• LIFE is about THRIVING (genuine Happiness). Every living thing on earth -- including us -- is meant to thrive, and has an
  instinct to thrive. (It couldn't be any other way: if any form of Life didn't thrive in its normal environment, it wouldn't survive the
  tough times.) The only reason to do anything, is to support our thriving.  Seriously: why would anyone ever do anything,
  unless they thought it would make their life better?  The reason we spend so much time feeling exhausted, frustrated, or
  even sick is because how we've been taught to "be successful" in life isn't about thriving at all; it's about surviving. (This is why I
  call it The Insane Society.)
  
  Just one example: we've been taught that to be happy and to feel secure, we have to somehow get ahold of enough money, property,
  and positional power to be able to control our environment and our experience. But, money, property, and positional power in and of 
  themselves do not inherently meet any human life-need. Just try eating a pile of money, or owning an expensive house to experience
  feeling worthy, or becoming a vice president in your company to feel secure. 
  
  The truth is, pursing money, property, and positional power just makes us miserable and anxious, because as soon as we achieve
  these things (IF we ever achieve these things), we immediately begin feeling afraid of losing them. We all know circumstances can
  and do change; there can be no lasting happiness or security, when our happiness and security are dependent on things outside of us
  -- because those things are ultimately out of our control. We can only control what's within us; what we focus on, what meanings we
  give things, how we choose to relate to things within and outside of us, how skilled we become at nourishing ourselves so we thrive.
  
  When we choose to make our lives be about thriving -- about our genuine happiness and well-being -- we experience peace, joy,
  and physical vitality (health and energy).  If we're feeling anxious, unhappy, tired, or sick, it's a clear sign that we're moving away from
  thriving and toward depletion, serious illness, and death. 
  
  WHAT'S YOUR LIFE ABOUT?
  
  CLICK HERE for a list of our non-negotiable, essential Human Life-Needs.
   

• OUR EMOTIONS ARE GUIDES THAT TELL US WHICH WAY WE'RE HEADED -- TOWARDS THRIVING, OR AWAY (towards death). 
  When we feel positive emotion, when we find ourselves feeling/being genuinely kind, patient, generous (etc.) AND we feel
  peaceful, that's a sign that our human life-needs are being met.  When we feel negative emotion, when we find ourselves feeling
  frustrated, hurt, depressed, impatient, angry, stingy (etc.), this tells us our essential life-needs are not being met.  (NOTE: When
  we feel good and energized but anxious (or "excited" about something outside of us being a certain way), watch out!  We're very
  likely to be doing something that time will reveal isn't genuinely meeting our life-needs.)
   

• OUR PAIN is a COMPASS and a DOORWAY GUIDING US to THRIVING.  The Insane Society teaches us that emotional pain or
  discomfort is the worst thing in the world, to be avoided at all costs. What's essential that's been lost, is the distinction between
  pain and suffering.  Pain is an imperative communication from Life, letting us know that we're moving away from thriving and
  towards dysfunction, sickness, and eventually death. When we ignore this communication, when we continue on a course that
  diminishes our thriving and moves us towards death, we suffer.  And so suffering is indeed something to be avoided at all costs.
  
  But, suffering is nothing more than pain avoided, Life denied: all we have to do to avoid suffering, is to listen to and receive the
  Life-giving wisdom of our pain.  With the support of wise, openhearted, compassionate people who understand that pain is Life
  calling us to come closer, who remind us that pain is ultimately the shortest and least uncomfortable pathway to the genuine
  happiness and well-being (thriving) that we long for, it becomes possible for us to learn how to create a new story/strategy that
  helps us find the courage and gentleness to move into our pain, sit with it, and let it lead us to the gifts that are our birthright, that
  Life is longing to return to us.
  
  And so, a capacity to tolerate and sit with our pain until we become able to receive its wisdom is an essential part of the
  path to thriving (happiness, well-being). Once we find a way to become open and willing to receive its wisdom, the pain can
  diminish and ultimately dissolve, no longer necessary.  When we resist our pain, it turns into suffering, and we know Hell.
  When we understand that our pain is trying to lead us away from Hell and into Paradise, our experience of Life transforms.
   

• COMPASSION is ESSENTIAL.  Compassion is the capacity to make a space for anything and everything, just as it is:  the
  worst, the best, and the boring in us, in others, in the world. This especially includes our own pain, fear, upsets, and shame, and
  the things we think are WRONG in ourselves, in others, and in the world. When we become able to make a compassionate space
  for All That Is, just as it Is *right now* -- when we become able to hold the Reality we are faced with in this moment -- we become
  able to remain fully present and available. Only then can we experience genuine peace and security, regardless of circumstances.
  
  And only then do we have any power to transform anything "out there" that is not what we want, because it's only out of a space
  of compassionate presence that our natural genius and creativity can fully arise and become available to us, to cultivate and
  bring-into-being what we wish to experience or embody in the world (or what we wish to disappear from the world).
  
  Without compassion, there can be no true presence, no genuine kindness, no authentic mastery, no real healing, no genuine peace..
  
