Do you sometimes look back and marvel at how your whole life changed in a moment and a door to authentic happiness opened because of some small, apparently insignificant action that you took?

JoAnn and I celebrated July 4, America’s birthday, like everyone else, but we also had something very personal to celebrate.

16 years ago, on July 4 1995, I was living in a senior citizens apartment block in Vancouver, British Columbia, devastated and demoralized by the sudden death of my wife, and the collapse of the spiritual community that had been my home for 36 years.

I had a nudge to give JoAnn a call

I decided to visit Colorado and stay for a few days at a community near Loveland where I knew I could find some friendship and support in the midst of my grieving.

But shortly before I was due to leave Vancouver for Denver a memory triggered in my brain.

I remembered how a couple of years previously, a Denver woman had applied to attend a small writing workshop I was putting on. Her name was JoAnn Workman, and she had written me a nice note of apology saying she wouldn’t be able to attend the event because her plans had changed.

“Why don’t you give her a call?” said an inner voice. “Be brave.  Ask her if she would like to meet for a coffee sometime while you’re in Colorado?”

So that’s what I did. I looked up her phone number in the Denver white pages and gave her a call.

“Is this all I’m supposed to be doing with my life?”

JoAnn was alone in her town house when I called. We had never met. She remembers vividly what she was doing just before the call came through. “I was sitting in my chair asking myself, ‘Is this all I’m supposed to be doing with my life?’

“Then two things happened almost simultaneously. I don’t really know which came first. The phone went, and at the same time I felt a presence sitting in the chair just across the room from me.

“It was all so surreal and unexpected that I was totally flustered when I picked up the phone.

“It was like another special moment in my life when I was sitting at my desk in a Shell office in Houston. My Dad had just died, and I felt him come by my desk and say goodbye.”

Listen to the little nudges within

JoAnn and I talked for a little bit and agreed to meet while I was in Colorado. And now here we are, 16 years later, sitting together in our new town home in Denver. Cracking a champagne because it’s July 4 – and celebrating a strong, loving relationship born in that awkward, but magical little phone call long ago.

Listen to the little nudges that life brings to you. We live increasingly busy lives and that busyness can easily distract us from the wisdom inherent within us.

Never doubt that there is a hand of grace upon your life. It is the hand of love, and its vision is not limited in the same way that the vision of our own human mind is limited.

Some thoughts about Boomers

I’ve been thinking about Boomers lately, now turning 65 at the rate of some 10,000 people a day, and the challenges that this segment of the population faces. And (talking about nudges) I’m feeling I would like to include Boomers a bit more directly in the focus of my blog.

I’d love to hear any thoughts you may have on this, and on a proposed new tagline for The Happy Seeker. It goes like this: “Helping Boomers and others find authentic happiness.”

Do you have any thoughts or experiences regarding “life’s little nudges” that you’d like to share? Please do write and join the conversation.

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How listening to your hunches can change your life is a post from: The Happy Seeker - Living with grace at any age

One of the joys of blogging for me is meeting people in faraway places — or nearby places — who share a similar passion and love for what is true and beautiful in the human spirit. Every time I meet a kindred spirit in this way my heart wants to do a little dance.

I thought it might be of interest, perhaps once a month, to write a post about some of the remarkable bloggers I meet in my blogging journey.

So without further ado — here are 5 “blogs with heart” for November. Of course, these are all in the personal growth niche.

 1. Less Ordinary Living  (Phil Bolton)

“A guide to taking control of your career, growing your startup business or creating a balanced lifestyle.”

Phil Bolton is a professional coach with four years experience helping clients take control of their career and bring their business ideas to life.

After graduating from Cambridge University in England, Phil qualified as an accountant and spent the first 10 years of his career in client service with Deloitte in London and San Francisco. He then took a leap of faith and changed his career, qualifying in 2007 as a coach with the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching.

He started his practice, Less Ordinary Living, in 2008. Says Phil, “I haven’t looked back since — I love every minute.”

