Many years ago I stumbled across the book Living with Joy by Sanaya Roman. This book opened my mind to a whole new way of thinking and was the beginning of my transformation and personal evolution.
To this day it is still one of my favorite books. It’s the best book I know of on how to truly live a joyful life and I often recommend it to my clients for inspiration. If you’re not familiar with it, I highly recommend you give it a read!
The book, Living with Joy, was “given” to Sanaya Roman by a nonphysical spiritual guide and teacher she calls Orin. She says she has been channeling Orin for many years and experiences him as “a loving, wise, and gentle master teacher, always positive and compassionate.”
“Orin is always positive and encouraging. He has an enduring message: The Universe is friendly and always working for us (even if we cannot always see how this is true), the Universe is unlimited in its abundance, and we can grow through joy rather than through pain or struggle.”
In Living With Joy, Orin teaches how to let go of growing through pain and struggle and live a more joyful life.
The following quotes and excerpts are some of my favorite key points of Living With Joy. I invite you to lift up your spirit and join me in “choosing joy, releasing struggle, and opening to your unlimited potential for personal power and spiritual transformation.”
Enjoy!
You Can Live Joyfully
1. “What brings joy into your life? Do you know? Are you aware of that which makes you happy? Are you so busy fulfilling your daily obligations that you put off to some future time those things that make you feel good? The path of joy deals with present and not future time. Are you holding an image of what life will be like one day when you are happy, but not feeling that sense of well-being right now, today?”
2. “Every person is free. You may have created an arena of work and based your life upon certain accomplishments and forms. The path of joy is learning how not to be caught by the details of those forms. It is learning how not to be trapped by your own creations, but to be uplifted by them.”
3. “If you have created a job, a relationship, or anything that is not bringing you joy, look inward and ask why you feel you must be in a relationship with anything or anyone that does not bring you joy. Often it is because you do not believe you deserve to have what you want. There is no such thing as “deserving” on our plane. You all have active imaginations; they are your doorways out of where you are. Yours can be a doorway into worry, if that is how you use it, or it can be a doorway doorway into joy.”
4. “There is so much to be grateful for and appreciate. One of the ways to receive more is to spend time appreciating what you have. Acknowledge even the simplest things — the flowers you see or smell, the heartwarming smile of a child, the food you eat — and you will soon find the Universe sending you even more good things, for gratitude is magnetic.”
5. “You have so much to be grateful for, your excellent mind and your unlimited potential. You have the ability to create anything you want; the only limits are those you create for yourself. Wake up in the morning and affirm your freedom. Hold up your higher vision and live the most joyful life you can imagine.”
Changing the Negative into the Positive
6. “The ability to see all situations, people, and events from a positive perspective will help you rise out of the mass thoughtforms and the denser levels of energy and onto your path of joy.”
7. “You can go back and change negative memories by looking at the gifts people offered you and seeing the good you did for them. You then can telepathically transmit forgiveness and love to those people at whatever age they were when you knew them. Forgive yourself and think kind thoughts of yourself. You will heal yourself and others by doing this. The healing will occur in the present time also, and this can stop you from projecting these negative patterns into your future.”
8. “To reframe the negative into the positive, the conscious mind needs to see the larger picture. Your innermost self already sees the larger picture. By learning to move into that larger perspective and out of the emotional and mental body, you can see your life more positively.”
9. “You cannot leave something until you love it. The more you hate something, the more you are bound to it; the more you love something, the freer you are.”
10. “The emotional body has the most to gain from reframing everything into the positive, for every time you say a negative word to yourself or make yourself wrong, your emotional body changes its vibration and your energy drops. When the vibration becomes lower, your magnetism changes, and you attract to yourself people and events that amplify this drop in energy.”
The Art of Self-Love
11. “There are many ways you can love yourself, and everything that happens to you is an opportunity to have a loving experience. Seen in the right perspective, anything can provide you with an occasion to love yourself. When things seem to be going against you, they are only happening to show you blocks to your usable power.”
12. “Loving yourself is beyond attachment and detachment. You exist in physical bodies, and each one of you has a focus that you call the “I.” You have been given the “I” so you can separate from a greater whole and experience a particular part of beingness. Everything you have experienced up until now is what you were born to learn. Whether you label it good or bad, it is what comprises your being, your uniqueness and purpose.”
13. “One of the ways to love yourself more is to stop comparing yourself to others. Although you are part of a whole, you are also an individual self, with your own path.”
