Happiness Archives - Intuitive Edge

Are your days filled with problems rather than positivity and sunshine? Discover the simple keys to happiness because life is too short to be grumpy! On this week’s episode of the Breathe Love & Magic podcast, I had the pleasure of hosting Deborah Mallow, a.k.a. your personal ray of sunshine. Deborah spent years cracking the code on how to inspire positivity and end self-sabotage, which she details in her book, Six Steps to Fewer Days That Suck. Trust me, this is not just fluffy, feel-good advice—her methods are practical, doable, and shockingly effective. Let’s dig into some of the wisdom she shared. Get Deborah’s Free Gift – You can join her Positive Energy Club and download her Motivational Checklist, Happiness Worksheets, and Feel-Good Activities that will help you build a life that’s lighter, brighter, and way more fun! Your Brain Loves the Drama Ever wonder why your brain clings to that one annoying comment someone made five years ago instead of the dozens of compliments you’ve received since? Blame it on your ancestors. As Deborah explains, negativity bias is an ancient survival mechanism. Back when our biggest problem was not getting eaten by a saber-toothed tiger, focusing on danger kept us alive. But in today’s world, there are no saber-toothed tigers lurking around the corner. Yet, our brains still act like every inconvenience is a life-threatening crisis. The good news? You can rewire your brain to focus on the positive. With conscious effort, you can boost the feel-good neurotransmitters—dopamine and serotonin—while lowering stress-related hormones like cortisol. And no, this doesn’t mean forcing yourself to be toxically positive. It’s about making small, conscious shifts that add up over time to help you feel more optimistic and uplifted. Here’s what my honeysuckle vine told me about joy. Break the Habit of Misery Deborah introduced me to a concept I absolutely love: being personally considerate. It’s about treating yourself with the same level of patience and kindness that you (hopefully) extend to others. In other words, stop being so mean to yourself. Many people get stuck in a loop of negative self-talk, replaying their failures like a bad highlight reel. But here’s the trick that has worked like a charm for me. The moment you catch yourself spiraling, ask, “What would I rather be thinking right now? That one powerful question can redirect your focus and stop negativity in its tracks. It’s simple, but incredibly impactful. Turn Annoyance into Laughter I shared a personal story with Deborah that I think a lot of people can relate to. My husband got into this habit of singing the same theme song from a TV show we were watching, over and over. I felt like my brain might actually explode. It was drivng me nuts. I’d roll my eyes and sigh dramatically, and I actually asked him to just stop. The next day, I had an epiphany: The problem wasn’t the song, it was my reaction to the song. Instead of fuming, I joined him! We sang the theme togther at the end of every episode and suddenly, something that annoyed me became something we did together and laughed about. Deborah pointed out that most of life’s irritations don’t actually matter. Like the next day it’s over and you’re on to something else. If you can learn to laugh at them, you win. Simple as that. Perfectionism Is the Enemy Ever spend an absurd amount of time tweaking an email, redoing your eyeliner, or rewriting a to-do list just to make it perfect. (Guilty.) I refer to this as  the “margin of diminishing returns” which is actually something I lerned in my college economics class. The point is there comes a time when the extra effort doesn’t actually improve the outcome—it just stresses you out. Instead of obsessing over perfection, focus on what actually moves the needle. Will it ruin your day if you don’t rewrite that sentence five times? Probably not. Will it ruin your day if your eyeliner is a tiny bit uneven? Only if you let it. Perfectionism is a trap, and the sooner you escape it, the happier you’ll be. Stop Anger in Its Tracks Let’s talk about anger. We all experience it, but how we handle it makes all the difference. Deborah swears by a simple but effective technique: Breathing. Not just any breathing, though. She recommends a conscious breath where you deeply inhale, hold for a moment, and then slowly exhale while imagining releasing all that frustration. Maybe you breathe in to the count of four, hold for four and releae for the ount of six. Why does this work? Because breathing physically shifts your nervous system. It moves you from a fight-or-flight state to a place of calm control. So, next time someone cuts you off in traffic or your internet crashes mid-Zoom