Be the Captain of Your Heart

Be the Captain of Your Heart

Be the Captain of Your Heart and You Will Be the Captain of Your Life

What kind of life do you desire to live?  All human beings want to be happy and live a good life, but what does that truly mean to you deep down?  I had the pleasure of speaking with a master and commander recently who, full of enthusiasm and expectation for a joyful, gentle, abundant and love-filled life (his words), explained to me how he had become not only captain of his ship but captain of his life.

I was impressed by the captain’s conviction that life was his for the asking and enjoyment of it, and I was curious about how he had come to his wonderfully enthusiastic perspective.

The commander told me that it hadn’t always been that way.  He had made a conscious choice to have a gentle, happy, easy life after losing a difficult battle with the sea while captaining his boat and a crew.  Following his ordeal, the commander isolated himself on remote islands off the coast of Australia, carrying a painful burden of despair. After going through some months of feeling distraught, questioning the value of his life, he discovered the voice of his inner explorer beckoning, becoming louder each day even as he focused on his pain. It took him a while to listen, he said, but soon his inner calling was just too loud to ignore.  He realized he needed to make some decisions about not only what he wanted next but how he wanted to feel. Would he continue to wallow in hurt and or use his pain as an opportunity to make some positive changes? Just that bit of soul searching put him on a better feeling trajectory where hope could enter his heart.

Pretty soon he was telling himself things like, “nothing but the best,” and “ignore the beast, follow the feast” (his words, again). That remarkable shift in the core of his thinking and feeling allowed him to slowly, consciously pilot his life forward; and that was the key difference – he was consciously piloting his life now. I could sense the power and truth of what his inner shift had led him to know because as he spoke to me I could feel his expectation of happiness resonate in my heart.

Challenges Are Opportunities

The captain commanded his desires into fruition because first, he came to understand and command the power of his own conscious, emotional awareness. Creative energy or creative expression is set through the energy of emotions (e-motion) and we have choices in each moment about how we feel. The captain recognized his inner power to feel good by lining up his emotional (or feeling) nature with his desires.   He made the important decision to keep his focus on inner (heart) happiness and from there everything else flows.

Beginning with just a slight bit of inner hope – the inner call to renew his adventure of exploring – and then openly questioning his path forward, the commander had simply surrendered resistance and became willing to recreate himself and his life.  The universe responded by offering evidence of the power of his decision to become a deliberate creator – his life is filled with wonderful new adventures but more importantly, his heart is full of the love that attracts all those adventures. He is a conduit for his own joyful energy, the same joyful energy each and every one of us can experience.

How do you become the captain of your heart?

Becoming the captain of your heart is not about the manifestation of things.  We tend to put our energy and effort into what we want to acquire rather than on feeling good first.   Captains of the heart are pleased with what they think about and feel as they come into harmony with their true, innermost creativity and desires.  That starts with being okay with where you are in this moment, here and now.

The captain made a decision to feel good in his experience of life, in the present moment where he was standing. That decision summoned the energy of hope and inspired him to use his growing conscious awareness to conjure his life on his terms.

The value of emotionally soul-searching for why you want what you want until you feel it is yours in your heart is that in the process your energy for creating your desires grows stronger. That is the eternal secret the captain discovered. Now he watches the manifestations of his joyful heart move into and through his life daily with surprise and delight.

Seeing With The Heart

In my new book, Seeing With The Heart, I take the reader through a guided journey of exploring and growing a heart-felt connection with their true self. Opening the door to loving oneself, finding compassion for where you stand and connecting with authentic power is the process for stepping to the helm of your joyful life. I invite you to take the next step and become the captain of your heart.

When Joy Leaves……..Invite It Back

When Joy Leaves……..Invite It Back

Joy Is Good For Our Health

It lifts our spirits and relieves our stress. Scientific research has proven the benefits of a joyful disposition. Overall people who are joyful have reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, colds and flu, and high blood pressure. The brain of optimistic people is healthier, too. The part of the brain responsible for memory and concentration (hippocampus,) as well as the left frontal cortex is more active. There are no negative physiological or psychological side effects from joy.

Joy is also an essential emotion for feeling alive and living fully. It is our birthright; a natural state of being human that energizes us. Being joyful has an amazing power to connect with other positive emotions – freedom, inner peace, happiness, creativity, harmony – and inspire love for ourselves and our lives.

No matter what multitude of pressures have our attention in everyday life, full-of-joy is something we all seem to be desiring and striving for. The problem is we are so used to putting it aside that our default setting seems to be set to adding in joy only if we have some time. We treat being joyful as if it is an outside event that depends on circumstances or people lining up in a certain way before we give ourselves permission to let it in.

I have heard joy referred to as the oxygen of life and I really like that metaphor. Like oxygen, joy is ever-present and we all have access to it. When we give up expecting life to be a certain way, surrender inner resistance and struggle, and let go of the imbalance from constant activity, we naturally align with the reservoir of joy that is always available within us.

The Experience Of Joy

While we all go through challenging times, the good news is that inviting joy back into our lives doesn’t have to be a complete life overhaul. When life is hard, don’t run away from it. Use your emotion as an indication you may be blocking out the inner light of joy and make some small adjustments. Joy is an intrinsic quality of the authentic self that can be easily cultivated in daily experiences. There’s no need to have a special relationship, launch a new career, find a new place to live or really, to do anything special to experience more joy. The experience of being joyful is catering to the light that is already inside of your heart; what you already love.

When You Notice That Joy Has Left Your Life

Consciously invite joy back in by owning what makes you happy, by making space for it in your life, and living what speaks to your joy. While joy is a natural result of tuning into your good feelings, it is also the result of allowing it to flow through conscious choice to make it your natural inclination. In other words, practice it by appreciating the moments that inspire joy each day. It is up to you to see the loveliness of everyday things like birds singing, a creek flowing, the sun shining and flowers growing.

Here are a few tips to get you started with inviting joy back into your life:

  1. Allow yourself to experience joy. You deserve to be joyful because it’s a natural state of being, an essential expression of human nature. We all struggle with negative emotions. You are not alone.
  2. Ask yourself: Am I working too hard at pleasing others, taking care of others, or creating situations so I can enjoy myself? If your answer is genuinely “yes” then you are too stressed to fully enjoy deep connections with others.
  3. Fill your cup each morning with reasons you are joyful. Think of these as reminders that life is good. Appreciate when you notice one of these reasons pop into your mind during the day.
  4. Make time for joy in small ways. Ask yourself: What speaks to me that is joyful? Dancing with the music turned up in the kitchen? Sitting outside at sunset? Smiling more often? When you prioritize joy, life gets better.
  5. Think about how you might welcome joy to lead to the way during your day. You can just as easily learn new things through joy and have fun at the same time.

 

 

Seeing with the Heart
Inspiration Journal.
Available for purchase HERE.

Marilyn Decalo Logo, Phoenix

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