​“A state of appreciation is pure Connection to Source where there is no perception of lack.”
-Abraham-Hicks

Have you ever received a compliment from someone and deflected it? It might have sounded like this,

A co-worker says, “That was a great presentation!” You answer, “Thanks, but I totally messed up the last part.”

Just as it is possible to deflect a compliment so that you don’t receive the good feeling it might give you, it is possible to deflect the good feelings of an evening, a day, a month, or a lifetime thereby putting a limit on your happiness.

We do it out of habit, out of training from childhood, or maybe because we think we don’t deserve to feel so good.

We do this by focusing our attention on negative thoughts, thoughts of denial, thoughts of judgment towards ourselves or others, thoughts of criticism of self or others, thoughts of what went wrong, what should have happened, all the things that should have been different.

What we accomplish when we do this is to bring ourselves back to our habitual emotional set-point that feels more comfortable.

In his book, The Big Leap, Gay Hendricks describes this behavior as hitting our Upper Limit for feeling good. Check out my post, “Is Bliss Too Scary?” for more detail about Gay Hendrick’s Upper Limit Problem and an example of how I  hit my Upper Limit for feeling good just recently.

How is it possible that feeling negative, feeling bad about yourself or others or the situation you find yourself in, could be more comfortable than feeling good?

The answer is that comfort in this case is about a familiar and seemingly safe emotional set-point.

We are used to feeling a certain way. At some point in our past, we came to associate feeling like this with safety. This became our emotional set point, our comfort zone. So, we make sure to always return to this same emotional set-point.

If we get to feeling too good, we come up with worries, judgments, criticisms, fights, arguments, and negative events to bring us down emotionally and bring us back to our set-point, all so that we will feel safe. Seems contradictory doesn’t it?

Yet we do it.

What can we do to change this?

Awareness of our Upper Limit for happiness is the first step to change. Once we become aware that we are falling into the pattern of critical and judgmental thoughts, or irritable, argumentative behavior we can choose a different focus of thought. We can choose to focus on gratitude and appreciation.

We can remind ourselves of all that we are grateful for and appreciate in whatever situation we are in.

For example, you and your spouse or friend had a wonderful day out together yesterday. Today you find yourself getting irritable and argumentative with them. 

Why? You hit your Upper Limit for happiness.

Instead of allowing the negativity to escalate, stop. Catch yourself and refocus your thoughts on the good stuff.
​
Think of the enjoyment of your lunch out yesterday, the sweetness of your laughter together. Look out the window at the cloudless, blue sky and listen to the bird song drifting in through the window. Feel the goodness of your life as it is right now. Breathe in those feelings of appreciation.  
 
Regularly focusing your attention on gratitude and appreciation will reset your emotional set-point to that of positivity and feeling good, allowing happiness to be your default setting.

Appreciation is a tremendously effective tool for lifting your energy out of negativity into positivity and raising your happiness limit. Today's Spiritual Toolbox can show you how.

Surround yourself with what you love and allow it to feed you.
                                                                                                           
A few years back, my husband and I had just finished replacing the old mailbox and post that sat out at the front of our yard gradually falling apart. It was no surprise that it looked much better. We painted the post grey and bought a dark green mailbox, so that it matched the grey of our Victorian farmhouse and the green of the shutters. I found myself looking for excuses to drive by the house or gaze out the window, just so I could admire the mailbox.
 
It reminds me of when I bought a new teakettle. I wanted one that looked old-fashioned to fit the look of our home. I wanted one without that annoying whistle that so many of the newer models have, and I wanted it to be stainless steel so I wouldn’t be scrubbing off its painted surface every time I cleaned it. I took the time to go to several stores and finally found the perfect tea kettle, stainless steel, no whistle, with a gracefully curved spout and shape. After I brought it home and placed it on the stove, I would walk through the kitchen, ostensibly on some other errand and glance casually at the stove. There sat the tea kettle, shining in the sun coming in our South facing windows, sitting ready for duty on the back burner. When I heated water for tea I would sit enthralled by the steam wafting up from the shiny spout in curling, white tendrils.
 
