Candles, Pens & Simple Pleasures

You know, I’m bobbing out here in the middle of the pacific ocean on a paradisiacal island, and we are (thankfully and regretfully) removed from the emotional severity of all that’s happening in the world.

We have a different charge here, a different impetus.

The biggest motivations here are pleasure, enjoying life, and love.

My intention today is to give some of that to you, and then to ask that you amplify it for yourself.

Let’s talk about pleasure.

Two of my very favorite simple pleasures are candles and pens. I spend money on candles and pens. I delight in selecting the perfect ones and filling my home with their endless joy.

Sounds silly?

It’s not, because no matter what it is, if it gives you that giddy feeling of yes yes yes, I LOVE this, then it is perfectly suited to augment the pleasure in your life.

And there ain’t nothing wrong with that.

I love wading through candles in a store, sniffing them, picking my favorite container, imagining where they’ll sit in my home. In August, when I took the month to travel to Costa Rica and Alaska, I purchased a small Voluspa candle in the Los Angeles airport and carried it with me everywhere, sharing its scent in all the places I stayed.

Candles make me feel feminine, beautiful and abundant. Seriously.

I’m also quite choosey about my pens. I’ll spend 45 minutes on the pen aisle, selecting new colors and juicy inks. Yesterday I wandered at least that long in the art supply store testing each scribing instrument; finding none that suited. My favorite writing pens are Pilot G-2 0.38mm, black, but when I’m brainstorming, give me something thick and inky, preferably metallic.

Pens make me feel creative, capable and well armed to bleed ink and ideas.

See, it’s never about the thing, it’s about how the thing makes you feel.

Do you have a go to pleasure where you don’t even think about the price or the practicality of it?

Can you name a simple thing in your life that fills you with joy and energy and contentment—something that is entirely your own and asks nothing of you?

If yes, never ever feel guilty about that thing. Cherish it, appreciate it, love it and delight in it.

If not, I suggest you find it.

How you might ask?

Let’s not get too cerebral about this; it is, after all, about the feeling.

So, poke your heart around your life, what gives you pleasure?

It might be something that you think is small or silly.

It could be fresh flowers, potted plants, kitchen utensils, books, soaps, olive oils, essential oils, crystals, blankets, anything.

You’ll know what it is when that warm light inside you flashes bright when your mind lands on it. Like a spotlight and a fire.

When you find it, ask yourself, how does it make me feel?

Then give yourself permission to have it—often, and without guilt (that, right there, is the key).

Love and Simple Joys,

P.S.—Sometimes, in order to bolster our permission, we simply need to share our simple pleasure with someone else who won’t, in any way, judge it. So, I’d love to know what yours is! Shoot me an email and share.