We all find activities that make a big difference in our lives. If we write gratitude lists every day, we notice an increase in our enjoyment of life. Or if we walk on a regular basis we notice we have more energy and our mood is uplifted.

Then, for unknown reasons, we quit doing what we know improves our lives. It doesn’t cost much, doesn’t take much time, and greatly increases our ability to appreciate our gifts and deal with our challenges, AND YET WE STOP DOING IT.

What is this about? Most of us know this phenomenon. “Yes, I was doing those things and was feeling better. It was easy, but then I stopped. I don’t know why. Huh. That’s interesting.”

I think we stop doing what serves us because these insidious thoughts creep into our minds and take over: “This is too easy. This is too little. Such a small behavior can’t make a profound effect on my life. I don’t need to do this anymore. I need to find something newer, sexier, harder, more complicated.”

So we stop doing what supports our emotional, spiritual, and physical health. Then we wonder why we find ourselves right back where we were when we started doing those things that had been improving our lives.

Here is what interests me: We brush our teeth everyday, twice a day, even though we don’t have a huge effect from one brushing. We brush our teeth because we know it benefits us in the long term. We don’t debate every day whether or not we are going to brush our teeth; we just do it.

People who grow up in the Culture of Poverty do not take care of their teeth and they lose them. A deep belief in the Culture of Poverty is that what we do doesn’t matter. It’s all about luck anyway – so why bother with boring little things such as brushing our teeth?

I think most of us have a bit of this Culture of Poverty in our brains. This is what stops us from writing, walking, tapping, singing, dancing, stating our appreciation and gratitude, and all those behaviors that take so little time and produce such great results.

How Do We Help Ourselves Keep Doing What Works?

Here are two ideas:

1. Connect a new behavior to something you know you will do, such as brushing your teeth. For example, always tap before you brush your teeth. Putting the new behavior in front of the already established behavior ensures you won’t forget. You get to feel very proud of yourself every time you do this. Your self esteem skyrockets.

2. Install ringtones on your phone that remind you of what you are committed to doing regularly. Every time your phone rings, you get a fun reminder of who you want to be.  Impress your friends. Contact me and I will make one just for you: (“Suzie, wake up! Suzie, wake up!”)

You have to commit to staying in the game. Set up a system to support you because you know your tendency will be to stop doing what works. Then plan for regular evaluation times to catch anything that has fallen off your “I Do This Reality List.”

It is not, as they say, rocket science, but it does take persistence and means we need to stay awake. I’m working on my version of a parody of “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do.” Maybe this song will help us all keeping doing what is working for us.

Waking Up is Hard to Do

Don’t take this pain away from me.

My comfort zone is my misery.

It’s too scary. You know it’s true.

Waking up is hard to do.

I remember when I felt so fine.

Walking, writing – I had plenty of time.

Then I “forgot.” You’ve done it too.

“Cuz waking up is hard to do.

They say that waking up is hard to do.

Now I know. I know that it’s true.

Don’t say I don’t get to pretend.

It’s too hard. I give up. I don’t want to wake up again.

My energy feeds my fear.

I get better at this every year.

The Law of Attraction turns out to be true.

Waking up is hard to do.

Chorus

Leave me alone. I don’t want to try.

I have plenty of good reasons to cry.

Mind your own business. If you don’t I’ll sue.

Waking up’s too hard to do.

Blessings,

Vicki

How a Drenched Rat Came to Climb the Banks of the Nile

From my trip to Uganda in 2006

I am slowly finding my way up the red, muddy bank of the Nile, about twelve miles down river from the source as this giant river empties out of Lake Victoria.  I am barefoot and my feet are tender as I step over rocks and pebbles. I especially do not enjoy the pebbles pushing into my soft feet.

It is raining, pouring down rain, and I think I am as wet as I can get. I do not know that in a few minutes it will pour so hard, the sound of the rain will compete with the crashing of the rapids of the river, as the visible world shrinks around me. A downpour on the Equator is really something.

I have just left the safe raft, the one with the gorgeous African man rowing, rowing with his gorgeous muscled arms. Sigh.

I’m holding the hand of a woman from Spain who does not speak much English. I could not understand the guide’s instructions and I could not see the path up the bank  he was pointing to. I am trusting this woman, this woman’s hand to guide me. She doesn’t speak English and I am legally blind. We make a great pair.

The mud is red and feels comforting. I see cows around me and Marta, my new best friend, pulls me around a cow pattie. Something cakes to the bottom of my feet and I hope it is mud, not cow manure. Whatever it is, it will not be on my feet for long, so I choose to think that it is mud.

The river is wild here, too wild to go down safely. (I suppose “safe” is relative at this point, but a class six rapid, as this one is, will probably kill anyone who tries to run it.) I’m not sure where the other paddle raft has gone. My friend Caroline, a principal from the school I am working with, is in the paddle boat, the one that flipped three times. We are all making our way up the bank to the take out truck, and we hope shelter, from this pounding rain.

