find the meaning

To become acquainted with oneself is a terrible shock. ~ Carl Jung

but in finding the meaning... you have no choice.~ Maria Swanepoel

From the author of the Happiness Project,Gretchen Rubin

post-it-note-catch-up:
She set aside a year to focus on (and structurally build up & enhance) her happiness. She started by providing 12 commandments/ overarching themes to her year.
One of them are : Act the way you feel.

here is an exert from her blog:

Random smiling is an example of my resolution to Act the way I want to feel: while people suppose that feelings inspire actions, in fact, actions also inspire feelings.
So by acting happier, I should feel happier.
And you know, I think I do. “Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile,” Thich Nhat Hanh wrote, “but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.”

Also, because of emotional contagion, people often mimic the faces of people they see. One reasons that people are attracted to happy people is that they "catch" that happiness, themselves.


Me again:
I find this really beautiful and inspiring, but to counter the potential feeling of "sickly sweet/eye-rolling-syruppy-happiness" which might now be starting to creep up on you I'd like to bring in the truest and most glorious of all concepts: the bittersweet life. The Happy-Sad.

No better poem illustrates this than old favourite writer and poet: Khalil Gibran.


His poem aptly titled:
A tear and a smile.


I would not exchange the sorrows of my heart
For the joys of the multitude.
And I would not have the tears that sadness makes
To flow from my every part turn into laughter.
I would that my life remain a tear and a smile.

A tear to purify my heart and give me understanding
Of life's secrets and hidden things.
A smile to draw me nigh to the sons of my kind
and To be a symbol of my glorification of the gods.

A tear to unite me with those of broken heart;
A smile to be a sign of my joy in existence.
I would rather that I died in yearning and longing
than that I live
Weary and despairing.

I want the hunger for love and beauty to be in the Depths of my spirit,
for I have seen those who are Satisfied the most wretched of people.
I have heard the sigh of those in yearning and Longing,
and it is sweeter than the sweetest melody.

With evening's coming the flower folds her petals
And sleeps, embracing her longing.
At morning's approach she opens her lips to meet
The sun's kiss.
The life of a flower is longing and fulfilment.

A tear and a smile.
The waters of the sea become vapor
and rise and come Together and area cloud.

And the cloud floats above the hills and valleys
Until it meets the gentle breeze, then falls weeping
To the fields and joins with brooks and rivers to Return to the sea, its home.

The life of clouds is a parting and a meeting.

A tear and a smile.
And so does the spirit become separated from
The greater spirit to move in the world of matter
And pass as a cloud over the mountain of sorrow
And the plains of joy to meet the breeze of death
And return whence it came.
To the ocean of Love and Beauty----to God.


listen to this wise woman (if you can bear past the eccentric name: Oriah Mountain Dreamer)

"....focuses on the the task of individuation. I see this as the work of making choices that enable us to offer the world the particular shape that the sacred mystery wants to take through our being."
and with that blissful-gem,
I'll leave you this Sunny Sunday,
Maria