it until it is time for it to happen.

Then I am able to see details and appreciate nuances which did not have time to occur to me while I was still shaping the project.

When it is at an absolute calm, it is time to begin.

Before that, there is something missing.

I am learning to wait and do something else while the key piece moves into place.

Then I find myself reviewing a project from a different viewpoint and adding in subtle touches that had not occurred to me earlier.

That is the moment at which the project comes into balance and can move forward.

It has a smooth roll and delivery to it, no awkwardness or rush.

It reaches the people it is meant to reach in a timely manner.

I can enjoy a quiet celebration.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

New Challenges and Possiblities

It is always important to trust ourselves when we feel a new direction coming to light.

The one that comes consistently is a sign of Guidance.

We may cling to our present condition and position just because they are familiar. but more things are available to delight us.

When we are ready, we receive little nudges.

When we don’t reposed at first, the nudges become bigger and stronger.

Finally, they get our attention and we look at them.

We become more involved in discovering the possibilities for ourselves.

We have an ability to become expansive.

We are not limited to what we see around us or to what has already been done.

We can trust that fact.

We can trust what happens when we begin to engage with it.

Even though we may find ourselves scrambling to get on our feet from time to time as we gain our balance in new situations, it is totally worth the exhilaration.

Feeling more and more alive in new situations that challenge and delight us is something we can build into our lives forever.

It is a different kind of lifestyle, one that welcomes new possibilities.

I am enjoying both the new challenges and the new delights in mine.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Our Irresistible Path

We are all taking steps along our own path.

We are taking each one as it is revealed to us.

No one else has any idea what someone else’s path looks like.

In fact we only find it for ourselves when we quit responding to anything outside of ourselves.

Our path reveals itself from within our own deepest and quiet thoughts.

Then it puts itself into action.

We cannot hurry this process, although we can slow it down by our own opinions.

It is an irrevocable part of our identity.

Despite our opinions or even objections, it is not open to criticism.

Our experiences bring us to our own individual path once we quit resisting this process.

It becomes compelling, irresistible and satisfying in the deepest ways once we get our stride and keep listening.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Easy is OK

The thought occurred to me today, that maybe the work I was doing (putting a music newsletter together) was all right, just the way I was doing it.

I am no longer beating myself up the way i was taught to for so many of my formative years.

I did my work today without any concerns or anxieties.

Is that what it feels like?

Just doing the work?

I felt fulfilled and, well just kinda quiet.

No anxieties.

This will be easy.  Today was easy.

No struggling against self-doubts and self-criticisms.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Choose As Soon As You Can

Now that we are making the choices to do what we love, our lives are completely different.

We didn’t realize how completely we got sucked into what was going on around us.

Now that we are out and living on our land, we can see clearly that it is important to have a dream and to act on it as soon as you can.

It may be that you will be fighting upstream the whole time until you can get to your ideal situation.

It may be that you have some encouragement and support.

But whether you do or not, it is important to keep taking whatever steps you can toward your dream.

That way, you are putting the life that you want to live into action.

Otherwise, you are just reacting to the media harassment and crush of what everyone else is doing.

Now that we are out of it, and we were definitely individuals while we were living under such pressure, we are so relieved and grateful to find this peace and to be in sync with what is important to us.

Whenever you can, take yourself to a peaceful place.

Get quiet.

Meditate.

Listen within.

There is a different life available to you.

Let yourself be led and guided to it.

Do it soon.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com

Faithfulness and Insight

Do your work.

Ask for the inspiration to do your work well.

Become good, very good, at what you do.

Ask for inspiration for both the repetitious aspects and for new ideas.

At some point, there is a merging, a cross-over, and the repetitious, which has by now become automatic, leaves room for more inspiration and new ideas.

Beyond that comes insight.

There is simply something deeper.

Beyond the repetition, past the automatic, there is beauty, symmetry, and… something else.

Every time you reach the “something else”, you discover insight.

Your facility, your competence, your inspiration take you beyond what you are doing, into why you are doing it, into why it exists, and then you find your insight.

After that, you can take yourself through the steps pretty quickly and add the most value and satisfaction to your work through insight.

Then your work reaches farther and has more than just the physical result of providing you a living.

It lets you live more and more in the realm of inspiration and, ultimately, service.

Your life becomes something for more than yourself.

You become able to give others a glimpse into the deeper, more inspired aspects of your work.

You become able to inspire and uplift others, right where you are, as you go beyond yourself into the deeper work and service.

© 2015 Kathryn Hardage

www.InspiredPractices.com