Marta leaves me as others join us and Mandwa, our guide, takes my hand to help me up the hill. I feel my hand in his and I’m filled with a joy and awe I cannot adequately describe. How did I get to be here, climbing up the bank of the Nile in Uganda, being drenched in the pouring rain, with red mud and manure caked to my feet? How is it that this man has rowed down the river through twelve class five rapids, and done it with such grace that we did not flip as the paddle boat did three times? Who is he that he comes to this place in time to put his hand in mine and guide me up the bank? What a delicious, magical moment this is.

We see more cows grazing on the bank, some of them wandering through the rocks and mud, weaving among the rafters as we climb up to the truck.

The Spanish woman and I arrive first and stand as if under a downspout. “Drenched rat” comes to mind and I think I have never understood the phrase as I do at this moment. We are waiting for the helpers to put a tarp over the truck so we can scramble in and get out of the worst of the rain. I smile, even as I shiver, for I know I will describe this moment to my friends and we will all laugh. I know that it is perfect in some way I can’t explain. Marta touches my goosebumps and giggles.

I climb into the truck, happier now that I am out of the rain, but still as wet as if I’d gone swimming in my clothes. Caroline, my principal friend, comes to fetch me from the truck because we have a jeep waiting to take us back to our car, a large SUV Caroline has bought to make it safer for her to muscle through the crazy traffic. “No one would take me seriously in a Honda Civic,” she tells me. We will be missing the barbeque the rest of the rafters will be enjoying as part of this excursion because we must get back to Kampala before dark. It is a difficult and dangerous thirty mile trip. Bandits are not uncommon.

The jeep is blissfully dry, I am very happy for a moment, and then I think, “The next thing that will make me happy is dry clothes. The next thing after that will be food in my stomach. The next thing after that will be a gin and tonic.” They make great G and T’s here, a residual benefit of British rule.

There is always a next thing, I think, the next thing we need to have to get closer to happiness. Learning to be happy in the moment we are in is The Secret, I think. Learning to enjoy being barefoot and blind, with my feet covered in red Nile mud and perhaps cow manure – this has got to be one of the habits of mind to actually live a happy life instead of chasing after one.

I can look forward to being dry, clean and fed, but if I do not know how to enjoy the drenched rat parts of my life, I will miss most of it.

I don’t want to miss anything.

Kick a fall leaf today,

Vicki

When I was in graduate school getting my Master’s degree in counseling, I took a class where we read an article about the five paragraph essay. The authors of the article tried to find the five paragraph essay in real life. You won’t be surprised to find out they could not find a five paragraph essay in the real world. It is taught all over the country, and is used to assess people’s writing ability to get into college. Yet it does not exist in the real world. What is that all about?

The five paragraph essay is boring to write and excruciating to read but it is easy to assess. It is not real writing. No professional writer gets paid to write a five paragraph essay and no readers voluntarily read one.

I have worked with so many people who didn’t think they could write because they hated writing five paragraph essays. This makes me mad. I belive we can all write and we all have something important to say. Writing keeps us healthy. Writing keeps us sane.

If we have to know how to write a five paragraph essay to succeed in this world, let’s learn how to do it. But let’s not ever call this kind of writing real writing. Since this is a hoop we can’t avoid, let’s jump through it. But let’s have fun jumping.

I have taken my revenge against the five paragraph essay by writing a mock five paragraph essay that, not incidentally, teaches how to write a five paragraph essay while I’m making fun of it. I hope you read it and laugh. I hope you know someone who needs to read this and that my mock essay sets them free forever. Enjoy!

Vicki

Why I Like to Grow Edible Pod Peas (As if You Care)

A Five Paragraph Essay

By Vicki Hannah Lein

This essay in five paragraphs is about why I like to grow edible pod peas. I know I mentioned this in the title, but my grade depends upon my having my thesis sentence be the first sentence of each paragraph, so now the person assessing this essay can check that box. (I’m trying to make grading this paper as easy as possible.) I have three reasons I like to grow edible pod peas because I need three internal paragraphs in order for this to be a five paragraph essay. The three reasons are: (Note the correct use of the colon.) Edible pod peas are easy to grow, nutritious and fun to eat. Hence, I will continue on to the body of my essay on why I like to grow edible pod peas. I cannot guarantee you will remember my three reasons, though by the end of this essay I will have mentioned them four times, but I can pretty much assure you that you will not care about why I grow the peas. I don’t need you to care because you are only reading this because a) you are being paid to or b) you are being coerced into reading this as a peer in order to receive a good grade on this assignment, so you can get a good grade in this class, so you can graduate with a high grade point average, so you can get into Harvard, so you can go to law school, edit the Law Review, get hired by a big corporation, make lots of money, make your parents proud, and live happily ever after. There is a lot at stake here, but I don’t need to remind you of that if you are a classmate of mine; you already know that. (Note the correct use of the semicolon.)

First and foremost, (Note the use of a transitional word. I will start every paragraph from now on with a transitional word, so you can check that box now.) I like to grow edible pod peas because they are easy to grow. They are easy to grow because I can buy a pack of edible pod peas almost anywhere and put them on a plate with a paper towel over them, soak them with water and let them sprout. After they sprout I can put them in potting soil I bought from the same place I bought the pea seeds, put them on a deck in the sun and let them grow. So, as you can see, it is easy to grow edible pod peas. (Note that I proved this first point with three reasons. Is that not beautiful symmetry?)