14. “Another quality of self-love is forgiveness. Some of you hang onto old issues, feeling anger over and over. It is irritation at yourself, perhaps, or at another who let you down. The higher self knows only forgiveness. If there is anything you are hanging on to — anger, hurt, or a negative feeling about another — then you are keeping it in your aura. The person you are mad at is affected, but not as much as you will be. Any energy or feelings you carry toward another person sits in your aura and acts as a magnet for more of the same. There is most definitely a reason for forgiveness, for it cleanses and heals you and changes for the better the circumstances you draw to yourself.”
15. “Self-love involves respecting yourself and living in higher purpose. When you value yourself, your time, love, and vision, so will others.”
Self-Respect, Self-Esteem, and Self-Worth
16. “What is required to feel good about yourself is not the same from person to person. What you require for self-esteem is not necessarily what another person requires. It is important to discover what makes you feel worthy, confident and happy about who you are.”
17. “Self-respect at the highest levels comes from honoring your soul. This means speaking and acting from a level of integrity and honesty that reflects your higher self. It means standing by what you believe in (you do not, however, have to convince others to believe in it), and acting in a way that reflects your values.”
18. “Self-worth means paying attention to how you feel. You do not need reasons why you choose to do something. You do not need to prove anything to another person about your worth. Validate your feelings; do not analyze and question them. Do not go over and over them, asking, “Do I really have a reason to feel hurt?” Let your feelings be real for you and honor them.”
19. “Self-esteem means believing in yourself, knowing that you did the best you knew how, even though two days later you might see a better way. It involves making yourself right rather than wrong and allowing yourself to feel good about who you are.”
20. “You are a worthy individual, no matter what your past, no matter what your thoughts, no matter who believes in you. You are life itself, growing, expanding, and reaching upward. All people are valuable, beautiful, and unique. Every experience you have is meant to teach you more about creating love in your life.”
Refining the Ego: Recognizing Who You Are
21. “It is important to recognize who you are, without being too egotistical or too humble. It is the two-fold problem of being all you can be. Many of you have not developed a picture of power that you would want to emulate. Many of your images and role models of powerful people come from those who have abused and misused their influence. Therefore, many of you have held back from using your power because the images you hold of it are negative.”
22. “You do not need to pay attention to those voices within you that create pain or make you feel less competent, smart, or able. You can simply act as if that part of you were a small child; hold it, reassure it, and move on. Do not let those voices attract too much of your attention, and do not think that you are them, either. Learn not to pay attention to the little voices within that would have you think you are not great.”
23. “If you feel you have done or are doing something great or unusual, you are telling your subconscious that this is not a normal achievement. If you want to bring more great accomplishments into your life, then take them in stride when they happen. (Congratulate yourself as if this were something you did every day.)”
24. “There are times when you need to congratulate yourself far more than you do. This is the other side of the coin, not too much egotism, but the lack of it. Some of you achieve your goals and never stop to acknowledge or congratulate yourselves; you simply focus on the next thing you must do. You lack awareness of your achievements and do not acknowledge the things you do that work well in your life.”
25. “If you spend time feeling bad about something you did, feeling that you were not powerful, or that you did not say the right thing, or if you focus on the things you are not, you increase their power over you. Instead, recognize the qualities you have. Take the things you want to become, and remember those times when you demonstrated those qualities. The more you see within yourself what you want to become, the more you will become it.”
Sub-personalities: United the Separated Selves
26. “You have various roles and identities, which I will call your “subpersonalities.” These roles exist within all of you. For instance, one part of you might be impulsive and do things without thinking, and another part might be careful and cautious. One part may not like other people to be angry with you, and another may want people to need you…You are bringing each one of these parts, in your journey through this lifetime, to a higher level of knowing and understanding.”
27. “Learning not to identify with your subpersonalities as being the real you frees you and assists you in bringing them to the light. The journey into the higher self is the integration of all the selves, or subpersonalities, with the soul.”
28. “You have a part of you that looks over and observes your other parts — that is your higher self.”
29. “The greatest movement to the higher self comes both in acknowledging the higher self and in evolving all the other parts. Your subpersonalities are simply parts of you that you have not yet aligned with your innermost, higher self.”
30. “The higher self is the part of you that is beyond the world of polarities. Your subpersonalities exist in the world of polarities. Every part within you that leans in one direction will create its opposite. This means that if you have a part that is very conservative, that wants your life to stay the same and does not like change, then you will also have the opposite part — a part that likes to do things spontaneously, to be free and make changes. You may find these two parts constantly playing against each other.”
