A friend of mine said I thought you were happy. It made me think…. The truth is this move to Thailand has been hard and comes with a lot of struggles, but I choose to keep growing and finding the lessons learned and joy. Not because it’s easy but because it makes life more joy filled and manageable. For me joy is a choice and a good life is by design. A joy filled life is not an easy life by any means. If any of you have read my book you know my story has depth to it. Here on Amazon if you’d like to read it https://www.amazon.com/…/178678…/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0…

As we walk life somedays it’s an easier choice to be happy and other days it’s a choice by changing our perspectives and the stories we tell ourselves. Personally I’ve never found life easy or a walk in the park. I’ve always found it an evolution and a work in progress.

One of the things that I’ve always found is that everyone looks at everyone else thinking life is easier because we don’t hold the deep conversations and only see the highlights. In a world of so much connection at our finger tips now we seem more and more disconnected from each other. As I’ve traveled the world I’ve watch friends come and go not because there is not an opportunity to connect but because people just don’t make the effort anymore and darkness tends to make us lost in ourselves and disconnect.

The truth is life is the art of suffering well. Everyone suffers it’s universal. The difference between those that suffer well and those that don’t is the stories we tell ourselves. Those that suffer well change their beliefs to empower themselves, change their stories to remind themselves they are strong instead of victims and do the work. It’s a hard reality check to hear this, i know first hand. After my attempt on my life and experiencing abuse etc I didn’t want to take responsibility. I wanted to blame life for being hard and others for not being their for me or for what they did to me. But honestly many of us get dealt things that are really challenging and that we don’t deserve and I’m sure you know someone suffering but they always seem to have joy?

You see they found this truth which is those that look like they have the good life have learned to create stories of empowerment so they don’t get lost in the darkness and have realized only they can do that for themselves. They have chosen to take the true responsibility for how they respond to everything and everyone. So many of us still forget this or don’t know this. It’s also really humbling to realize you are responsible for you and the only person that can heal you, save you, empower you or help you to grow. Why is this so hard to hear? Because this means the ego can no longer blame the world or others and we must change and do the work and that’s a hard knock to know we are responsible for our life and we have had the power all along. It’s easier to blame someone or something else.

In a world of instant gratification, judgment, shame and blame we must learn that there is always something between life and easy, it’s called work and exists even if we don’t see it. As we journey along our lives to suffer well we must learn to be better writers, story tellers and perspective givers of our own story and truly know we are the heroes in our own stories. We also need to remember just because we don’t see others struggles, doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Nobody has it easy but, everyone has a CHOICE. Our life is the sum total of our choices and to write beautiful stories of our lives and suffer well is a choice so choose wisely. Write empowering stories, choose empowering perspectives, tell empowering stories and label with love. All these are small things that can make a big difference for each of us in our lives to suffer well.