KAJAMA.COM NEWSLETTER

by Renée Peterson Trudeau

I was having dinner with friends late last year. Most of us were experiencing various stages of disequilibrium in our lives - my husband had just gotten laid off from his tech job, my friend was navigating a divorce, and my neighbor's house was being foreclosed.

My friend Susan asked me, So, how are you? I paused for a minute, then replied, Actually, I'm great. I'm feeling really good. She looked at me with confusion. She didn't understand how I could be doing well when I was navigating so many personal challenges.

I think happiness is a choice, and in this moment, this day, this is how I'm choosing to feel, I replied.

I didn't always make this choice. Three of my immediate family members died unexpectedly between my twenty-sixth and thirty-fourth birthdays. Throughout most of my twenties and into my early thirties, I let those losses dictate how much, how often, and when I could experience joy. For years, anytime I started to feel light, free, or happy, the old feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop would creep in.

We all want to be happy, but where does happiness come from? To be happy, do we need things to be perfect, so that the feeling flutters down upon us like a butterfly on a sun-drenched, perfect-temperature, not-a-cloud-in-the-sky day? Or can we learn to be happy despite our imperfections and old wounds? Haven't we all played the I'll be happy when... game? I'll be happy when I've finished my project, have a new job, graduated school, finalized my divorce, gotten paid, figured out my life purpose...and on and on and on. Can you only be happy if things are going your way and all the stars are aligned in your favor?

In recent years, there's been a lot of focus on the psychology of happiness, and one thing is clear: happiness isn't something that happens to us; it's something we create. At an international coaching conference, I heard author and teacher Tal Ben-Shahar discuss how much power we have over our ability to be happy. We create our happiness when we help others express gratitude, live more in the present, and take time for soul-nourishing, deeply absorbing work and activities. Conversely - surprise, surprise - true happiness is not derived from the accumulation of stuff or the typical pleasures and gratifications we often pursue.

I believe that we're born with the innate capacity to experience emotional well-being and joy; it's our birthright to feel good. God wants us to feel good. Most of us just forget this as we head out into the wooded forest to search for Pandora's box, certain that the secret to happiness has to be out there...somewhere.

On my son's last day of third grade, we hosted an end-of-year school party. Moments after everyone had arrived, my husband called to let me know he'd just been laid off from his tech job. Summer is my favorite time of year. I love the fresh peaches and basil, I love cold swims in our local rivers, I love reading and more reading, and I love enjoying a slower pace with my family. I wanted to be supportive of my partner and fully on board to take over as the primary provider for my family for a while, but if I spent the entire summer preoccupied with worry and going into a spin cycle over our finances, summer would pass me by. I'd wake up on Labor Day having missed some of the best days of the year!

So I consciously decided that just because life had thrown us a curve ball didn't mean we had to stop living. That summer of unemployment included some challenges, but it also included making frozen blueberry-banana smoothies on a stick (my son's invention), late-evening picnics, refreshing swims in Texas's natural springs, and some of the most tender, connected, joyful moments my family has ever experienced. It helped that we'd been through a layoff one time before, and we knew this was merely a bump in the road.

Happiness bubbles up from our spring of well-being (which needs tending to flow). We're wired for happiness. We just have to remember to choose this and consciously return here moment to moment. I was once challenged by my friend Erin, a leadership coach, to think a better thought! When we can see how our negative thoughts and our state of being are contributing to our unhappiness - shifts can occur.

Grab a piece of paper and a pen and write out the top five things that bring you back to a state of joy or happiness. While we feel satisfaction after completing a successful project or we enjoy the momentary high that comes from a promotion or from doing something new and exciting, these things fade and aren't always within our reach. In fact, if we are too focused on pursuing them, they could adversely affect our joy and well-being - such as if they impact our relationships and the amount of time we enjoy with our family.

More and more, I'm realizing that the less I feel I have to do, and the simpler my life is, the happier I am. The quickest and easiest route to happiness is choosing to reconnect with that inner well of happiness and joy that resides within me.

Excerpted from the excellent new book Nurturing the Soul of Your Family, ©2013 Renée Peterson Trudeau. Printed here with the permission of the publisher, New World Library.

