Secrets from a Yellow Bird on
How to Improve Your Life Now
(Please Post Your Experience!)

We do take a lot for granted, don’t we?

Here are the air, sun, and stars, water flowing, clouds rolling, children laughing, music playing, and life itself, and yet our egos so often fixate on the money we do not have, the people we do not like, the stuff we want that we mistake for need.

This morning, I found myself out on my front porch, arguing on the cell phone with a woman in the hospital billing department over a medical bill of mine that I am certain I’ve already paid.

Tension. Irritation at today’s ridiculous healthcare costs. Double irritation that they can’t even properly track that I’ve paid the damned bill. Triple irritation that if I’m wrong, I don’t have the money to pay it.

And then a little yellow bird with grey wings landed on a crabapple tree branch right in front of me. I’ve never seen a bird like that in this part of the Chicago suburbs. It stared straight at me and cocked its head, the way birds do.

And it chirped twice.

I apologized to the woman on the phone. I said that even though I’m pretty certain I paid that bill, and I’ll look further into it just to be sure, I am sorry for my edgy tone.

She had an edgy tone too, but it instantly changed with that. She said don’t worry, she understands times are tough, and she’d double-check on her end also to make sure regarding the bill. She must have a lot of challenging days in her position.


Chirp

We are only human. We should forgive ourselves for this frequent focus on what we lack, on what is going wrong for us, on why things are so bad, versus all we are and all we have been given.

But we are human, and one of the many great gifts we have been given is our ability to recognize and be grateful for all we do have.

The beauty that is all around us. The joy, hope, wonder, stories and lessons that are inside the hearts of all those around us. The life and potential that is inside us.

It is my mission to remind people of the extreme importance of actively engaging in “intense experiences”: simple, positive and transformative new experiences that enable people to find, or refocus, on what really matters in their own lives. Experiences that enable people to achieve their greatest goals and achieve the inner peace and greater happiness that they already know deep inside is theirs. I provide these intense experiences through the free IntenseExperiences.com newsletter, and I provide them through my workshops, speaking engagements and other events.

But in addition to actively engaging in intense experiences, it is so worthwhile to recognize that every day – if you know how to look, and if you remember to look – you are given the gift of intense experiences.

Every day things happen to you and around you that, if you are watching, can teach you, inspire you, calm you, and remind you of what really matters, and what does not matter so much in the scheme of things.


Chirp

What’s more, every day the world is just bursting with the potential for even more intense experiences if you make the effort to step into them...

Start a conversation with a stranger and, in ways small or large, it may just change your life.

Take a walk or drive somewhere new and, in ways small or large, it may just change your life.

Call someone you haven’t talked to for years. Pick a novel off the bookstore shelf based on intuition alone and read it to discover why your intuition led you to it. Decide you are going to learn how to tango, and then do it.

Or just step outside and be there.

Watch and hear what God, what nature, what the universe is telling you.

Perhaps a little yellow bird with grey wings will land on the branch of a tree near you, and it will look at you and chirp, and in those chirps a world of secrets will be revealed to you, too.

And be grateful.

Take the time to reflect on these intense experiences you actively engage in, and all those that happen to you.

We tend to invest so much energy in the things that bother us; naturally though what you put your energy into is the world you end up living in.

So invest your energy in recognizing and reflecting on the positive intense experiences. The more you can do this, the more these experiences will work their wonders in your life.


Now You Chirp

In fact, I encourage you to head to the Intense Experiences blog right now.

There are already nearly 1000 postings from people there on intense experiences they’ve had that they are grateful for. Some are small, some are large, all as you will see are meaningful.

Obviously you can’t read through all of these posts, but take a bit a time to scroll through and read several randomly. Reading these is a positive intense experience unto itself.

And then reflect a bit and post an intense experience that you’ve had recently, or that you’ve had at some point here in your adult life, that you are grateful for. If you’ve posted one before, feel free to post another.

Because again, it is by recognizing these intense experiences, reflecting on them, being grateful for them, and giving testimony to them, that we invite more of the little yellow birds with grey wings into our lives.

3) Post an intense experience you’ve had, however small or large, and click to submit it.