call, take a breath before you react. It might just save your sanity. Daily Rituals for Happiness One of the best ways to prevent bad days from spiraling is to have a solid set of mood-boosting rituals. Deborah shared some of her favorites: The Gratitude Jar: Write down one good thing each day and toss it in a jar. On tough days, pull one out and remind yourself that life isn’t all bad. Dance Therapy: Put on your favorite song and dance like an absolute maniac. It’s nearly impossible to stay in a bad mood when you’re flailing around like a happy lunatic. The 30-Second Smile Trick: Smile for 30 seconds, even if you don’t feel like it. Your brain doesn’t know the difference between a real and fake smile—it just starts releasing feel-good chemicals anyway. Creativity Breaks: Doodle, paint, or write silly poetry. Engaging in creative activities can reset your brain and boost your mood. Happiness Is in Your Hands At the end of the day, the biggest takeaway from my chat with Deborah is this – you have more control over your happiness than you might think. Yes, life can be messy and people can be annoying. Yes, bad days happen. But you always have a choice in how you react. What small shift can you make today? Maybe you can… Laugh at an annoyance instead of stressing over it? Replace a negative thought with a more constructive positive one? Take a deep breath before reacting? It’s all about tiny, intentional changes that stack up over time. Before you know it, you’ll find yourself having fewer days that suck—and way more that actually feel pretty darn good. Now go forth and make today a little happier. You’ve got this! BIO – Deborah Mallow Deborah Mallow is called a Ray of Sunshine—a charismatic, enthusiastic, and inspiring motivational speaker and seasoned positive energy, success coach. She is also the author of book 6 Steps To Fewer Days That Suck, which shares strategies, solutions, stories and some science to turn negative habits into positive ones. Additionally, she is the creator of The Daily Decisions (self-improvement essentials to reinforce positive habits) and the Positive Energy Club. She’s not about forcing positivity, but approaching life differently. Discover how to achieve a positive mindset and make life a little easier to enjoy more, worry less, and find the sunshine! Website & Social Media Website: https://thedailydecisions.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/daily.decisions/ The post Get the Keys to Happiness – Life Is Too Short To Be Grumpy! appeared first on Intuitive Edge.

Today’s topic is about self-kindness because that is one of the most healing things you can do. Self-kindness is a relatively new self-care method and is an active form of self-love. The Background Before we get there I want to share what happened in my life to get me to this place. This is a story about my business, so hang in there. I’ve got to start with a little history so you can understand how this all fits together. Back in 2019, I was still a dating coach and my website was kicking butt with amazing traffic. Through my own hard work writing weekly blogs that had really good search engine optimization, I generated wild traffic to my website which was incredibly exciting. I was getting 137,000 visitors a month which adds up to 1.6 million visitors in a year! I was so thrilled with this accomplishment – it was like magic to me. Then in November 2019, Google made some algorithm changes, which they often do. What happened next? My traffic literally plummeted to zero. I was stunned and heart broken. How was this fair? After all my hard work for more than 15 years, the rules changed and I had nothing. Traffic did pick back up to about 25,000 visitors per month but never came close to recovering. While this doesn’t seem like a relationship trauma, for me it actually was. I had a strong relationship with my blog and I identified with that wild traffic. So, when it crashed into the dust, it took me months to recover. Short on Kindness 4 Years Later Fast forward to this morning. I was speaking to my SEO search engine expert and we were talking about my new website, IntuitiveEdge.biz. I’m working to generate more website traffic, which is why I reached out to her. When we started looking at the data for my traffic, it looked like there were a number of things messing up and causing problems. Weird things that she wasn’t sure how to fix. This caused me to start to spiraling downward. I remembered how this felt from 2019. I’ve been working hard over the last two years on every podcast and blog post that goes with it. And now, there’s a bunch of technical glitches getting in my way of success? Again? I started to question everything: Why am I doing this? Why is this happening again? Why is