Excerpts
From the Author’s Preface:
What I will share with you in this book is not new. Great spiritual traditions, religious teachers, philosophers and poets have said the same things in far more eloquent ways for millennia. What I can offer you is a simple, practical handbook of seven specific behaviors that will change your life. You don’t have to believeanything. Just follow the rules, use the tools and cultivate the practices, with an open mind and an open heart. Be curious, be diligent, and be willing to allow Joyful Living into your life.
On Becoming a Playful, Light-Hearted, Loving Person Who Understands How Life Really Can Be Heaven on Earth
You know the difference in how you feel when you are elated, in love or wonderfully satisfied versus depressed, fatigued or overwhelmed. In the positive states of being, you feel light and powerful. Everything is easy and goes your way. Positive emotional states carry high vibration, high energy. In the negative states of being, you feel heavy, powerless and nothing goes right. Negative emotional states carry low vibration, low energy.
Most of us think that these emotional states happen to us. The truth is that we have more control over our emotional state than we imagine. Everything you will read in this book will help you take charge of your emotional state. You will learn how to deal with the circumstances of life - even the painful ones - and still maintain a high vibration or high-energy positive emotional state.
By following the rules and using the tools and techniques in this book actively every day, that is, by making each of these practices into a habit, you will change who you are. You will raise your energetic, vibrational level to the point that you will be a different kind of person. As you become lighter and more playful, more joyful, more loving, you will find life becomes an amazingly delightful experience, full of little miracles, astonishing ease and way more fun than you could imagine. You don’t have to believe me. Try it yourself. What would your life be like if you were joyful most of the time?
The ideas in this book may sound crazy, but they work. The seven rules or behaviors described here are the basis of all great teachings on living a fulfilled life. They are what respected philosophers and teachers have been saying forever. They are simple truths. I’m just presenting them in another way - with the call for you to practice them to make them habits in your life.
Once these behaviors and tools are habits for you - and it takes only three weeks of daily practice to make something a habit - you will be astounded at the difference in your life.
Copyright 2009 M. Gail Woodard
From the Introduction:
As you incorporate the practices into your daily routine, you will find that you can easily create life and all its circumstances in the way you want them to be. It sounds magical, doesn’t it? Well, because we’ve been taught differently, yes, it appears to be magic. You are actually learning to play the game of life with a different set of rules, a set of rules that is becoming available to all of us now.
We do have enormous powers, and they are delightful to use.
Here are two tiny examples of what will become common realities for you as you integrate the practices into your life.
1. In our car-centered society, it seems that we are always in need of parking places. As you begin to pay attention and say thank you (the first two rules or practices), somehow parking spaces start to
open up for you right in front of wherever you want to go. I’m not even going to try to explain it. Just follow the rules and watch this happen for you. When it does happen, remember to say thank you!
2. Sometime when you’re looking for something to wear, or trying to decide what to make for dinner, or looking for the right parts and tools to complete a project, and there’s nothing in your closet/pantry/tool shed, stop for a moment. Close your eyes, take a breath and say to yourself (out loud is even better), “I have everything I need right here, right now.” Indulge yourself in really
believing this statement. (This will come easily as you do the practices.) Then open your eyes and look around again. I guarantee you will find amazing and creative solutions to your attire/dinner/do-it-yourself project. And you will be so delighted with yourself for your creativity! (Remember to say thank you!)
A Final Note of Introduction
These practices don’t require that you change your diet, your lifestyle, your relationships, your religion, your job or anything else. If you observe them regularly, though, you will find your perspectives changing, and those changes in perspective may shake up your life. As you integrate these new behaviors into your life, you will be training yourself to live lovingly, and that means that you and everyone you touch will be blessed, no matter the changes that seem to want to unfold in your life. You will have the choice, as you always do, to step forward, backward, sideways or off your own path at every juncture, every day, in every moment. You are free to determine how joyfully you want to live on any given day.
Copyright 2009 M. Gail Woodard