Second, (I told you I started all paragraphs with a transitional word.) I like to grow edible pod peas because they are nutritious. They are nutritious because they do not contain any high fructose corn syrup which is evil stuff indeed. They are natural, organic, and a green vegetable, and almost no expert thinks it is bad for people to eat a fresh organic vegetable. So, edible pods peas are fun to grow because they are nutritious.

Finally, I like to grow edible pod peas because they are fun to eat. They are fun to eat because they snap when you eat them – a fresh, crunchy sound. (Note the correct use of the dash.) Because no pesticides were used, edible pod peas do not even need to be washed. (Note: I started this sentence with “Because” and even though you may have been taught that you could never start a sentence with “Because,” it is fine to start a sentence with “Because” if you attach this dependent clause to a full sentence. You should know that but one of my professors in graduate school did not know this, hence, I dare to instruct you about the proper use of starting a sentence with “Because.”) You can pick them while standing or sitting out in the sun, munch on them, know you are being healthy and virtuous. This is the ultimate win/win situation.

In conclusion, (We are finally at the conclusion!) I like to grow edible pod peas because they are easy to grow, nutritious, and fun to eat. (Note how I told you what I was going to tell you in the introduction, told you in the body of the essay, and told you what I had told you in the conclusion. I know it would have been hard to forget since I have told you so many times, but this essay is not for the reader. It is for the person who grades the person who writes the laws that demand that all children are tested to death so another politician or his greedy cronies can get rich.) Finally, Reader, I hope you are still breathing after reading this essay and that you may consider, after my most persuasive arguments, growing edible pod peas yourself. (Get yourself a beer. You deserve it after reading this incredibly insipid, but easy to grade, essay.)

Vicki Hannah Lein, hoping this is the last five paragraph essay I will ever have to write.

I’m feeling a little lost this morning. So I’ve decided to center myself by writing and to focus on what I know because right now I feel swamped by all the things I don’t know.

1. One thing I know is that I have lots of help. For example, I am dictating this writing into my computer with the new program I am just learning how to use called MacSpeech Dictate. Since I am legally blind, and I was never very good at typing anyway, in fact,I cheated in my high school typing class, writing these blogs is very difficult for me. I make so many mistakes typing, sometimes three or four errors per sentence, that it takes a lot of my life energy to proofread my writing.

Now I have a program that I can talk into and it magically, MAGICALLY, prints what I say. This program is new to me, so I have much more to discover about how much this program will empower me. But I know this, I will get better and faster at using this program because I will stick with it until I master it.

So one thing I really know is that no matter how lost I am, there is plenty of help all around me all the time.

2. I get to hope and dream. I just got back from a mastermind session with Suzanne Evans, and I am churning. My doubts are up and about and floating in my brain and through my heart and clouding my vision. My big dreams to help the world in the best way I know how are also pulsating through me, almost demanding that I stay tuned and stay committed so that people in the world that I can most serve will be served. Giving up is not an option. Giving up is not an option.

3. What I also know is that I am deeply loved. Not only do I have a fabulous amazing magical husband, but I got an e-mail from someone in Bulgaria this morning, someone who said she loved my book Woman with a Voice: Daring to Live Authentically Ever After. She said a friend of hers loves my books so much, she wants her own copy. How could she get a copy of my book in Bulgaria.

To me this is a miracle. That I have touched someone in Bulgaria, touched someone enough that she seeks me out again three years after she saw me speak in Prague–well, this is reason enough for me to get up every morning and do whatever it is I need to do, so that I can help the people I can help, so that courage and truth and integrity rise in the world.

4.I know that everyone has greatness and genius in them. I know that if we are willing to tell ourselves the truth and not let shame steal our glory and our passion, each one of us has the ability to create miracles all day long. What if every person in the world got up every morning and said to themselves, “I am going to make their day!”

What if every person every day got up and helped every person they met smile, laugh, or just feel a little bit better about being alive? What if we all did this one simple thing? The world would be instantly and completely transformed.

That’s how close it all is. Just this close. Just right now right in front of us in ourselves, in our own hearts in our breath, in our smile and in our intention every day to make our day by making their day.

This is what I know today, even when I’m lost.

Blessings,

Vicki

Do you feel like a tiger is chasing you to some finish line you don’t even know for sure is there but one thing you know is that it used to be fun and now you are crabby and tired and you want to kick innocent animals and scream at that jerk who is driving too slowly, making you late?

If you are needing a Joy Boost, if you have lost touch with the passion and fun you used to have, I would love to play with you. For a limited time, I am offering a free fifteen minute phone call. We will play with what most needs to shift to get you back on your Joy Boat. I will come up with a jingle, meditation, or emotional clearing tapping session.

If you would like to schedule a time for your free call, email me at: vicki@daringtobejoyful.com. You will come away with something concrete that will make you laugh or help you listen to the deepest, truest part of yourself. I’d be happy to send you a sample of a jingle I created to help one of my clients get on his computer and work with a program called Dream Weaver. It’s a bit wicked, but still PG rated.

Yahoo!

Vicki