this so very hard? How much do I despise Google? Why do they get to decide everything? Who put them in charge? I’ll never get this going the way I want it. Why am I even bothering? Ever felt this way about something in your life? Yeah, I bet you can relate. We all go there sometimes. It’s pretty common. What’s happened to you lately and how did you respond? What kind of stuff did you say to yourself? Was it kind or understanding? Not likely! Negativity is Natural How unfortunate that this negative response is totally natural. Yet, this is what people do to themselves. Some are completely relentless with nasty internal chatter all day and night. Others are a bit less berating. But none of it is good for your well-being or self-esteem. The problem got me thinking a bit deeper. Is there a better way to respond to a situation like this? How could I be kinder to myself? Self-kindness. Hmmm. I looked that up and of course it’s a thing experts talk about. I found a great article from EverydayHealth.com and I’m going to share a little of what I learned. Definition of Self-Kindness Let’s start with a definition of what self-kindness is. Being more conscious about how you speak to yourself internally and shifting to a more understanding internal tone. Treating yourself with compassion and kindness. According to that article from EverydayHealth.com, compassion is the awareness of suffering, coupled with a desire to alleviate it. This is how Steve Hickman, clinical psychologist and chief operating officer of Global Compassion Coalition, explains it. “Self-compassion is the act of noticing when you’re struggling, recognizing that’s actually part of being human, and being kind to yourself rather than beating yourself up.” Thanks Steve. Why is this so important? Because being kind to yourself is strongly associated with your psychological well-being. When you operate with self-compassion, that has been linked to feelings of happiness, optimism, connection and curiosity. As these good feelings rise, other states of mind such as depression, anxiety, overthinking and fear of failure decrease. Awesome, right? Next, Kristen Neff, PhD, who is an associate professor in the University of Texas at Austin’s department of educational psychology, created this definition of self-compassion used by most researchers. She says, “Self-compassion consists of three elements: self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness.” When you show yourself compassion, you are experiencing all three of these states of being. Defining 3 States of Being 1. Self-kindness – Being kind to yourself. 2. Common Humanity – Realizing that suffering and feeling inadequate are part of the shared human experience and everyone feels like this at some point. 3. Mindfulness – A nonjudgmental state of mind. What Does Self-Kindness Look Like? Experts suggest you should treat yourself like you would treat a good friend. My recommendation is to imagine comforting a child if you were a parenting expert doing everything right. Then imagine that you are that child who needs the comfort! Typically, most people are super hard on themselves and viciously critical. Negative thinking patterns impact how you view yourself and the world. Also important is self-compassion which is the ability to turn compassion inward. It boils down to just giving yourself a break. Be internally supportive in how you to speak to yourself. Encourage yourself to try again, keep at it, move forward and everything is OK. The idea is to shift away from the normal bashing your inner critic does. Being judgmental, cold and harsh when you make a mistake, when difficulties arise or things don’t work out as expected won’t help you move on. Listen to more on being kind to yourself first What can you do to shift the mean-spirited critical voice to one that is kinder? Here are a few suggestions: 1. Be More Conscious with Journaling After you’ve been hard on yourself, take time to journal about what happened and how you talked to yourself. Think about the harsh way you judged yourself and ask if that way of thinking is really true? Then rewrite what you said, using new self-talk that’s more positive and supportive. Look for additional ways to view what transpired to find more supportive things to say to yourself. 