Would you conjure up a smile for me, please? As in, now.

Feel it curl your lips and soften your eyes. Then check in with yourself. What else has softened?

Even the smallest, briefest smile immediately changes your state, easing your physiology toward greater health. All that good stuff happens effortlessly, no matter how grumpy you are when you start.

Smile Practice isn’t so much something you do as something you allow.

Do you feel your smile just waiting to be let out? Even if you’ve locked it away somewhere, you can open the door.

As you continue to practice smiling, you’ll develop the habit of steady happiness, a state you can inhabit no matter what is happening in your life, or your world.

Your happiness, your priority

Why would you wait passively for happiness to happen to you, when you can easily choose to be happy now?

Practice smiling whenever you think of it during the day, and make a point to welcome each day with a smile, smiling before you even open your eyes. Practice smiling again as you close your eyes for sleep.

Start your Smile Practice today and watch your happiness increase. Your Smile Practice will lead to a Happiness Habit, and who knows what else will improve in your life, and in your world!

Our world could use more happy people. Don’t you agree?

Your happiness helpers

Want a little help starting your Happiness Habit? I have two freebies to help you get happy and stay happy.

HAPPINESS HELPER #1

Sign up here for my 21-day Happiness Practice email series and I’ll send very short reminders to your inbox everyday for the next three weeks, happiness reminders you can read and use immediately to change your state.

The series has helped thousands of people experience the difference choosing to be happy can make. Here’s how Happiness Practice helped two people just last week:

The daily Happiness Practice was a wonderful reminder to start the day remembering the goodness the surrounds us all. Be Happy Now. After all, isn’t that all we have? Now. — Betsy Guagin

The Happiness Practice couldn’t have been scheduled at a better time, as an old wound presented itself for healing. The daily prompts helped me work through a time of great agitation. I feel grounded, settled and realizing every moment of everyday. Thank you for your support and mentoring. You are a teacher’s teacher. — Mary Jo DiBenedetto

HAPPINESS HELPER #2

It’s easier to stay happy when you have healthy, compassionate boundaries. If you are thinking, “I wish” — wish no longer!

Join me for a free online class in which I’ll share practical, spiritual tips to improve your boundaries. Click here to be notified of the next online class.

The post Happy Now appeared first on Pamela Miles.

It seems a thick cloud of anxiety has settled in, and no matter where you live, there is plenty to blame it on. But where does blaming events we cannot control leave us?

In a thick cloud of anxiety.

Whether it’s politics or terrorism or the economy or health concerns, so many things can go wrong in so many ways, and for many, fear has become a constant companion.

Stop now please

Don’t go there. For your sake and the sake of all of us, don’t run after all the ways your life could be upended at any moment. Don’t let your mind wander into what-ifs. Don’t vote for panic.

Stay present with what’s right. Come home now.

Every day

Your daily spiritual practice is a visit home. When you come home to yourself every day, you feel supported and nourished. You remember your value…and your values.

Your chosen spiritual practice might be Reiki, meditation, yoga, qigong, prayer — the list of possibilities is long. Or it could be something as simple as pausing to smile.

No matter which practice(s) you rely on to bring you home, you’ll create the most benefit for yourself (and those around you) by practicing daily, as in every day.

When you practice daily, you develop the habit of coming home to yourself instead of spinning into anxiety even when you are not practicing. Imagine how that will transform your life.

Keep coming home. Practice coming home. Practice now.

The post Come Home Now appeared first on Pamela Miles.

Don’t wait for a more special occasion — Happy New You starts anytime you choose. Right now is a good time.

Pause now for a moment of happiness.

How to do that? It’s so simple. Just take a moment and smile. Not at anyone, not for any reason. Just smile to enjoy the feeling a smile brings. Feel your smile move through you. Feel your radiance.

Your happiness habit

Did you ever imagine happiness could be so easy?

Well, there is one small catch. Happy New You is not a choice you make once and done. It’s a choice you make every day, at least once a day. It’s a practice.

You want to be good at being happy, don’t you? Practice is how you get good at something, by practicing, and practicing regularly. Did I mention, every day? As in being happy every day, at least for a moment.

Practice makes happy

When you practice happiness consistently, your practice becomes a habit, a very good habit, one that links you to your happiness. The path to happiness becomes one you know very well.

When your life includes the Happy New You habit, your life is transformed. When you are happy, you make choices that help you stay happy.

And when you practice happiness consistently, other less savory habits naturally weaken.

You don’t need another resolution to break; you need an easy habit to support you. One you can start now and enjoy anytime you want. A happiness habit.

Help for your Happy New You practice

Here are two free supports for your Happy New You practice. Please choose one — or both!

21 Days of Happiness emails help you start your Happy New You whether or not you have any experience with spiritual practice.

A month of daily self-Reiki support is for everyone who has been trained to practice Reiki in any lineage or practice style.

Happiness starts with clear, compassionate boundaries. The boundary you set around your Happy New You practice, for example. Need help with that? Join me for Blessed Boundaries.

The post Happy New You Now — Here’s How! appeared first on Pamela Miles.

Have you visited your center lately?

Not the outside center where you feel the support of your community — although that’s also a good idea — but your inside center, that state where you feel like your true self, the steady, grounded version of yourself that might now seem like a distant memory.

Center for stamina

You’ve heard a lot about the fight or flight response. There is a third way you can experience the stress response: you can freeze, unable to respond at all.

Winston Churchill advised, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

But how can you soldier on when you feel frozen, your nerves are frayed, you’re not sleeping well, and you see your stamina draining moment by moment?

Backing out of chaos

These times are made for spiritual practice.