Love: Knowing the Wisdom of the Heart
31. “Love is the food of the Universe. It is the most important ingredient in life. Children go toward love; they thrive on love and grow on love, and they would die without it. Love is an energy that circles the world; it exists everywhere and in everything.”
32. “Love can be expressed at the highest levels as a particle that is traveling so fast it is everywhere at once and becomes all there is, omnipresent. You could view love as an element that holds together the particles in an atom. It is a force like gravity or magnetism, but most people do not yet understand love as a force. All of you are striving for higher forms of love, but many of you get caught in the common thoughtforms that exist about it.”
33. “Sometimes it may seem as if, when you strive for higher expressions of love, the personality frequently comes in with its doubts, fears, and expectations. To have more love you will need to break through your past limitations around love. If you use the past to remember when your efforts at being loving did not work, you will re-create your past limitations in your present and future relationships.”
34. “Love is an energy you can tap into whenever you have a loving thought of anyone. You literally raise your own vibration.”
35. “You can help transform the planet. It does not take that many people focused on love to change the destiny of humankind, for love is one of the most powerful energies in the Universe. It is thousands thousands of times stronger than anger, resentment, or fear.”
Opening to Receive
36. “The more you focus on what is wrong, the more wrong you will create in your life, and the more it will spread to areas that were working. The more you concentrate on what is right in your life, on what is working, the more other areas of your life will work. It is the same in receiving. The more you acknowledge how much you are receiving, the more you will have.”
37. “Learning to receive is learning to ask for the essence of what you want, rather than the form.”
38. “You may have experienced picturing something and having it come to you. Yet many of you do not know how to let go of the old and open to the new. Be willing to be open to new forms if you want to receive.”
39. “One way to have more in your life is to use your imagination, for it is a great gift the Universe has given you. Every time you imagine having something, challenge yourself — imagine having even more! If you want a house, a friend, a lover or any relationship, a car, a life of leisure — fantasize about it and enlarge the vision.”
40. “Ask! We cannot give you anything unless you ask. The Universe waits for you to ask. When you see it coming, be willing to take and receive it. When the opportunity comes, grab it! Thank and acknowledge the Universe for it, and you can create create heaven on Earth.”
Appreciation, Gratitude, and the Law of Increase
41. “If you want to come out of a bad space, if you are drained or depleted, if you have been around someone who upset you, then you can quickly change your energy by looking at the good things you have and saying thanks — thank you self, thank you Universe. This is an effective way of purifying your aura and raising your vibration. If you were to wake up each morning and spend two minutes giving thanks, you would find yourself having a much higher day.”
42. “What is the purpose of gratitude? It is not just something you have to do because your parents told you to say thank you and be polite. You have heard of people who give thanks after coming through an ordeal. There is a higher reason for gratitude and thanks. Gratitude literally sends out a call to the Universe to give you more.”
43. “Whatever you appreciate and give thanks for will increase in your life.”
44. “Whenever you stop to thank the Universe for the abundance you have, the Universe will give you more. Whenever you give thanks, you increase the light in your aura at that very moment. You change it through your heart, for the feeling of gratitude comes from the heart. As you give thanks, you open your heart. Your heart is the door to your soul; it is the link between the world of form and the world of essence. Gratitude and thanks are a path straight to the heart, to your essence and your soul.”
45. “To create something new, or to keep receiving more of something you already have, get some paper and pens and write a thank-you to the Universe…The Universe definitely hears and appreciates your thank-yous, and you will be sent energy back.”
Feeling Inner Peace
46. “What is inner peace? All of you have a picture in your mind of what you think inner peace is. You have achieved this state many times, sometimes for moments, even for hours, and so you know what inner peace feels like. Part of growth is learning to create that feeling without being dependent upon things turning out a certain way or needing people to respond in a specific way.”
47. “Creating inner peace from the higher levels is learning to open your heart. It means that you are not focused or attached on an emotional level to things that happen in the world around you. You know who you are, and you let things flow around you without touching or affecting your sense of peace. You can learn to touch and affect the energy in the outer world from that center of energy within yourself. That is peace.”
48. “Anything you are attached to or must have a certain way, any belief or concept that is inflexible, will be an area in which your inner peace can be affected. The goal is to take that sense of inner peace and affect everything in the outer world, touching it with that energy. The first step is to find that sense of inner peace.”
