We have a slightly longer gap between meetings in my Happiness Club this month and so I thought I'd blog a quick, mid-meet up update on why I think Direction is important to be happier in life.

For the past month, we’ve been practicing accepting ourselves – unconditionally. Personally, I found this hard to do. Too often I was drawn into the high pressure, high stress reality of trying to do everything perfectly, so that I could feel good about myself. Frequently, maybe not frequently enough, I recognised this and offered myself kindness and compassion and fought against the urge of perfectionism. I accepted myself with lower standards and it felt liberating. I will be focusing on this unconditional acceptance going forward, I have only just scratched the surface, and need to commit to this each day in the future. I can almost touch the freedom that unconditional acceptance brings! I’m thankful that my happiness club friend has really inspired me. I have some great ideas of how I can take this forward into my life from her. We also talked about the month of meaning and how to be part of something bigger in the next month

This is my video which tells you more about the basics of mindfulness and includes a 14 minute meditation of the body and breath.

Last week our Happiness Club met for the second time and we discussed to great lengths Relating and everything that goes with it. We're excited and ready to commit to month 2 of the Happiness Club.

Mindfulness is not new to my Happiness Club. I am passionate about it and have been practicing it in my daily life for over 18 months (http://moremindfulme.tumblr.com/ ). Another club member (Diane Shillito http://www.dianeshillito.com/) is a Mindfulness Mediation Facilitator – amongst other wonderful things. Other club members have been practicing Mindfulness over the last year and have already been enjoying the many benefits that it brings. Regardless of this we are all excited about making a further commitment to practicing more to be present, right now, in this moment. After all, this is the only moment we really have!

When I read Psychologies magazines recent happiness club article on acceptance it was a big lightbulb moment. I hadn’t considered ‘conditional’ or ‘unconditional’ acceptance of myself until this point but knew instantly I only accepted myself conditionally depending upon my own internal standards and successes. I talked about this with friends outside of the happiness club and, lo and behold, they did the same thing. It wasn’t that surprising on Monday evening to discover friends in the happiness club did too. We would accept our own children unconditionally, so why is it so hard to accept ourselves unconditionally?

I posted a quick mid month updated recently on what I felt about the importance of Direction. Last night I met with my Happiness Club and found out their experiences.

We’re all looking forward to our month of positivity. Here are a few thoughts on how we’ll commit to it!