Lest you think I have several screws loose as I soliloquize about mail boxes and teapots, I believe there is a deeper meaning to the pleasure these bits and pieces of our lives give us. That is, these small pieces of our homes add up to become the whole, just as the small moments of our lives add up to become our whole life. They are in fact, a microcosm of the macrocosm, each bit being representative of the whole. Love invested in these bits and pieces is returned, over and over again whether those bits are a mailbox, a teapot or this moment right now in which we find ourselves.
 
How important is a mailbox or a teapot? How important is one moment of our lives? Is it worth putting the love, the focus and attention into this moment to make it the best it can be? This moment is fleeting, why bother? Because the love invested stays, though the moment passes by, and the love is harvested over and over.

​Love invested never stops giving back. 

​Photo by Emily Rudolph on Unsplash

Soul Doors will be taking a brief hiatus as I'll be traveling to Iceland on a spiritual journey.  Look for our next post on Tuesday, March 26th. See you then!

“One thing about trains: It doesn't matter where they're goin'. What matters is deciding to get on.”
The Polar Express, directed by Robert Zemeckis, book by Chris VanAllsburg

What inspires you today?
​
I’ve felt inspired by the bright, blue sky this morning, the sun shining off new fallen snow. I’ve felt inspired by the woodstove, fire crackling warmly within. I’ve felt inspired to create Christmas decorations, hanging our wreath and stockings, putting up the little tree in our front hall.  I’ve felt inspired listening to Christmas music,  and that magical Christmas movie, The Polar Express.

Inspiration follows the energy of the day. It is not always linked to the same activities or ideas. It comes and goes on its own schedule. If we’re lucky we get on for the ride and are carried along delighting in the flow.

Can we do this intentionally? Like waiting at the train station for the train and leaping aboard as it comes rumbling, steaming and puffing to a stop just long enough for us to get on?

I think we can. I think we are meant to allow our lives to follow our inspiration, that small, shining gem hidden within the layers of the every day sameness. Magic is found within our inspiration.

The Christmas season is all about magic. The magic of the twinkling lights, the mystery of the presents under the tree, the Spirit of Christmas, the time of year when love and giving is the theme, and everywhere you look there are representations of magical beings, beautiful decorations and sparkling colors.

No matter what holidays you celebrate, the child within us longs for magic, the magic that is Spirit. Feeling and following our inspiration from within is our connection to that magic. That’s where the real magic is in this 3D world we live in. The magic lives within each one of us.

The train of your inspiration is stopping at your station. All aboard! 

Photo by Bill Anderson on Unsplash

“Be with me today Lord, guide and support me as I unwrap this gift you have given me. May the beginning, middle, end and all the minutes of this day be filled with gratitude and awareness of your loving presence. Speak to me constantly this day, Lord, that I may ever have you in my consciousness, that I may ever be open to your love.”

-Author Unknown
 
As I searched the internet, looking for quotes and stories that inspired me I was particularly delighted with the following story. Happiness is a choice, made minute by minute every day. It is an intention decided upon beforehand, and lived in the present. Happiness comes from the inside out, and this dear lady is a perfect example.
 
“The 92-year-old, petite, well-poised and proud lady, who is fully dressed each morning by eight o'clock, with her hair fashionably coifed and makeup perfectly applied, even though she is legally blind, moved to a nursing home today.
 
Her husband of 70 years recently passed away, making the move necessary. After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, she smiled sweetly when told her room was ready. As she maneuvered her walker to the elevator, I provided a visual description of her tiny room, including the eyelet sheets that had been hung on her window.
 
​"I love it," she stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old having just been presented with a new puppy. "Mrs. Jones, you haven't seen the room ....just wait."

"That doesn't have anything to do with it," she replied. "Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn't depend on how the furniture is arranged, it's how I arrange my mind. I already decided to love it." It's a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice; I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or I can get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do. Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open I'll focus on the new day and all the happy memories I've stored away just for this time in my life.”
 