49. “What is the value of inner peace? It certainly feels better to the emotional body. However, it is more than that — it is the ability to affect the outer world from your highest level, to create and manifest from a focused place of purpose and an inner sense of who you are. When you are tranquil and calm, when you slow down and feel relaxed, you are able to create and think at your higher levels. What you bring to earth and create from this space is your higher good.”
50. “Inner peace is the connection to your spiritual self. You achieve it through physical relaxation in the body, emotional calm, and mental focus on higher ideals and qualities. If you wish to go upward, to experience and live in the higher levels of energy, inner peace is the doorway.”
Achieving Balance, Stability, and Security
51. “As you move through the day, many of you engage in continuous motion, going from one thing to the next as each comes across your mind or catches your eye. If you wish to feel stable and balanced, stop often throughout the day and focus on what you are doing. Change your perspective. Sit quietly and experience yourself and your thoughts from a calmer level of awareness.”
52. “You can achieve balance and stability by checking with your higher self before taking action, especially on important issues.”
53. “Balance is about moderation, not extremes. Maintaining balance in your life means doing the right amount of each thing…It means pacing yourself in a steady, even way.”
54. “Most of you think that to have security you must find something or somebody in the outer world who will give you something that will make you feel secure. No one can give you anything before you give it to yourself. If you cannot give it to yourself, then no one else can give it to you, either.”
55. “Balance is handling the amount of things you have to deal with every day in a way that is peaceful and healthy to you, and in a way that contributes to your growth and higher good. It keeps the things you are doing stimulating, helping you to wake up in the morning feeling that life is worthwhile.”
Clarity: Living in More Light
56. “Achieving clarity involves seeing the larger picture, a longer time frame, a bigger perspective. The larger your view, the clearer you can be.”
57. “Clarity is not something that you reach and have from then on. It is an ongoing refinement of your picture.”
58. “What is the value of clarity? What will it do for you to be clear? It will save you much time; in fact, it can save years of being on a slower path of evolution. Being clear means taking the time to think out issues in your life. It is more important to think them out than to act them out.”
59. “Clarity means that you are focused and living at a level of energy that others cannot interfere with. The clearer your energy is, the less affected you will be by other people, by their expectations or desires, and the clearer will be your path in life. You need clarity not just to carry out your life’s purpose but in every area of your life.”
60. “The more you spend time getting clear — quiet thinking time, linking up with the higher energies within — the more you will find yourself taking actions that are entirely different from those you might have taken. You may eliminate 80 percent or more of unnecessary actions. One half hour spent thinking and getting clear can keep you from spending years on a slower path. You can evolve rapidly on a spiritual level by spending the time to get clear, asking for what you want, and opening to receive it.”
Freedom is Your Birthright
61. “Freedom is an inner feeling. It is the ability to choose what you want. It is the knowledge that you are the captain of the ship. Freedom is knowing that you own your own life, that you are the one in charge. Freedom is essential for joy, for anywhere you feel trapped or that someone has taken away your rights, you cannot experience joy.”
62. “Many of you who work feel that you are not free, that in some way or another between the hours of nine and five you have given up your freedom. Freedom is an attitude. To experience freedom in this situation, it may be necessary to look at the larger picture. Why are you in this job? If it is for the money, remember that you freely chose this job to make money and that you are free at any time to find another way to make money.”
63. “You can create a sense of freedom from moment to moment by realizing you are free to respond, act, and feel any way you choose. You are free to speak and take action within the framework of your job. You can always find a level of freedom in everything you do. Look at where you are free. Focus on that freedom, and it will increase in your life.”
64. “You cannot own another person, nor can you have a relationship of equality when you are taking freedom away from someone else. All people have the right to do what is enlivening and growth-oriented for them.”
65. “You are free when you can choose how you want to respond. If you can choose to react with joy and pleasure, if you can choose to react by seeing the positive, making yourself right rather than wrong, then you have gained the ultimate freedom, the freedom to be and act in a way that reflects your deeper truth.”
Embracing the New
66. “Embracing the new means being open to having more in your life. Many of you think that what you have created up until now is the best you can do. You make something and think that the first try is your best. However, on the second and third tries you may do even better.”
67. “Opening to new things means trusting and having faith in yourself and others. It means believing that the future holds joy and promise. It means believing in your growth and direction.”
68. “Opening to the new means opening your heart. Be willing to step outside of your normal limits and viewpoints and see the world in different ways. Trust that the world is safe and know that you are the director and the producer of what occurs in your life.”