Every night, my dreams involve a friend from when I was younger. We always hung around together, but as time went on, we grew apart. Now he is always in my dreams. He isn't doing anything special or unusual, he just always seems to be in every dream situation. I have no idea why this would be, for I haven't spoken to him in more than five years. If we see each other, we say hello and move on. It's just so strange because he is not someone I even think about during the day, and now he is in my dreams every night for the past three weeks. There is nothing sexual about this; he is just always there like we are close friends even though we're not. Help me, please.

Anonymous

Susyn:

As we travel from one lifetime to another, we tend to move in groups. Our parents, siblings and friends show up over and over in these incarnations, for we have important lessons to learn from all of them.

Often we cross paths with people during our formative years who played an important role in a past life. Even though you and your friend have not remained close over the years, your spirits remain in touch. There is a good chance that you have known this friend before, and that this is what cemented the fast friendship you formed in adolescence. Given this deep soul connection, you are sure to be close to him again in the future.

Dreams carry powerful messages that we need to pay close attention to. There may be an important reason why you are dreaming of him so often, so you may want to consider getting in touch with him to see how he is doing. Even if he is perfectly fine, talking to him could reveal why you are having these frequent dreams about him. You may even discover that he has been thinking and dreaming about you as well.

Astrologically, Mars recently turned retrograde. This only happens once every two years. Depending on where it lands in your natal chart, this could be contributing to this phenomenon. For example, if it is traveling through your third or eleventh house of friendships, Mars could be moving you to go back in time to reconnect with this friend.

As a Libra, friendships and partnerships are very important to you. They are crucial to your well-being and peace of mind. Whether or not this friend returns to your life, the dreams may be pointing out an area of your life where you need to put more focus.

We never know when someone will enter or reenter our lives, but the messages in your dreams are clear: A part of you is longing to reconnect and re-establish this friendship that was so important to you in your early years. With the dawning of Facebook, more and more of us are running across people we haven't thought of or heard from in years. More often than not, there is a subconscious or spiritual reason they are drawn to reach out to us, or us to them.

Even if your friend isn't interested in resuming this friendship, there is still a higher purpose behind your dreams. To discover their messsage, write them down in detail. Perhaps they are urging you to revisit a time in your life when things were simple and lighthearted. If you meditate on the thoughts and ideals you carry about that time, you could discover that these dreams are urging you to reclaim the joyful innocence of your youth.

*****

Oceania:

It's not so much your friend you're dreaming about, but rather whatever it is he represents!

Since a recurring dream character can reflect an aspect of ourselves, you might make a list of qualities that come to mind when you think of this friend and whether they might be qualities within yourself that you would like to embrace, explore or expand at this time. If I think of my best childhood friend, Nancy, I think of someone bold and fearless who would never back down from doing the right thing. If I found myself dreaming of her, I would ponder whether those are the qualities I need to develop in order to best cope with current challenges.

Another possibility is that your mind is drawing your attention to the time in your life when you were close to your friend. Jot down your impressions of that period in your life. What stands out? What were your hardships, triumphs, discoveries and transformations? If I think back on the years Nancy and I were close, I remember it as a time when I was first allowed to attend Girl Scout summer camp and ride the bus to downtown Minneapolis without an adult. Since those experiences represented separation from my family and a growing sense of freedom, if I were dreaming of Nancy, it might mean I needed to amp up my sense of autonomy and act with greater independence in my present life.

A third possibility is that you need to examine the quality of the relationship you shared with your friend. Write down impressions of the friendship itself when it was in full bloom. What did you like best about it? What needs did it fulfill? This KIND of relationship may be something you yearn for in the present.

My friendship with Nancy was characterized by true companionship. We would sleep in a tent in the backyard on the weekend, play tetherball, sit in my treehouse and add to our gum wrapper chain, follow the local creek on bikes until it joined the Mississippi River. If I were dreaming of Nancy, it could mean that I was yearning to share activities and adventures with someone.

You don't say whether or not you're in a romantic relationship. If you ARE, perhaps something is missing, and these dreams are a wake-up call to try to cultivate more of the qualities that flourished in this old friendship. If you're single, your dream may be pushing you to seek companionship, friendship or romantic partnership.

Explore whether any of these explanations fit for you, and then get busy. The recurring dreams of your friend will subside as soon as you pinpoint and address the issue he represents.

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.