-Author Unknown 

Photo by Jixiao Huang on Unsplash

"Our souls crave the quality of sweetness for that is the taste of love."
-Author unknown 

Once upon a time there was a queen named Dulcie. Queen Dulcie lived in a grand palace. She had a maid servant, an upstairs maid and a downstairs maid. She even had three pastry chefs. You see Dulcie liked sweets. Maybe it was her name which means sweet.

Even though she had so much, Dulcie was not happy. But eating sweet things made Dulcie feel happy for a little while, and that was better than nothing. The trouble was eating sweets would not make her happy for long. 

Queen Dulcie subscribed to 10 different gourmet magazines specializing in pastries and sweets. These she would pour over, clipping pictures and recipes which she would hand to her maid servant who would give them to the upstairs maid, who would pass them on to the downstairs maid who would trot them down to the kitchens to be prepared immediately.

The Queen could have any sweet she desired but still she couldn’t feel happy for more than a short while. It got so that as she stuffed herself with penuche and praline frozen cream bombe alternating bites with strawberry-raspberry sugared tart, her mind was planning out the next smorgasbord of rainbow-hued desserts.

Queen Dulcie demanded more and more. She thought that if she could just find the perfect dessert that she would feel happy and stay happy, so she sat with her piles of magazines and flipped through one glorious, glossy page after another looking for the one dessert that would make her happy. She always thought that the next one would do it, but it never did.
    
Finally, sitting on the floor, surrounded by towering stacks of magazines and the empty, chocolate-streaked plate from her last chocolate chip-apricot torte, Dulcie gave up. Her maid servant came running in and tried to coax her to rummage once again through the pages to find another dessert. Dulcie only shook her head. Her maid servant grabbed a magazine, and opened it to a sumptuous looking towering confection and held it up before the Queen, looking at her hopefully. Dulcie turned her face away. The maid servant ran all the way down to the kitchens to have all three chefs bring their most delicious creations before the Queen. Dulcie closed her eyes and shooed them away with her hands.

For days Queen Dulcie just sat staring out the window. Her maid servant cared for her silently, even offering her a magazine once or twice. The Queen never moved. The pastry chefs lolled about the kitchens playing tiddlywinks and jacks and took long naps in the afternoons.

Then one morning as Dulcie looked out the window, the sparkling sun shining through the leaves of the trees outside called to her. She left her room to go into the garden. The air was filled with a beautiful, sweet scent and a warm breeze caressed her cheek. She took in a deep breath of the sweet air and felt a stirring in her heart. Queen Dulcie sat down on the sun-warmed stone bench in front of the water fountain, surrounded by flowering purple lilacs and fragrant white viburnum, sunny-yellow daffodils and gorgeous red and pink tulips. The sun felt warm on her face. She closed her eyes and savored the comforting feeling it gave her. She listened to the water trickling deliciously in the fountain and let its melody soothe her. She breathed deep and tasted the sweetness of the lilac and flowering viburnum all the way back in her throat. She opened her eyes and swallowed the deep reds and bright pinks and yellows of the masses of tulips and daffodils spread out at her feet. Queen Dulcie smiled.

Her maid servant saw her queen smile and rushed to the kitchens. The chef’s bustled about creating delicious desserts, and paraded them out to the garden to offer them to their queen.

Queen Dulcie looked up to see them approaching grandly across the lawn toward her, beautiful platters of desserts in their hands. She gazed upon their hopeful, flour-dusted faces. She savored the sweetness of having such devoted and caring people on her staff.
​
Dulcie smiled at each one as they stopped in front of her and offered her their finest creations. One at a time the Queen tasted each delicious confection with a single bite. She closed her eyes that she might better focus on the delightful flavors, then put her spoon down and smiled. Dulcie was happy.

©Holly Hildreth 2018

Photo from Marie Antoinette directed by Sofia Coppola