69. “Opening to the new takes a willingness to view the old not with hate, anger, or disgust but with compassion…As you follow the path of joy you can learn to open to new things while you are in a state of acceptance and peace with the old.”
70. “Your heart expands, and you literally begin revitalizing yourself and rejuvenating your body, as you embrace new things. Life always seeks growth, expansion, and evolution. As you experience the new, you can see more of who you are.”
Taking a Quantum Leap
71. “You may wonder why some of the things you ask for take a long time to come. Quantum leaps involve time and your ability to manifest. Quantum leaps happen when you make large, life-affirming changes, going from one way of being to another. They often involve a major change in your perspective, a letting go of some major belief, or an opening to a higher understanding that changes your life.”
72. “Taking a quantum leap may involve changing your desires or letting go of a comfortable, secure existence and taking a risk. It may mean committing to bringing something better into your life, to believing in yourself — inner transformations which can lead to many changes in your daily life as well.”
73. “When you put a request for a quantum leap out to the Universe, the request goes upward from your mind to your spirit, the innermost part of your being. Your spirit then begins broadcasting signals back to your mind, telling you how to create the changes you want. Now, you must pay attention to those signals. Changes will need to happen on many levels for you to achieve this new step.”
74. “Make a decision, as you take a quantum leap, to follow your inner guidance, the inner urges of your feelings, your heart, and your soul. Let your mind have the role of setting a goal or clear intention, and make the decision to accomplish it. Then your soul can go out in all directions and make you magnetic to the coincidences, people, and events that create what you want. This happens happens beyond the level of the mind; you need to follow your inner urgings, higher guidance, and heart to join this flow.”
75. “To take a quantum leap, you need great motivation, desire, and real inner drive to create your goals. To succeed, your goal must be more than a nice thing to do or something that simply feels good. It needs to be something that you can get behind at all levels, that your emotions can feel excited about, something that you truly want to do, intend to do, and will commit to carrying out.”
Living in Higher Purpose
76. “Higher purpose is a stream of energy you join when you create something that serves humankind or your own spiritual evolution…With higher purpose, you can choose every moment, knowing what to do with each hour, each day, and each week. Living in higher purpose allows you to grow and evolve rapidly in this lifetime.”
77. “Everyone on earth has a higher purpose. You came to earth to be a part of a system of energy that deals with emotions, personality, and thoughts, that involves seeing what is inside of you reflected back to you in the outside world.”
78. “When you live your higher purpose, you compress time, accelerate your evolution into becoming your soul, and raise your vibration. The more you know your purpose, the less you waste energy, and the faster you can go higher.”
79. “You can find and live in higher purpose no matter what situation you are in. You can come out of the denser energies of heavy emotions, fear, or pain. The earth plane can be a beautiful place to experience. The ability to enjoy the senses, to hear sounds, touch, feel, and know love, can lead to joyous experiences. You can come out of separateness. In so many ways you create separateness and loneliness.”
80. “Manifesting higher purpose means believing in yourself and believing in the goodness of the Universe. If you were to make one decision that would assist you most in manifesting higher purpose, it would be to believe in yourself and to trust the Universe.”
Recognizing Life Purpose: What Are You Here to Do?
81. “What are you here to do? Recognizing life purpose enables you to manifest your destiny. Do not get me wrong; you are free beings. You did not set out a course before you were born that you had to follow. You laid some groundwork, provided yourself with certain parents, and chose to be born in a certain part of the world. You set up circumstances for your life so you would be aimed like a projectile in a certain direction. Once you are here, your life is spontaneous and decided upon from moment to moment. There is no predetermined limit to how high you can go. There are no limits!”
82. “You live in a limitless world; you can expand beyond anything you know.”
83. “When you look at life purpose, ask your soul and yourself, “Am I doing this for me, for my highest good, or am I doing it to please others, to live up to their image of me? Am I accomplishing this purpose so that I may receive a pat on the back or recognition? Or am I doing it because it is something I want to do, that fits who I am, and that brings me joy?”
84. “When you are creating your life purpose, you will have enough time, for you will create the time. You will find it so joyful that everything else falls away, and your determination, focus, and concentration are there.”
85. “Life purpose is whatever path you decide on, for all is free will.”
If you have read Living With Joy and it has made an impact on your life like it did mine, please share your experience below. If you haven’t read it you can purchase it on Amazon.