by Deb Coman | Mar 8, 2015 | Uncategorized
Bestselling Publisher Linda Joy has inspired me to become a Sacred Sponsor of the Choosing Happiness Crusade and Video Series.
This inspirational series features 30 intimate soul-inspiring video conversations created to inspire YOU to believe that despite the messiness of life – happiness is within reach. Unlike other “interview” style events, Linda makes you feel like you’re sitting at the kitchen table with your dearest friends getting real, raw and vulnerable!
You can reserve your seat today to get access to 30 happiness videos and 42 inspiring gifts. Get started here: www.ChoosingHappinessCrusade.com.
Happiness can mean work. Yes, happiness doesn’t always just land on our doorstep or wait for us on the carpet beneath our feet as we tumble out of bed each new day. Sometimes we have to go looking for it. Or, even harder, we have to create it.
Sounds daunting and, yet, it’s empowering. Create our own happiness? So, if it’s not just there waiting for us to absorb it, we can make it happen? Yes! Every day. Every moment. Regardless of what’s going on.
Now, this isn’t to say that in the face of tragedy or depression or other challenges, we can just paint on a happy face and all will be well. It does mean, however, that we always retain our power to choose.
In times of darkness, we may choose to feel the depths of sadness and I think that is a good choice. We need to feel our feelings to work through them. In fact, there’s almost nothing worse than painting on a happy face and pretending we are unaffected by tragedy. I don’t mean to be judgmental. We all do what we need to do to put one foot in front of the other and many of us have not experienced feeling, acknowledging, and, God forbid – talking about our feelings.
However, feelings are funny things. Like bad pennies, they keep showing up.
We can cover them, hide them, make them into something else but the original, raw feeling is deep down in there somewhere, waiting to resurface, perhaps when we least expect it.
So, I aim to choose to feel my feelings. I’m not awesome at it all the time but it’s a goal. In doing this, I don’t always choose happiness, but that’s a goal, too. In fact, it’s kind of an end goal. To get there, I may have to choose sadness, anger, shame, and guilt for a time, to get them out of my way on my path to happiness. In my experience, it’s the only way to get there. (Read more about these other feelings on our path to happiness here.)
When that bad penny shows up, instead of shoving it in a pocket or trying to ignore it, try bringing it out into the light in all its rawness, experiencing it and then cleaning it up so that its brightness can return?
Turn your bad pennies into shiny ones as all these amazing women did in these 30 happiness videos and 42 inspiring gifts. Get started here: www.ChoosingHappinessCrusade.com. And it won’t even cost you a penny!
by Deb Coman | Feb 10, 2015 | Uncategorized
Happiness is always a choice. We always have the power to choose it.
Today, my friend and best-selling publisher Linda Joy officially releases her new bookInspiration for a Woman’s Soul: Choosing Happiness.
In it are inspiring stories from 27 amazing women (many of whom I know, personally). It also includes thought-provoking reflection questions and prompts. In celebration of its release, for a limited time, purchase of the book comes with over 40 transformational gifts. Grab the book here today: http://bit.ly/Happiness_Book
The anticipation of the book release got me mulling over the idea, or I should say “the ideal” of happiness.
“Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.”
~ Abraham Lincoln.
Dear old Abe: Is this a challenge? Admonition? Invitation?
I choose “invitation.” And I choose “happiness.”
Now, I’m not saying I choose it all the time and every day but I do find strength in knowing that I have that choice at any moment. Now, certainly events, experiences, even predispositions can make this more difficult at some times more than others. However, I have a role in this performance called my life and it’s not just a supporting actress role.
I, as all of us, have experienced great sadness and I’m not suggesting we should just pull ourselves up by the bootstraps in those instances. I must say though, that even at its worst (and who can say whose worst is worse?) I know in the recesses of my mind that there is a tiny, almost infinitesimal glimmer that hope and happiness will come again – just not right now. And so I choose to feel my feelings and go to the depths of sadness, like racing toward a cold, ever-dimming bottom of the sea with an occasional glance up at the water’s surface where I know the sun is still shining, even as it becomes harder to see.
In order to choose happiness, we must also choose sadness and all the other feelings in between. Or perhaps they are choosing us and we allow them to run their course. They each serve a purpose, whether to protect, inspire or simply remind us that we feel and, therefore, we “are.” And so it is, then, that:
- I choose anger to give me the strength to protect myself when my boundaries are breeched.
- I choose guilt to grow my empathy for those I have wronged.
- I choose shame to learn healthy coping mechanisms so that I don’t stay there long or return.
- I choose sadness so that when it is felt all the way through and begins to fade,
- I can, once again, choose happiness.
How about you? Do you dabble in the palette of feelings so that, in the end, you, too, can choose happiness? Please share with a comment here.