2. Graceful balance (Emma)

“Living a balanced life filled with joy and harmony.”

Here’s what Emma has to say about herself and her blog:

“I am Clearly Composed (aka Emma) a freelance writer, daydreaming, domestic goddess, budding athlete and eternal soul dedicated to sharing the development of a healthy and balanced life filled with wellness, personal fulfillment, beauty and joy. Welcome to my corner of the Internet. Won’t you come in?”

Emma is a remarkable young woman who has certainly touched me and inspired me with her beautiful spirit.

 3. Illuminated mind (Jonathan Mead)

“Don’t read this website if you want ordinary. Only if you want to live on your own terms.”

Jonathan Mead is a young man with a big heart who helped me immeasurably when I was looking for some encouragement and direction re my first e-book. Here are quotes from his site at random:

“Since a young age, I’ve had a hard time doing things that I don’t want to do. I started this blog to help others on that path, because I realized what we often view as “collective wisdom” is merely a big, collective assumption.

“I also found out that a lot of ideas I thought were crazy and counter intuitive actually produced the best results. It’s these non-standard strategies that I’m most interested in. The edges of life tend to fascinate me the most.”

4. Happiness and wisdom (Heather and Michael)

“It’s all about happiness!”

I’ve only just got acquainted with Heather and Michael, authors of this blog, but look forward to developing a greater connection with them.

Here is a quote from their welcome message: “We welcome you to our site and hope that you’ll check back often as we write about happiness, review products and offer you tools you can use to quickly develop happiness and wisdom necessary to create your happy life.”

5. The Second Half of My Life (Marion Anderson)

“Success tactics for the game of life”

Marion lives in a small Scottish town called Peebles. By chance a neighbor lent me some copies of a fancy Brit magazine called ‘Realm’ that had a picture of Peebles. It looked so charming.

Marion is a sweet, generous-hearted woman with a wonderful spirit. An ICF accredited life and business coach, she describes herself as an “entrepreneur, coach and lover of life who is passionate about personal development and about living the best life that you can.”

The most beautiful things must be felt with the heart

So there we are. I do hope you enjoyed this little exploration into the remarkable world of personal growth blogs. For my part, some words of the great spiritual pioneer Helen Keller come to mind:

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.”

I would never downplay the importance and essential contribution of our mind. But surely it is through our heart that we can really know another person — just as it is also through our heart that we can come to know the truth of ourselves.

We live in troubled times, but magical times. Blessings to all. I’m still working on starting a Happy Seeker newsletter, please stay tuned!

The Happy Seeker’s 5 “blogs with heart” for November is a post from: The Happy Seeker - Living with grace at any age

This happened about six years ago. It’s embarrassing as heck, but what can you do?

Our RV, a nice little 22 foot Winnebago that we call Tanner, needed an emissions check. I drive the RV by the way, because JoAnn isn’t comfortable with it.

We took Tanner over to a nearby garage and sat in the waiting room with a bunch of other people who were also waiting to get their vehicles checked out. Eventually the service guy came to us and said it had passed the test and was good to go.

JoAnn waited inside a few minutes while I went outside to start the engine and get Tanner turned around so that we could leave. There wasn’t a lot of space to maneuver and I had to really focus on what I was doing.

The trouble is that after finally getting Tanner turned around – without hitting anything — I just kept on going. That is to say, I proceeded out of the exit and drove home.

As I opened the front door of our house I heard the phone ringing. “Who could that be?” I asked myself. And then, in the same breath, “And why isn’t JoAnn home?”

This all happened very quickly, you must understand. The penny was beginning to drop, but hadn’t gotten all the way to the ground yet.

“Did you forget something?”

I picked up the phone. “Did you forget something?” a familiar voice asked.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear. “Embarrassed” hardly describes how I felt as I whipped back to the garage at a very hasty clip.

Good job that JoAnn is such a good sport is all I can say. Good job we were able to have a good laugh as we drove home together.