2. Recognize It’s Common That’s the idea of shared humanity – how most people tend to beat themselves up. Once you wake up in this moment, you can sooth yourself with thoughts that you are not alone in this poor self-treatment. Anyone might feel inadequate, but some people have learned a better way to speak to themselves. You can too! Dissolve negative beliefs with EFT Tapping in this episode 3. Be Mindful of How You Talk to Yourself Notice when you are beating yourself up and shift into a kinder mode. Catch yourself in the moment of that horrible berating internal chatter. You can say to yourself, “Oh I’m being mean to myself again. What can I say instead to be kinder in this moment?” Here are a few suggestions of kind things to say to yourself: It’s OK, you’re still learning I’ll do better next time or you’ll do better next time My past is not indicative of my future I’m cleaning the slate right now and starting fresh Small Ways to Practice Self-Kindness Every Day Little treats like have a special cup of tea or coffee drink Take three minutes to listen to a happy song, even sing or dance to it Read something inspiring or positive Step out into the sunshine for 5 minutes Read your horoscope Do a 3-minute meditation Bless yourself – May kindness follow me throughout the day Mostly importantly, be patient and kind with yourself about making this improvement. Don’t let frustration take you away from your path of greater self-kindness. Any change takes practice and time to take hold. It’s not an overnight thing. You are rewriting years of patterned behavior and typical reactions. Kindness here is key to your success and part of the whole thing, right? The reason for doing this is to be kind! Don’t build up unrealistic expectations and find another way or reason to beat yourself up. Be gentle. Be reasonable. And last but not least, please be KIND. I’m not a therapist, but I’m an awesome Intuitive Coach. If you want help learning to practice self-kindness, understanding yourself or your life and have questions for spirit, book your session here. The post Self-Kindness – The Art Of Being Nice To Yourself! appeared first on Intuitive Edge.

If you want to feel happier, discover how to raise your vibration with these quick and easy methods I call magical self-care. Update on My Spiritual Adventure I want to update on my Spiritual Adventure because this is how I’ve come to the idea of Magical Self-Care. Over the summer I took a Celtic Shamanism workshop and went on a journey where I met Merlin. That was a big surprise by itself. Merlin let me know I was embarking on a spiritual adventure that had no destination, no map, no goal, and no guide. The point was to let go and see where it takes me. I like to plan and know where I’m going, so this kind of shook me up! It’s a control thing. You can listen to the start of my spiritual adventure here. Find Joy in the Present Moment For me, this meant I needed to learn how to find joy in the moment and focus on now. Without a goal there is only now, right? Enjoying the present became my priority because that is what my adventure is about. This is also true about life, even though we often make it about creating the future. I’d like to feel happier on a daily basis, so this journey is aligned with that desire. Working with a somatic coach, I created a gesture I call the Sunflower Pose. I stand straight, chin lifted a bit, the spread my arms out wide to the side with palms up. As I do this I say, “I open to the divine flow of creativity, abundance, and joy.” Hear more about my Somatic experience with Jen Aks in this episode. Doing this always brings a smile to my face immediately. It’s an automatic reaction every time. I love it! What a wonderful and empowering way to set my intention for the day. A Fear of Happiness As the journey continued, I discovered I have a fear of happiness. I worried that if I allowed myself to be happy, then something bad would happen. For example, after I got married, which had been a major goal for so long, I was constantly looking over my shoulder. I had this crazy idea that the other shoe would drop. That put me on pins and needles for months. Thankfully, 20 years later, we are still going strong! Recently, that fear of happiness showed up again in the middle of another somatic session. But something new occurred. I heard a strong voice – one I’ve heard before in my life with unsolicited, important guidance. This is not a voice I ever conjure up by asking. But this emphatic guidance shows up sometimes when I need it most. The inner voice said, “You have both feet on the ground. There is no other shoe.” Wow, that sort of blew me away! That statement dragged me out of my future fears and planted me firmly in the present. Everything is OK right now. This is evidence that I am improving! I didn’t wrestle with the fear and let it over take me as usual. Instead, I stopped that old pattern, which is very exciting to me. Big Awakening Then, I had a big awakening over the holidays that helped me see what my true values are today and how I measure my success, which is living a magical life. I don’t measure it by my job, or possessions, or travel, but by the magical moments I experience. That