I'm pleased to offer you this guest post from Erica Nelson, author of Happiness Quotations: Gentle Reminders of Your Preciousness.  Read about her book and enjoy an excerpted passage below.  Be sure to visit Erica's site at www.happinessquotations.com.

“Most people pursue pleasure in money, sex and power but are still unfulfilled. Why? Because they are non-sustainable energy sources whereas happiness is the purest, most sustainable and reusable form of fuel for the human spirit. Thank you Erica for writing such a meaningful and important book. I love it and it makes me happy.”

– Michael Port, NY Times Best Selling Author of The Think Big Manifesto

When Michael Port sent this recommendation for Happiness Quotations, it lit a fire for me to finish the manuscript and get it ready for the publisher. Glowing recommendations kept pouring in during the book creation process with this book. Michael actually recommended the book when it was nearing completion. The concept was born right after my last birthday in September 2010. I was ready for the next book, the first book was published in 2008. Two manuscripts are sitting on my hard drive, neither worthy for me to take the time to get them into print and before people.

Initially, Happiness Quotations: Gentle Reminders of Your Preciousness was part of a trilogy on happiness. I considered having a journal created, for people to write down wins and happiness experiences; writing a book on the how-to of happiness; and writing quotations to practically apply the happiness way of life I was born knowing.

When I began to post Happiness Quotations, smaller quotations I wrote to encourage people to feel good about life, to forgive old wounds, to recognize ego and connect to source energy – the response was so great. The light of these quotations quickly left the other projects in the dust. I began to concentrate fully on Happiness Quotations, and developed each smaller daily post into a longer passage with more insight, and more information on how to live and integrate the concepts into our lives.

Here’s what came up when I opened the book “Happiness Quotations: Gentle Reminders of Your Preciousness” to a passage for you this morning:

Experience Everything More Fully

Ask more of yourself. Ask yourself to feel joy more fully. Lift your heart higher. Believe in yourself more deeply. Follow your intuition more truly. Be bigger than you thought you could be. Experience love with more depth. Just ask yourself to be more than you thought you could be, and feel more than you thought you could feel.

As you ask, so it shall be. As you step more deeply into the joy that is your birthright, more joy becomes available to you.

So often we forget to ask ourselves to become more than we are. The set-points that become our normal waking consciousness grow engraved and rooted into our behaviors. Yet, you can change a set-point. You can change how deeply you feel. You can experience more of all that you came onto the planet to experience. Just ask.

The next step on my journey will be to write what I’m calling HQ2, or the second in the series of Happiness Quotations. I’m also in creation on a happiness e-class people can take to deepen the experience of living in happiness each day. To find out more about Happiness Quotations, go to www.HappinessQuotations.com, where you can read quotations and get into inspiration to embrace your day.

Here is a little bit more about me:

I believe that happiness takes time each day. To step into happiness means to let go of judgment, fear, and programmed beliefs that hold you back. I started writing about happiness professionally in 2006. I coach others to let go of negative binds and free up joy and delight, awe and gratitude in living each day. A former Sacramento Bee and Santa Barbara News-Press news reporter, I wrote for California newspapers for years covering education, schools, cities, entertainment and water. She presently writes a weekly advice column in seven San Francisco Bay Area major metropolitan papers including the San Jose Mercury News and Contra Costa Times. I worked for about a decade in philanthropy, before I became a coach and independent author. I’m married with three beautiful children and a fabulous Tennessee Walking Horse. We live in California.

More: www.HappinessQuotations.com.