              "Compassion is my religion."    -- The Dalai Lama
   

• WE are "THE ONE" WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR.   We've been taught that we're unworthy, inadequate, and unimportant, and to
  seek proof/reassurance that we're worthy, adequate, and valuable (lovable) from our romantic relationships. The Insane Society
  teaches us that romantic relationships and marriage are the way to prove that we're lovable (which we need because The Insane
  Society has taught all of us that we're worthless and unlovable). In this Society, the commitment of marriage is essentially about
  getting someone to promise to keep solving that problem for us for the rest of our lives.
  
  Certainly we all long for unconditional love -- to know that we are truly, irrevocably lovable and valuable, that we genuinely matter --
  but this is something that no human being can ever give us. There will always be moments when we or they are captured by our
  pain or shame, when all we or they can do is defend our tender hearts like animals fighting for survival. None of us can love or care
  for another when we're in this desperate place. And so trying to get unconditional love -- ultimate reassurance that we're worthy and
  lovable -- from another person places a terrible burden on our relationship, that always inevitably destroys the connection between us. 
  
  The truth is, it is our own care,  tenderness, compassion, valuing (respect), and mattering that we cannot do without.  When we
  stop looking outside ourselves for what only we can provide, we discover within us an inexhaustible, always-available source of
  attention, support, comfort, validation, and vitality ... leaving us free to come to our relationships needing nothing. And when we
  stop looking to get something from other people (love, validation, reassurance), we become free to simply enjoy them. Only then does
  genine, lasting respect, intimacy, and connection become possible.
   

• OUR UNHEALED WOUNDS -- NOT OTHER PEOPLE -- CAUSE ALL OUR UPSETS.  We may indeed have a real, legitimate issue with
  someone, but the UPSET -- the charge, the drama, the story, the pain -- is ours. It's like having a broken toe: if your toe is fine and
  someone steps on it, it's uncomfortable, but it's also no big deal -- you can calmly ask them to get off your foot. But if you have a
  toe that's already broken (that you've spent a lifetime trying -- and failing -- to keep from getting bumped) and someone steps on it,
  YOWEE!!!  You'll go right through the roof, the pain is so intense.
  
  The problem is, the intensity of the pain from that so-many-times-bumped broken toe wasn't created by the other person in the
  moment they stepped on your toe. That intense sensitivity arose from an unhealed and repeatedly aggravated injury that happened
  long before that moment. THEY didn't cause you that pain; you brought it with you. It's an understandable mistake, but the most
  damaging thing we do to each other, is blame each other for our own old, unhealed pain, that we brought with us before they ever
  showed up on the scene. (One of the most powerful questions I ask myself, when one of my broken toes has been stepped on, is
  "If this were the first time this had ever happened to me in my life, would I be this upset?" So far, the answer has always be, "no
  way.")
  
  Like all our uncomfortable emotions, our upsets are actually messages from our inner wisdom, letting us know that we have
  non-negotiable, fundamental life-needs that have gone unmet.  The greater our upset, and/or the greater the charge, and/or the
  more intense the pain ... the longer that need has gone unmet, and the more important and urgent it is for that need to begin to be
  met now. 
   

• OUR THRIVING IS OUR JOB; THEIR THRIVING IS THEIR JOB.  We are each given one Life to be 100% responsible for, to care
  for, to cherish, to nourish, to help blossom.  (We are responsible for helping our children learn how to tend to their own thriving,
  first of all by example, when they are too small to do any of this for themselves. Children are able to begin learning how to care for
  their own thriving at a very young age -- long before age 2 -- and as they grow older, their capacity to care for themselves continually
  expands ... IF it is supported respectfully and mindfully.)  This doesn't mean we're supposed to go through life without help; giving
  and receiving caring support is one of the great miracles and gifts of this human life. It does mean that at any given moment, no one
  is ever obligated to do any particular thing for us.  It also means that the essentials of what we need are always already available
  within us; we only need to cultivate our awareness of them, and our ability to access them. (We are The One we've been looking for.)
   

• OUR THRIVING IS THE GREATEST GIFT WE CAN GIVE TO THE WORLD, and to the people in our life. When we're thriving, we
  naturally express all that's best in us: we're naturally, authentically generous, patient, compassionate, playful, creative ... and
  we're able to be compassionately responsible for our inevitable upsets in ways that support, rather than destroy, our connections
  with others. There is no such thing as "good" people or "bad" people, only people who are thriving (people who have had their
  life-needs met) and people who are surviving (people who haven't had their life-needs met).
   

JOYFUL Adventure! principles are so simple and so powerful, they create astounding results for everyone who uses them -- for
people who've already enjoyed a great deal of "success" in life, and for people who are just beginning to explore this "New World" of joy,
self-expression, gracious power, and freedom, where THRIVING (genuine happiness) is a normal, everyday, abundant part of life.   


LIFE CAN BE LIKE THIS.


JOYFULAdventure! is passionately focused on creating dramatic results, with dramatically less effort. Starting with a deep
knowing that we're made for joy; the world was designed to work; and we can Be, have, and do absolutely anything we desire, if
we're willing to do OUR PART.

Through a gentle process of asking and listening, creating and noticing, JOYFULAdventure's  uniquely effective perspectives,
distinctions, and tools consistently create astonishing, extraordinary results in the "Real World."
 

For resources, suggestions, and support on how to begin, CLICK HERE or CONTACT US.

 

COME DISCOVER how EASY IT IS ... to live life as the JOYFULAdventure!  it was meant to be.
 

      LIFE CAN BE LIKE THIS.