And, before you go, choose happiness by ordering publisher Linda Joy’s Inspiration for a Woman’s Soul: Choosing Happiness today http://bit.ly/Happiness_Book and get bonus gifts from over 40 visionary women (for a limited time only.)
by Deb Coman | Jan 25, 2015 | Uncategorized
Hmm. Over the years there have been a few potential (“potential” being the operative word) clients who said that their clients didn’t care about correct grammar or cleaned up copy; that they loved them and did business with them in spite of the occasional typo or misspelled word in their business writing. I’m sure that is true. To some extent. I often wonder if they realize that for every client they have, there may be one or two who clicked to the next site on their Google search or in that business directory. Perhaps those typos and grammatical errors gave them pause enough to not linger long enough to even explore the “services” page. Then what?
Maybe it doesn’t matter. But, maybe it does. In these times of point and click and your options expand exponentially, why wouldn’t you want to edge out the next option with more polished, professional writing?
Some of the reasons include that it’s faster, easier, and more cost-effective to do it myself. I completely get that (said the person who did their own website, newsletter, opt-in, etc. and spent hours upon hours learning). It is often the only way when your business is starting out. However (and this is a big HOWEVER), good, clean, professional, engaging copy brings more business. What you pay to get it should pale in comparison to what it helps you bring in.
No one expects perfection. We all have the occassional typo slip in (did you see what I did there?) and that can be ok. Really. It’s when it is more than occasional (did you see what I did THERE?) that it can impact your business and your proverbial “bottom line.”
If you’re just starting out, it’s understandable. If your business is not so much about written communication, it’s understandable. If your business is marketing or web site development, or supporting people to run their own business, it really does (and should!) matter. You are passing along bad habits like a rotten egg that will stink up their work. Don’t give your clients a rotten egg. Give them werds they can feel good about. If you need my help, I would love the opportunety. (Just seeing if you’re paying attention!)
I’d love to know your take on this and if you’ve invested in good copy, what kind of impact it’s made in your business. Please leave us your thoughts in the comments.
by Deb Coman | Jan 13, 2015 | Uncategorized
In my house we are back to school, (almost) de-Christmased, and, like it or not, back into our normal routines. As if life with three young boys/men ever involves a normal routine!
I hope you are finding your joy whatever way that comes. Mine involves looking forward always and a teeny bit back just to:
- remind me of where I’ve been
- and help me to learn from it!
So, I’m choosing to approach each new day, just as that: “a brand new day.” Simple, right? Not day 13 of my 365 days to a better me but just a new day filled with many choices that come in the way of moments. In any one of those moments I can choose to:
- straighten the kitchen counter
- clear out and donate clothes that no longer work
- eat a piece of fruit instead of that leftover piece of cake
- stop doing and just “be”
Or just eat the cake, since there will soon be another moment!
You see, it doesn’t always matter once that moment has passed. Sometimes we just need to stay in that moment: live it, enjoy it, leave it in the rear view mirror and move on.
One thing I have been doing for some time now, is looking for signs from the Universe. They often come when I am not noticing. At a recent event with raffled prizes, I just finished telling friends that I didn’t really “need” a beautiful pottery vase when the Universe thought otherwise and my friends clamored that my name was being called. Driving home with that vase, I felt kind of bad, like I didn’t deserve it because I was saying I didn’t really need it. Once home, as I pulled it all the way out of the box it was in, I realized how beautiful it really was and then it dawned on me that the color and design were almost exactly like the business cards my friend created for me (without my input).
When I get out of the way, the Universe often steps in. How about you?
If as you look ahead, there are writing and creative projects in your future and you would like my help, shoot me an email at deb@debcoman.com and you, me and the Universe will figure it out. If we’re not already connected on every social media platform known to humankind, please click on one or more of the links in the header and see what’s happening there!
by Deb Coman | Jan 10, 2015 | Uncategorized
Here we are, plunked down in 2015 – with a brand spanking new year stretching out before us. Yikes!
I don’t know about you, but the idea of moving into this blank slate is both thrilling and intimidating. A few days into all the new “plans” entitled “365 ways to _______ (you can fill it in with ‘declutter, organize, eat better, exercise more, meditate, be a better human’…)” and I think I’ve lost track of some of them already. Sometimes I think there should be a new program mid-January entitled “Don’t Worry, You Don’t Suck Just Because You Didn’t _______!” (again, you choose the quality/behavior).
Truth be told, January 1st is really just another day. The new year doesn’t necessarily mean we have to get overzealous about correcting every little thing we wish we did better and join programs to do that. If that works for you, that’s great and I applaud you. If it doesn’t work, please consider that every day, and actually every moment, is an opportunity to be a better _______.
It’s easy to beat ourselves up and think “Well, I blew it. Maybe NEXT year I’ll do that thing!” What’s even easier, and much more kind, is to think, “I’m doing the best I can” and if today didn’t go great, “I can begin (again) at any moment that I choose.” Life, for sure, is a journey and not a destination. So, begin. And if it’s a false start, begin again. Go ahead and be a better _________.
If being a better writer or doing a better job of communicating your message is on your list, please let me know if I can help. How we might do that is here.
Enjoy this new day and, if this one isn’t great, don’t worry…another one is on the way!
