What Do You Want?

The Joy Diet is a book by Martha Beck, life coach and columnist in the Oprah magazine. Far from being about carrot sticks and cottage cheese, the Joy Diet is a collection of practices that, when done regularly, lead to a more joyful and fulfilling life.

Menu item #3 on the diet is Desire and it invites readers to identify and explore one heart’s desire. After getting still and centered on your connection to your deepest wisdom, ask yourself “What do I want?” As answers bubble around in your mind, choose the one that is most appealing to you at the moment.

Take some time to consider the desire of your heart. Is there a deeper desire below the one you identified? If you want a chocolate milk shake, is it because chocolate is your favourite flavour and you’re craving something sweet?

Or could it be that milk shakes are special because your grandfather took you to the malt shop when you were a child? Could it be that the milkshake represents a desire to have someone listen to you the way your grandfather did?

When you find a desire that is a true reflection of your heart, you’ll know it because it will be joyful and open, fulfilling and expansive.

Once you’ve identified a desire, set an intention that you will experience it; shift from “I wish” to “I will.” Nothing more need be done than identify a heart’s desire and start to believe that you can experience it in you life.

Martha Beck recommends spending a few minutes each day contemplating the question “What do I want?” You may come up with a different answer every day. That’s fine. And you don’t need to take action to experience the desire until further on in the Joy Diet.

So, what do YOU want? What does your heart and soul long to do that you haven’t pursued yet? Take a few minutes to get still and get some answers.

What Are Your Values?

Who are you and what is most important to you? We each have values that define the best of who we are. When we are clear about our values, we can honour them in our lives and express them in ways that give us joy and contribute to humankind. Christopher Columbus valued adventure, Michelangelo, whose amazing David is pictured at right, valued beauty and Bill Gates values both creativity and contribution.

Since I have become more conscious about including my values in my life, I’ve felt more peaceful and alive. It’s a work in progress to become continually more aligned with my values and the effort is always worth it.

Here are some steps you can take to define your values:

1. Find a list of values. If you don’t have one, do an internet search. The list is just to tweak your memory -- in your heart, you already know your values.
2. Go through the list using your gut reactions to identify a short list of no more than eight.
3. Narrow down the list, if necessary, by combining closely-related values like integrity and truth.
4. Define what each value means to you. This is your personal definition, not what you find in the dictionary.
5. Consider why the value is important to you.
6. Think about how you will express each value and identify some actions you can take. For example, I can express my value of adventure by experiencing new activities, places and things. Actions I could take are trying an ethnic restaurant or going sailing.

When we live by expressing our most important values, we feel centred, joyful and on-purpose. Isn’t that worth taking some time to define?

Self-Love

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere.
-- Buddha

This past weekend, I attended classes for the training I am taking to become an Interfaith Minister. Among the many wonderful things I will take away from the classes is the above quotation.

It is easy to forget that we deserve the self-love and self-care that comes with it as much as anyone on this planet. In fact, without it, we are not at our best and cannot serve the world as effectively.

What does self-love look like? I imagine it’s a bit different for each person. For me, it’s getting enough sleep and focusing on peace every day, as well as making sure I get my daily quota of joy!

How about you? How would you describe self-love for you? What are you doing now? What is the next step you could take to go deeper with loving and caring for yourself? When will you start that new step?

You deserve all the love and affection you can lavish upon yourself. We all do. Consider this your reminder to take the next step.