NOTE: This is a blog about personal growth and your responsibility to own happiness for yourself. And by extension, transfer it to others – we are all connected. So with why I am here.

I started a journey back to happiness in a very strange way. You may too.  So, first of all – always go with your intuition. If you’ve lost yours, the good news is you get to regrow it and live better. If you’re stubborn, then I challenge you to “let go.” Let go of anything that brings you down. Stop worrying, stop letting anger rule you, and above all stop tolerating things that don’t make you happy. See what happens. I’ll say “you’re welcome” in advance. But I will also give you a little preview, a hint, when you stop worrying you just beat fear, when you stop being angry, you just changed your outlook, and when you stop tolerating things – you’ve just affirmed a new you. The one that’s in charge. The one at the “cause” of things not the “effect” things. Good on you, man, you’re on a roll. Next you’ll have to do two more things. They are big ones: 1) stop judging or comparing , 2) do not be attached to any outcome. The truth of number 1 is that happiness is directly related to your level of happiness. The less you judge the happier you are. And the answer number 2 is just be in the moment.

My story began with a chance encounter. It goes like this. I was lost in the rat race and I didn’t even know it. I was running to the train, pissed, and disgruntled because I had to work and I was going to be late for a doctor’s appointment that I had likely cancelled numerous times. So, there I was on Lexington Ave, head down, focused on the task of getting to the train. Then I looked up.

There was this guy and he looked at me, and when he did, I felt energy pass from him to me. The energy was peaceful, gentle and joyful. My jaw must have dropped because it was NUTS. He gave me a sort of nod of “knowing.” I stood there for a moment, caught up in feeling, and the guy pressed on with a wink or nod or something because I had stopped dead in my tracks – he acknowledged what had happened. The guy was Howard Stern. I remember a guy walking by me asked “was that him?” I said yes, and walked into the Subway. Only later did I realize the guy who asked he thought I had been star struck. If only that was the case…then I knew, whatever, that thing was, I needed it. On the train, images came into my head, I remembered being a child and running into my grandfather’s arm in our backyard. At the time I thought I was magical, with my grandfather, as a kid. He was very kind and we did magical things together. I had that magical feeling for so long, through college, through my first few years on my own. I was there again and the memory was so delightful, until it wasn’t, when I realized I had no idea where that person went? I thought that energy maybe wasn’t just what it seemed to be but I was going to the bottom of it. I was going to get it and own it – somehow.  I remembered what it felt like to be free. Life. Saving. Moment. 1.

Later, I was talking to a friend about it, and she said, “That’s not surprising, at all. He does transcendental meditation at the David Lynch Foundation.” I said, “Really? Nothing that I have just uttered seems strange to you?”

That’s how it happened for me. I started Transcendental Meditation at DLF within two weeks and it was my gateway drug into a whole new perspective. Within six months I had determined I had been miserable for a many YEARS and that needed to stop. Then a few sad things happened (which I will surely write about in the hope that you will gain something) and I decided to quit my job and find a new purpose, my old one required too many masks and roles.

It was the summer when I was invited to a two-day seminar about coaching by the same friend who’d determined it was inevitable that I would tune into Howard Stern’s energy transfer. I didn’t take her up on it right away. But, then my intuition (it grows back – you see), as I now know it, kicked in and right before the seminar, I decided NOT to go to Cape Cod that weekend. I’d go to the seminar and go to Truro on Monday.

The seminar was free as I was a guest, but within 30 minutes I singed on to take it – it was pricey but I knew I needed to do it.  Intuition was on fire. At the seminar, I had a similar feeling to what I had with Howard Stern. But I ended up being so moved by the philosophy (Jung), themes (energy shifts – based in science – thank goodness – it wasn’t a cult)  and the logic of it all that I cried for two days – the whole of the seminar. When it was over, I felt free. Life. Saving. Moment. 2.

I wasn’t scared about anything. Not money, my mortgage, my identity (which was so tied to achievement), nothing. Fast forward and another friend, a co-worker, had been talking about reiki. With the stress of leaving my job (or the sheer bliss of knowing I would be leaving) I asked her to try it out on my back, just before I went into one of my final big meetings. I went through the day and it was at night that I realized I had no back pain the entire day.

So I said, I’ll revisit this. And I did. I just completed reiki two and 3 is next month. I am free. Life. Changing. Moment. 3.

Number 4 is in the making. I hope you’ll join me. They say “how you do anything is how you do everything.” I do everything with passion. Now it’s time to focus on being happy, peaceful, and helpful.