Every year I treat my birthday as a new beginning, the beginning of my “New Year”. I’ve never been a believer in resolutions, but the start of my personal New Year is always a day of gratitude and contemplation. As The Happiness Warrior, it’s also a day for mindfulness, taking inventory of my strengths, harnessing intentional power, and spiritual alignment. I reinforce the mind-body connection and think about how I can continue to perform at my best by healing and caring for my body. By believing in myself, I make the choice to create a spiritual and uplifting day. I think about the past year, both my successes and failures. I set my dreams for the future, ponder my emotions, and create a deep sense of self-awareness. I celebrate my connection to the universal energy source. I believe that every birthday is a privilege to continue our magical journey through life.

In pre-covid years, birthdays were also an excuse to go away for a long weekend and spend time relaxing, hiking or mountain biking in the great outdoors. I’d do it nicely and enjoy a few days unplugged from the responsibilities and stresses of life. Last year was a quiet Summer with the pandemic and I focused on improving my mind, body, and spirit. Birthdays are always a time of reflection and growth, but it’s also the start of a new year of goals and a chance to renew our sense of purpose. A birthday “new year” can be the reset we all need to change our lives!

This year I decided to do something that I’ve never done before and hosted a dinner the night after my birthday to celebrate the year ahead with my always patient and loving Husband by my side. I wanted to ring-in my “new year” with the people who mattered the most and make me happy. We were there to celebrate our friendships and the synergy in our interconnected lives. These are the people who I most admire, motivate me, support me, and most of all make me happy. They do good things with their lives, help others thrive, and be heard. We are aligned as fellow warriors, all out to do their best in our personal endeavors.

There was a time in my life when I didn’t think I’d live past forty. I grew up fast, felt like I had to be an adult when I was fifteen, and moved in a continuous mix of friends who also lived very fast-paced lives. Being raised in a dysfunctional home, I was very insecure with myself, and spent a dozen or so years in two abusive relationships. I did reckless things, partied all over the world, and the people in my life were mostly superficial enablers that my ego needed to survive. There wasn’t much depth, I was very unhappy, and I felt stuck. I was alone in my thoughts and actions with no one I could turn to without feeling shame. I felt trapped in a cycle of depression and self-loathing.

Eventually I broke myself out of my old life and realized that I needed to cut all my old ties and spend time alone with myself. Being alone for a while was what I needed at the time, but I knew deep down that I would need others to help me rise and find my way again. It was a challenging period with many moments of self-doubt, but I worked through it and emerged from my self-imposed exile.  I was on the right path and felt the light inside of me begin to shine again and I began to see myself for who I was. More than anything I was happy once again and was bursting to share it with others!

Good people began to come into my life and change how I thought about myself. I sought out happy people who were doing good things with their lives. I found people who were changing the world and felt myself being drawn into a better life and never looked back.

 GOOD PEOPLE ARE EASY TO FIND

Finding good people to have in our lives is not as hard as it sounds. With the right open mindset, it can be a happy and life-affirming process. Good people are everywhere, but we must change our perceptions, fear, and prejudices to see the good in others without judgement or suspicion. When we are willing to change our minds and confront our fears, making good friends of good character is easy and always fun. The best way to make new friends is to look for people who look happy and secure with themselves. Laughter is contagious. Empathetic people with good energy always attract good energy.

Five ways to attract good people into your life:

1.       Be that person! If you want to attract other great people, look inward first and be that person too.

2.       Speak it! Giving voice to our intention is a powerful tool to take action and create the world we want to live in.

3.       Make the connection! Listen and be genuinely interested. If you’re not interested or it’s not a good fit, gently move on and keep your senses open.

4.       Add value in your actions! (Happiness Warrior Core Value #3) When we are conscious of our action’s life will give us a new path with greater happiness, sense of purpose, and connection.

5.       Communicate and vocalize what you want! Bring people together with like-mindsets and create the reality that you desire.

UNDERSTANDING TOXIC PEOPLE

Removing toxic people from our lives is only easy when we believe in ourselves and know who we are. Once we feel good about ourselves and understand our value, we can begin the work of clearing out people who make us feel bad about our lives and halt our progress. Toxic people don’t care about the feelings of others and only use us in transactional terms. They get what they want for their ego or other base desires and continue their path of destruction through every life they encounter. The hardest of all to let go of can be family members who do us mental harm. As I’ve always said with a touch of sadness, “no one can hurt as much as family”. Empathy is the key to removing ourselves from harmful situations while maintaining peace and happiness from our internal source.

Understanding the motivations and feeling of others is a life-time job, but these unavoidable truths are critical to understanding when someone’s not good for us:

1.       Truthfulness, we never really know when someone’s not telling the truth, but trust is essential for a healthy relationship.

2.       Controlling behavior happens when others attempt to control your experiences, isolate you from friends and loved ones. This becomes a one-sided co-dependent and unhealthy relationship.

3.       Avoidance and refusing to address the subject or conflict on hand. “Not in the mood to talk”.

4.       Insecurity. In an unhealthy relationship one partner chips away at the other’s ego and self-esteem. Making a comment about their weight or labeling someone as “too emotional”.

5.       Codependency is more than just someone who’s too clingy or needs attention. One partner is the taker and the other is the giver. The taker always relies on the other for extreme support and validation at the expense of the other’s life and desires.

FIND GOOD FROM WITHIN

Sometimes the hardest thing for all is to look is to take a deep look within ourselves and find our own value. We live in a competitive, fast-paced, and very confusing world and it’s hard to think much beyond making it through another day. We say things to ourselves to keep us from growing and worse we care too much about what others think.

As The Happiness Warrior, I believe that most people are fundamentally good and that sometimes we just need to learn to give ourselves permission to be better. We’re conditioned to conform and follow upside-down rules and societal norms which can make us feel at odds with our nature. We are told that we must obey to avoid scorn and shame from the mouths of dishonest and miserable people. Too often we are kept from being our authentic and happy selves by institutions, religion, and even from our own families. We are conditioned to believe what we hear about ourselves from external sources rather than believing in the source of our true being that comes from within.

Core Beliefs of Good People:

1.       They act with reason and wisdom and avoid judging and shaming others.

2.       They focus on moderation and avoiding extreme behavior. The greater good of all is always on their minds.

3.       They respect and value other people and Mother Earth.

4.       They are courageous in standing up for their values and the truth.

As the old saying goes “we are the company that we keep”. Nothing says more about us than the relationships and our connection to our communities. We can’t judge others or blame them for their mistakes, but when we take a good look at our lives, we can open ourselves up and see the world we’ve created for ourselves. Life can be magical when we make the right choices and the right people to share our lives with. Life is better when we have “good people doing good things” in our lives.