Uniquely You: 20 Things To Love About You

If someone were to say “You are indeed unique.” What does this mean to you? This column is to guide you through the process of making an appreciative inquiry into what makes you special, and create a more conscious awareness of many ways in which you express your uniqueness. Your practices are the many ways that you express your uniqueness. 


The first step is to list 20 qualities that are uniquely you so we can inquire into them. The purpose of this exercise is to connect with what is best and then to make it even better. I am not asking you to come up with 20 things that you or someone else thinks is wrong with you; neither of us feels inspired to create there!


We want to do something different. I am asking you to note 20 things that are great about you and then the ways you express these qualities.  Can you be comfortable enough to make the assumption that these qualities exist? What if you are doing at least 20 things right? Can you live with that thought? If they are there, are you willing to look into them? For example, you might write that you’re creative, generous,genuine, focussed and funny.


Proceed until you reach 20. Here are a few processes that can help you get there.

• Ask somebody 
• Brainstorm, and free associate 
• Focus on an image, plant, animal or fruit and write down the words that come to mind 
• Choose any five words and then substitute these for the qualities that ring true for you. 
• Perhaps the words to a prayer, a song or quotation come to mind. Write these down. 

Stay in the flow, and truly open your mind to this process. I encourage you to truly see the beauty that is you—and uniquely you. By now you are relaxing into this process of appreciating the authentic you and becoming increasingly comfortable. Notice how you are feeling differently already, notice how you are making the difference in your perception and experience. What is changing for you as you progress through this appreciative inquiry?


Now lets review your list. It’s probably a good guess that the majority of items on your list aren’t just physical attributes. You may have already noticed that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. You may have also noticed that you have inner qualities that you express in ways that are uniquely you.


We are now in an even better position to expand your list to include what it is about these qualities that makes you different and unique. The answer lays in the way you and only you practice these qualities. Practices are your ways of thinking, expressing, doing things and getting things done.


Now you are ready to continue to the next step which is to register each of these qualities onto an index card.


Once you have completed this, you will plan to create multiple opportunities to affirm and consciously appreciate your unique capacities. Carry these with you and put in places where you can connect to them easily.


You are different and you are similar. These special qualities will help you connect in more meaningful ways to yourself and to others. You will notice how others also hold these qualities in ways that are unique to them, similar yet different at the same time. We do practice what is in our awareness and you will find yourself sharing your experiences with others, projecting an increasingly creative and positive self-image. In other words, you will feel more connected, confident and empowered.


And it keeps getting better. Your growing awareness will not only continue to sustain you, it will also expand into all the areas of your life, personally and professionally. In this way, they form your unique Success Blueprint that will honour and continue to celebrate the authentic you. You will continue to tell an ever-improving story of how you made it, a story of appreciation and worthiness. Your experiences will continue to grow, to empower and to sustain you.

The Happy Heart Connections

I have a new initiative, a non-profit organisation called The Happy Project on Facebook.
I also have a webs account to blog on The Happy Heart, read and participate while the book unfolds.
This is an extract from one of the blogs on this site.

There are three parts of the program. I have studied the process of creativity and innovation extensively. I have taken the different stages and condensed them into three stages, recovery, discovery and prosperity. Prosperity is a mainstream word, that I find comes the closest to represent the third stage of creativity, which embraces insights, and the integration of these insights into one's experience and across all areas of one's life. This learning is free of context and therefore can be applied universally, very much like one would use a metaphor and apply it to different contexts.


The term I prefer using to represent the third stage of prosperity is "innovery". It is a term I have coined and embodies the true essence of this stage of moving beyond all that already exists.


If I was to elaborate on the characteristics of recovery, I would liken it to falling out of the sky in the middle of the desert. You are stunned and disorientated... Who Am I?  In Recovery, one is so entangled in one's story and overwhelmed that one no longer has a sense of the unlimited self. Flight, fright and freeze are active modus operandi. Recovery is initiated when one realizes that one is confused and that there is more. It is an awakening that "oh, I am stressed, I forgot my heart, my courage, and so on". One then takes the initiative to restore some balance.


Inadvertently or consciously, one realizes  this is not who I am, I am more, I can reach for that now. Discovery is discovering that "you never left Kansas". Your personal power, happiness, strength, courage is inside you and you can reconnect. Your capacity for happy never separated from you, instead you turned your attention away from the things to appreciate.


Innovery is when you receive this insight amongst others and decide to integrate it into your life. You look through believing eyes fully and clearly seeing possibilities are endless. You incorporate new insights into your thinking practices and you seek to create new practices, projects and connections.

How Can You Be Happier?
Here are 3 practices that can make a difference:

1. Express appreciation to someone you want to connect with in a more authentic way
2. Pay attention to your self talk. What words are you using? Take 3 of these words, write them down. Now make them more positive. For the rest of the day, take the opportunity to use your 3 words that make a difference.
3. Write down one belief you have about what makes you happy. Ask yourself 3 questions, any questions, about this belief. 

• What makes you happy? 
• Can I be happy right now? 
• What can I do to reconnect to my happy feelings?

In very simple terms, the stages are:

EXPLORE, PLAY, APPRECIATE

Walking in This World

Today I started a new website and blog entitled Walk in this World. My passion for The Hero's Journey and living a life that is more empowered and enriched resonated with the writings and tasks of Julia Cameron in  her workbook Walking in this World.

My website and weblog will be used as an interactive tool to journal my experiences as I engage my creativity to create new experiences, callibrate and enrich my experiences and embrace more fully the art of possibility as I live more fully and more joyfully in this world.

I will write about my experiences of the tasks, which I perceive as practices, some daily and some weekly, some ongoing and some once-off. Practices are the very core of experience.

This is an invitation to join me in this journey as guided by Walking in this World as we take step after step in making congruent connections.