I suppose it’s only fair that JoAnn got quite a bit of mileage out of this story when she shared it with her local quilting group a week or two later. They all roared. Apparently quilting groups like telling husband stories and this one brought the house down.

Reminds me of a joke I heard a long time ago when I was still living in England. A vicar is traveling somewhere by train. When the conductor comes along and asks for his ticket, the vicar starts searching his pockets. After awhile, he gets a bit flustered.

“It’s all right sir,” the conductor says kindly. “I know who you are.”

The vicar looks up indignantly. “My dear man, that’s not the point. I need the ticket to remind me where I’m going.”

Key to a happy marriage?

I always share my posts with JoAnn before I send them out. As she sat down to read this article she had a good laugh and then she said: “What turned that into a funny experience rather than a disaster or fight was because we understand each other.

“The other people in the garage were quite worried for me when they saw you driving off without me, and if I wanted to, I could have been really mad when I called you.

“But I think we’ve learned to be thankful for each other’s strong points while at the same time we understand and accept each other’s idiosyncrasies.”

Is this a key to a happy marriage? I think it is.

The magic of complementation

I’m a poet and dreamer. Imagination is where I live — though I’m happy to say I’ve become more connected to earth since I met JoAnn. One of the blessings of complementation, I suppose you could say.

As you may suspect, I’m definitely capable of being a bit absent-minded at times.

JoAnn, on the other hand, is very focused — very practical, and down to earth. Imagination isn’t really her thing. Ask her to read a poem, for example, and her eyes immediately begin to glaze over.

If you were to ask me what has held us together despite these differences since we first met 15 years ago — I would answer this:

We both love inner peace.

We cherish truth more than anything else in the world — and this gives us a basis for agreement.

Somewhere to turn when we are in trouble

It doesn’t mean we don’t run into difficulties, of course. It doesn’t mean we don’t get into arguments and fights once in a while.

But we have somewhere to turn when we get into trouble together — which so far has never let us down.

As JoAnn said, we have been learning to understand each other better, and appreciate our differences. And while that is all very uncomfortable at times, it is also quite magical and wonderful.

If I’m having trouble trying to make my office look a bit nicer — or if I’m getting nowhere trying to open a difficult package — it’s a pleasure to know I have a partner who can bring a little more practical expertise into the situation.

Growing toward light and happiness

It takes a heap of patience and integrity to learn how to love and appreciate another person without sacrificing our own truth and individuality.

As my mentor said one time: “Perhaps it shouldn’t be live and learn. Perhaps it should be learn and live.”

But as far as I’m concerned, it’s worth every bit of hardship and discomfort that may come along.

What greater joy could there be than to share in a relationship that is growing toward wholeness – toward light and happiness?

To quote the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke:

“For one human being to love another that is perhaps the most difficult of our tasks; the ultimate, the last test and proof; the work for which all other work is the preparation.”

Or as George Eliot put it:

“What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined… to strengthen each other… to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories.”

Picture credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ferranp/

The surprises (and delights) of a complementary relationship is a post from: The Happy Seeker - Living with grace at any age

This is a post about happiness, and the strange, paradoxical truth that little, apparently inconsequential things often have more power to actually deliver on happiness than the big, ambitious schemes we sometimes dream up.

The beauty of letting the little moments of our life be an aperture for happiness is it takes no effort and doesn’t cost any money. The moments are happening anyway – we simply open our eyes to what we have perhaps overlooked before.

Here are one or two examples.

Every once in a while, in my exchanges with my wife JoAnn, I succeed in saying something that is at least a little bit funny – funny enough anyway that it provokes some spontaneous laughter in her. Three or four days ago, I suddenly noticed how at a certain point when she has been laughing awhile she pauses and says, “Oh heck.” It’s been going on for years. I realized how much I love hearing these two simple little words in this context.

I also became more consciously aware of something else that happens when she laughs.

She always finishes her laugh with a warble or two — don’t know how else to describe it. It seems to come from somewhere deep in her throat and it sounds like happiness humming to itself.