When times are tough, it actually becomes easier to experience the gentle transformative power of spiritual practice. Even a brief practice will refresh you and move you towards your center, and brief practice repeated daily can literally transform your life.

All you have to do is actually practice (it’s not enough to just think about practicing).

Spiritual practice creates the habit of transformation, of strategic retreat. You back out of the chaos and into your stillness.

Retreat to your center

I live in New York City in what has lately been referred to as the United States of Anxiety. I practice Reiki and meditation daily, and yoga most days. That’s how I go beyond coping to experience peace and find my creativity.

Even with decades of daily spiritual practice, I can hardly wait to lead the Heart of Practice Reiki Retreat because I know six days of practice in a natural setting will take me even deeper and refresh me more profoundly than my home practice does. And there’s science to support that wellness weeks create lasting benefit. (If you are thinking of joining us, early retreat fees end Saturday, February 4.)

I know coming to Mexico might not be an option for you right now. That’s why I’m leading Blessed Boundaries, a retreat you can do at home, in 20-30 minutes a day, on your schedule, with unlimited online support from me and an international community of people like you reaching for their center.

Maybe you cannot join us for Blessed Boundaries, but surely you can watch the free introduction. You’ll learn five different, simple practices for free, practices you can start using immediately to quickly improve your state. We practice them together and you can continue practicing on your own. Or revisit the recording as many times as you want. And did I mention it’s free?

Center to change

We can’t create the world we envision without a commitment to finding our center every day, and returning to center throughout the day.

These times are made for spiritual practice. If you want to transform your world, the first step is to transform your own state. Please join me.

The post Why You Need to Center, and How You Can appeared first on Pamela Miles.

Still working on your self care resolutions? Or have you forgotten you made any?

Or maybe you’re like me and let the whole resolution frenzy pass you by. Once I saw the very short shelf life resolutions have, my attitude became: why bother? 

But I never gave up on self care.

Why make self care resolutions?

Rather than jumping to make promises you know you won’t keep, let’s explore the reasons for making self care resolutions. What good is self care, anyway?

Well, a lot of good, actually. Self care is the care only you can give yourself; if you don’t do it, it won’t get done. And we know what happens to things we don’t take care of…

Rather than being a drudge, self care makes you more fun to be, doesn’t it?

When you take care of yourself, you feel better. When you feel better, you function better. You’re more creative, less reactive. And not only are you your better self, self care also makes you a better family member, a better friend, a better partner, co-worker, citizen.

Self care is your social responsibility. And self care is part of your every day.

You already have a number of self care resolutions in place. Brushing your teeth, for example. Not flossing–too big a stretch for some of us–just brushing, a simple act of self care you practice at least twice a day and wouldn’t dream of skipping.

Why do you brush your teeth? Likely for both the immediate payoff–your mouth tastes better–and the long term benefit–keeping your pearly whites as long as possible.

Let’s not stop at brushing your teeth. What other self care do you practice routinely, and why? What would it take to expand that circle of care?

Turning self care resolutions into self care habits

Your most valuable self care is not an occasional extravagance; it’s lifestyle, small things you practice every day.

Self care has to be practiced consistently. No matter how many times you brush your teeth today, you still need to brush them tomorrow. And the day after.

You know one yoga class won’t cure your aching back. A single meditation might relieve the headache you have now, but it won’t keep you from  getting another one eventually.

How do you go from making a self care resolution to building a self care habit? Start with something you enjoy, and don’t go whole hog. Try under-doing it.

Want a meditation habit? Don’t start with hour sessions.

Start by sitting up in bed for five minutes before you jump into your day. Five minutes is short enough to be doable, and long enough to start your day from a more settled space. You can start by listening to this.

From self care resolution to self care revolution

In this culture, a commitment to self care is so bold, it’s revolutionary. But it’s a sweet, gradual, peaceful revolution.

If you want to be happier and healthier, to live your life with a sense of well-being, make one small act of self care today. Pay attention as you take care of yourself. Notice the details of how you feel. Then stay with that feeling a moment longer.

Don’t expect an overnight turnaround. Savor the experience rather than judging the results. Be willing to build your happiness and health the time-tested old-fashioned way, step-by-step, choice-by-choice.

Pay attention to your routine acts of self care. Enjoy being right there with yourself.

Paying attention heightens the benefit. And helps you notice that when you feel better, you function better and you make better choices–choices that keep you feeling better and functioning better.

Self care is an act of slow, relentless revolution. Let’s start the revolution now, or rather, soon. First pause to list your personal reasons, the reasons you’ll return to for inspiration to sustain your revolution.

What’s your why?

I practice daily self care because I enjoy my life and I want to still be fun when I’m 101.

I’m more than half way there, and as the years accumulate, I’ve noticed in some ways, age makes it easier to be fun. And in other ways, age makes it harder. Daily self care makes the harder ways easier.

Now it’s your turn. Please share your personal self care reasons, the ones that really motivate you, the ones you can remember in the moment when you need support.

You can find those reasons anywhere in your life. You might even find them in your family, perhaps your (grand)kids–those you have or those you hope to have.

Please share your most motivating reason in a comment below. Who knows, your reason might inspire someone else to find theirs!

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After you share your comment, here are some gifts and tips to make your self care easier:

Even listening to a guided meditation provides a few minutes of effective self care. Here’s a free breath meditation from my Meditate CD.

Keeping healthy, compassionate boundaries is good for you and everyone around you. Learn tips on my free Blessed Boundaries intro. Register here to participate live or by replay.

Reiki is by far the easiest, most accessible self care practice. Basic Reiki self care is easy to learn, but you need to choose carefully as there are no standards for Reiki training or education. Click here for the information you need to make a meaningful Reiki connection.

The post Forget Your Self Care Resolutions appeared first on Pamela Miles.