Good morning! I am sending love to you wherever you are in this big, beautiful world.
I had planned to talk about more ways that you can ground yourself throughout your day, but I can feel that you're asking for something else in this moment.
So, we'll come back to another in-depth conversation on grounding soon.
Today I'd like to chat with you about the importance of following your joy.
It sounds nice to say it and it feels good to think about it, but how many of us actually do it?
How many of us are actually choosing for ourselves in each moment (based on the choices available to us)?
We've gotten so sucked into each of the different groups that we are a part of (family, friends, neighbors, society, etc.), and we think we have to follow the rules of each group.
If we are following all of these different rules in each of these different groups and coming out of alignment with who we really are and what we really want when we go along with the group, are we even living our own lives?
For instance, in your family, you probably have a set of spoken and unspoken rules that you abide by so that you don't step on anyone's toes.
In your neighborhood, you probably have another set of rules that you "must" follow in order to be a good neighbor.
In your religious group or your mommy group or your friend group, there are things you "should" and "shouldn't" do to earn the approval of everyone in the group.
We follow these rules, because we want to be loved and we don't want to risk judgment and rejection.
We would just die if someone judged us negatively and removed their love from us.
Or would we?
We have placed such a high value on receiving love from others, but we have neglected to give ourselves the love that we've been craving.
Think about this:
If you started loving yourself in all of the ways that you desire to be loved, would you really need all of that love and approval from other people?
And if their love for you is based on your ability to please them, is it really love at all?
Abraham Hicks says that you can't stand on your head in enough different ways to please them all, but we still wear ourselves out trying to do just that.
What if we could shift our focus?
What if our goal in life could be to please ourselves and to let everyone else off the hook for making us happy?
And what if we could allow others to please themselves and to choose in favor of their own joy and let ourselves off the hook for their happiness?
What kinds of possibilities would that open up for you?
What if you could choose for you in each moment of every day and you could allow them to choose for them so that we're all living the lives we want to be living and we're each responsible for our own happiness?
Would that free you up to actually enjoy your life?
What would it take for that to happen?
If you've been living your life to please others for many, many years like I have, this may seem like a monumental task.
What if it's not as daunting as you might think?
What if you simply have to decide that you are going to follow your joy and you are going to take each moment as it comes?
In the next 5 seconds, can you choose what feels best to you?
And then can you make the next choice that feels best to you and then the next and the next?
Life is just a series of little moments, and if you can follow your joy in this little moment and then the next little moment, you can live a life that you can't wait to jump into each day.
If you are stuck in a situation where your choices are limited or none of the choices feel good to you because someone else is calling the shots (maybe your employer), how can you make the best of this moment and then the next one?
Can you find something (anything) to appreciate in this moment?
Appreciation will always get you in touch with your joy.
If you have made the decision today that you want to start choosing for you (even if you don't know exactly what that's going to look like), let's cheer each other on as we continue this journey together.
If you want to keep choosing for other people's happiness, no worries.
You get to live your life however you decide.
One of the best things we can do for ourselves today if we have made the intention to follow our joy is to ground ourselves powerfully to the earth so that we are really present in our bodies.
Our bodies are incredibly wise, and they will tell us if a certain choice is right for us or not.
If you are given two choices, think about the first one.
If you think about choosing it and how your life will feel after you've chosen it, do you feel light, free, and joyful or do you feel heavy, tense, and chained down?
Use your body to feel how each choice would feel to you and try not to overthink it.
Your mind will try to rationalize whatever choice it thinks you should make to earn the most love from others.
Does this feel light or heavy?
This is your tool for the day as you stay grounded and make the choices that feel best to you.
Thank you, Access Consciousness, for this fabulous tool!
I hope this letter has been helpful to you, and I look forward to talking with you again next week!
Much love to you,
Amber
P.s. If you tend to live your life to please others rather than making choices to please yourself, I highly recommend the book The Way of Integrity by Martha Beck. You can buy it here if you would like to gift me with a small commission at no extra cost to you. I am an Amazon affiliate who only recommends books and personal development products that I personally own and love.
If you would like to create a life that excites and delights you, you can buy my book Celebrating Your Life here.
If you missed my letter about Grounding, you can find it here.
If you missed my letter about Grief and Loss, you can find it here.
If you'd like to read my next letter about More Grounding Tips, you can find it here.
You can connect with me on Facebook at facebook.com/amberkissler33.
You can follow me on Tiktok at tiktok.com/@authoramberkissler.