was a revelation. Magical moments include talking to my basil plants. Also having two little orange moths sit on my arm and do a synchronized dance. And let’s not forget connecting with Merlin. Hear more about my basil plants and moth dance at the start of this episode. I talked to the fire element on the Summer Solstice – that was unique and exciting! I have been doing more things that I enjoy. This is what matters most to me now. How to Raise Your Vibration After Christmas, I got together with my friend, Carrie, and we always do intuitive work. We both wanted to know how to raise our vibration and keep it there longer. We got a similar answer about creating a ritual to do twice a day. It takes just a minute really and I have been definitely seeing a difference. (I’ll share the specifics in the next episode about magical Self-Care.) In fact, I had this crazy idea moving into 2024 – what if my life became so magical that I couldn’t even keep track and write it all down anymore? I’m not usually that optimistic, so that was another shocker. It’s also another piece of evidence that I am, in fact, raising my vibration to even have such an expansive thought! Wahoo! Raising your vibration is not rocket science and much of it is not original. But this stuff is working for me, so I want to share it with you. Are You Ready to Feel Happier? The question is, are you ready to feel happier and raise your vibration? Are you ready to experience more magic in your life? I sure hope you are. I’m going to share a bunch of ways to raise your vibration but I don’t want you to get overwhelmed. Today I’m just going to share five and hopefully something in here will work for you. Maybe you already do some of these things daily. A little reminder is always good. These activities are magical because they help you reconnect with your true self, your higher self and spirit itself. Magical Self-Care 1. Clear Your Energy Field. There are lots of different ways to clear your field and when you do, you are automatically a higher vibration! The more you clear your field, the higher your vibe can go. Smudge or use Palo Santo wood to clear your body, office, and home Essential oils like doTerra’s Purify – breathe it in and clear your field Epsom salt baths and treat yourself to something like coconut or lemon Walk in the rain or near running water to clear positive ions Have a Reiki session or try my Soul Intelligence clearing session Clear your chakras – the options are endless! 2. Three Chants to Raise Your Vibration I love chanting as a way to raise your vibration. This uses your vocal cords, since your body is made of mostly water (some say more than 70%), the sound from chanting affects the vibe of all that liquid! Here are my three faves: Chant for Ganesha Magic Mantra Chant to Feel a Part of Everything 3. Dancing and Movement Some people love to move and express themselves through dance. Moving your body definitely can raise your vibration because it moves the energy! Whenever your express yourself and feel happy, you are automatically lifting your vibe. If you like to dance, this is a surefire way to go! 4. Immerse Yourself in Beauty Beauty itself is a higher vibration. Let’s start with color. Colors each have their own vibration which is a reason to intentionally choose the colors you wear. This is also true about your environment and how you decorate. Beauty is also about balancing energy. Have beautiful things around you and treat yourself well. Everyone is different but you might enjoy jewelry, makeup clothing, hair, beautiful accessories for your home, furnishings, carpets, artwork and more. If you feel good in your body, clothing, and environment, you’ll feel happier. What a great way to raise your vibration! 5. Do Something Creative When you work on a creative project, you are no longer stuck in your head. You’ll be in the present moment using your creative energy, which is an incredible source of joy. Maybe you sing, write songs, play the guitar, paint, art journal, make jewelry, arrange flowers, knit or crochet. These are all wonderful ways to play, have fun, and be in creative energy which absolutely will raise your vibration! All of these options are Magical Self-Care. You can pick one or do a bunch. Set time aside or do them while you are doing something else. I hope you use some of these methods and I’ll be sharing five more in another episode soon. Let Me Know What You Choose I’d love to hear about your experiences with magical Self-Care. You can DM me on Instagram @RonnieAnnRyan or share something in the comment section below this blog. Can’t wait to hear what ways you raise your vibration! The post Raise Your Vibration To Feel Happier With Magical Self-Care appeared first on Intuitive Edge.