I shared a joke with my doctor today. He’s a great guy. We were talking on the phone, and he was apologizing for the fact that he was croaking because of a bad cold.

As the conversation came to a close I couldn’t resist it. I said, “I’ve got one or two good medical books here, Dr. Thom. Maybe there’s something I could do to help with your cold.”

I’m afraid my jokes don’t always work. But I think this one did, because he began wheezing with laughter. It may sound strange. But there was as much happiness in me in that simple little moment as when I walked up the gangway of a Holland America cruise ship a few years ago at the start of a Caribbean cruise with JoAnn.

Perhaps the expectations we load on to “big” events work against us sometimes? Reality has a difficult time living up to them?

In any event, I find more and more that there is gold – the gold of joy, the gold of eternal happiness and love – waiting for me always in the little everyday moments of my life. It’s “hiding in plain sight.” All it seems to need from me is my attention.

Is happiness hiding in plain sight? is a post from: The Happy Seeker - Living with grace at any age

What a beautiful thing it is when something happens that reminds us we are loved.

Love is the supreme power of this universe, and when we touch that magical, indescribable power, even in the simplest of circumstances, we feel it in every fiber of our being.

But love is not love unless truth is present also.

Joanne and I like to relax with a cup of tea and a newspaper first thing in the morning. As she sat down in her chair this morning and picked up the Denver Post, I thought she looked tired, and asked if she slept okay.

She said she didn’t have a very good night, but she left it at that, didn’t say anything more. I was going to leave it at that too, but I felt a little nudge that something was wrong. “Was there any particular reason?” I asked.

JoAnn went very quiet. She put down her newspaper. “Actually, there was,” she said. “The truth is, I’ve been worried about you the last two or three days. I think you’ve been trying to do too much, getting yourself overtired.

“When you came back from your last hike on Saturday you could hardly walk into the kitchen, and I was worried because I had no idea where you had gone.

“I know things always look worse at night. But please let me know where you’re going if you’re heading out for a hike. I wouldn’t know where to begin if something happened to you or you got in trouble of some kind.

“I’ve mentioned before I think there’s some kind of insurance you can buy so that if the Ranger has to come and rescue you, you are covered. And please – don’t forget to take the cell phone when you go, I saw you left it behind Saturday.”

My mentor used to say that love is characterized by truth and truth is characterized by love. Love is the very nature and power of the universe – it has little to do with the romantic notions and fascinations that consume so much energy and attention in our society.

I don’t always like it at first when JoAnn speaks her truth to me. She is a very succinct person, and if she has something to say, she says it in a direct and straight-forward manner without a lot of preamble (unlike me).

But I’ve learned how important it is to let our process keep working, and not allow myself to get side-tracked by feelings of resentment or defensiveness. I’ve learned that both of us really do want to get at the truth, and every time we let that happen, our relationship gets stronger. The truth, as it was said long ago, makes us free.

In this particular case, of course, it was a no-brainer. Things got blown up a bit out of proportion in JoAnn’s mind during the night, perhaps, and I’m sorry for that. But I saw the truth and common sense of what she was saying. I felt her love for me, and I was both chastened and deeply touched.

I checked up and found I can get an inexpensive waiver that will cover me if I do run into trouble on a hike and need help from authorities. You may be sure I will have that — and a cell phone — next time I go out.

What’s your experience in these more delicate aspects of a relationship? How is your love life working?

Are there areas that are a bit murky, that you don’t want to get into for fear of what may happen, what may be revealed?

We have a choice: we can hang on to the status quo, and watch our relationship stagnate or wither on the vine. Or we can face the truth and let our relationship grow and blossom, take on new sparkle and luster.

Personally, I think we are in a time when truth is coming to the surface all across the globe in every conceivable area and situation whether we like it or not. We may call it change. But what’s causing the change?

Truth is what is causing the change. And though it’s not always comfortable, truth ultimately has only one concern: it wants to set us free. It wants us to remember the beauty and timelessness of our true being.

Top tips for a good relationship #1 is a post from: The Happy Seeker - Living with grace at any age