☀️ The Nicole Magnusson Newsletter

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📆 Daily Issue 78 | ⏱️ Read time: 2 min

Finding Joy in Unlikely Places

What would you do if you knew you only had 5 years to live?

I recently heard the story of a woman who had a lung transplant.

She is 20 years old and only 50% of people with lung transplants survive past 5 years.

This woman is so unbothered. And completely takes reality as it comes.

She never complains. She never goes down the “what if” route. She doesn’t freak out about the side effects of the 20 different medications she is taking.

She lives in the moment.

And honestly, it's SO inspiring.

She doesn’t have massive, grandiose dreams and she appreciates the little things.

I aspire to be more like this woman. I think we all can aspire to be more like this woman.

When we take life at face value, we are saved from so much suffering. And we can actually enjoy our present circumstances, no matter how good or bad those circumstances are.

When we simplify life, we can take the pressure off of ourselves and actually be the person we’ve always wanted to be.

Right here. Right now. In these circumstances.

What’s inspiring about this girl is that she has accessed certain feeling states that we all aspire to feel: joy, gratitude, self-acceptance, and playfulness.

When we set big goals for ourselves, we only do so because we feel we will achieve certain feeling states on the other side of those goals.

Why do you want your dream job?

To make money and feel purposeful.

Why do you want to make money and feel purposeful?

To feel safe and to feel inspired.

Why do you want to feel safe and inspired?

To feel calm, joyful, and energized.

Often, we give our power away to certain imagined circumstances. We think that things have to be a very specific way for us to access certain feeling states. But the truth is, we have access to these feeling states all the time, regardless of what’s happening.

As Dr. Joe Dispenza always says, “love yourself enough to be greater than your environment”.

You don’t have to give up on your dreams. But also, you don’t have to give your dreams all the power.

Keep inspiring,

Nicole