RandomBliss: What's in Your Happiness Toolbox?

I'm not a collector personality,
but I do love my espresso cups
(which get used every day).

Listening to: I love sassy Brits!

Bliss: Espresso tastes extra good out of pretty new cups! The sun is shining for the first time in days, though it is VERY cold. An unexpected gift in the mail from this creative woman.

A couple of things over the last three days had me thinking about the tools of the happiness trade, and I came up with, I think, the two most important items you should have in your (hopefully pink and/or glittered) toolbox.

First, I was doing a lot of thinking about compassion and how important it is to how we perceive the world and ourselves, and how that is the most important indicator of deep and abiding happiness.

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
--Dalai Lama

This all seems very obvious, but every day we make decisions lacking compassion. We make decisions based upon some sense of right and wrong which is based on someone's arbitrary rules of those things.

Rules can be dangerous weapons if they are not changed to fit each and every individual and situation.

But if in every situation, we apply the tool of compassion, we will see just how fluid our rules have to become.

And here is the first tool: in our lives, compassion should always be our guiding compass.

A compass will point true north.

And isn't true north where our highest self resides? There is no confusion, no sense of righteousness, just love and compassion.

When you think you have been wronged, pull out this compass and see where it guides you.

When you think you can know another's heart and judge it, pull out this compass and see where it guides you.

But also do not forget: when you feel yourself being cruel to your self, pull out this compass.

When you hear those gremlins in your head, pull out this compassion.

Sometimes we forget to be as compassionate to ourselves as we are to others.

And being compassionate to ourselves has a lot to do with balance. When we are balanced, we treat ourselves with love and kindness and those things are then easier to extend to others.

Warrior Mama over at Warrior Girl had a great post yesterday about balance and how it's important to remember that balance should be fluid; it is not a static thing that you find and then never move from.

I loved this!

And it immediately brought to mind an image from my childhood: a level and my small(er) hands carrying it around and laying it on things just to watch that bubble move.

There are all those little slash marks on the glass part of the level, and there is the exact center, but there is some leeway.

Leeway /li:wei/ noun. Freedom of action
within set limits; room allowed for this;
a safety margin. (Oxford English Dictionary)

Isn't that a perfect description of how balance should function in our lives? We aren't building a house here, but a life, so aiming for this space is good enough.

There is freedom of action but also set limits.

The level in my toolbox tells me I really do need to do yoga every day.

But...I can miss a day occasionally and get right back to it the next. I can do 40 minutes one day, twenty the next, and 75 the next, depending on what kind of day I am having and what my body tells me it needs.

To keep my mind healthy, I have to write -- again, almost every day. How much I write and what I write all depends on where my creativity is calling me, but I must obey that call or I risk working outside my safety margin.

Have you gotten your toolbox down from that dusty shelf? Do you even know what is in it anymore? Does it include a compass and a level or do you find other tools more helpful?