O HAPPY DAY!
(thank you Karola for your beautiful "Simple Peasures" using our Feather Your Nest and Rasberry Truffle scrapbooking papers)
Now, I have a little fun for you. This is a participation game, so you're gonna have to move, and maybe even groove!
Turn up the volume on your computer, then stand up, put a little sway in your hips, and click this link:
O HAPPY DAY!Feel better? I did when I listened, and watched the glimmer in the boy's eyes as he gained power & confidence in his voice.
Last week we asked you what (or whom) is your happy place?
Congratulations Elaine! You won. Thank you for sharing your happy place:
said:
"Hi Terri, the breakfast plates are gorgeous!! I love the color and pattern! :)
My Happy Place is anywhere so long as it's next to my husband....but preferably somewhere sunny next to my hubby! lol"
2
Timestamp: 2009-10-19 16:57:52 UTCEmail us to make your selection from our Feather Your Nest collection and your nest will soon be a bit fuzzier, warmer.
Today, at the Huffington Post, Roger Franseky writes: (oh so timely I might add)
Are you happy? Would you know if you were?
Has your definition of happiness changed as you've grown older and
more successful? Is it about accumulation, more toys, more exotic
travel, new experiences, more of what you thought you wanted? Is all of
that making you happy? Or, as Leo Buscaglia reminded us, is "what we
call the secret of happiness is no more a secret that our willingness
to choose life."
Happiness can mean doing something we love, having someone to love
and something to hope for. Is that it? Is that enough of an
understanding of how to bring "more" of the feelings of joy, surrender,
surprise, delight that true happiness invites and provokes in us?
The Boston Globe recently reported that the most popular
course at Harvard was about positive psychology, or the study of
well-being. Its immense appeal took everyone by surprise. Just one year
before, the instructor, Tal Ben-Shahar, offered the course for the
first time, and although it was certainly a hit, with 380 students
enrolled, no one could have imagined that the following year the number
would have jumped to 855.
"For many years," says Ben-Shahar, "the people who were writing
about happiness were the self-help gurus. It had a bad rap. It was all
'five easy steps,' rather than dignity and hard work. What I'm trying
to do in my class is to regain respectability for the concept of
self-help. It's a great thing, if you think about it literally. It's
what this country was built on."
Dr. Martin Seligman and many of his colleagues introduced the idea
of "positive psychology" a relatively new area of research that
"studies the strengths and virtues that enable individuals and
communities to thrive." Psychology has been rightly been criticized for
its' sole focus on mental illness rather than mental "wellness".
Several humanistic psychologists, including Abraham Maslow, Carl
Rogers, and Erich Fromm, developed successful theories and practices
that involved human happiness despite there being a lack of solid
empirical evidence at the time behind their work, and especially that
of their successors.
Positive psychology has explored the Pleasant Life or the "life of
enjoyment", how people optimally experience, forecast and savor the
positive feelings and emotions that are part of normal and healthy
living (e.g. relationships, hobbies, interests, entertainment, etc.),
the Good Life or the "life of engagement", the beneficial affects of
immersion, absorption, and "flow" that individuals feel when optimally
engaged with their primary activities, and the Meaningful Life or "life
of affiliation" which examines how individuals derive a positive sense
of well-being, belonging, meaning, and purpose from being part of and
contributing back to something larger and more permanent than
themselves.
With all of this good work, and the efforts of Donald Clifton,
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and psychologists like Dan Baker, former
director of the Life Enhancement Program at Canyon Ranch, we now have
handholds on what many call the "new" science of happiness.
Dan Baker's book, What Happy People Know,
confirms the wisdom of the research into what Seligman calls "authentic
happiness" and "learned optimism." Baker notes that a major barrier to
happiness is fear. He writes, "We all have a neurological fear system
embedded deep within our brains, a neural network that once helped us
survive as a species, but now limits our lives. The biological
circuitry of fear is the greatest enemy of happiness."
We're written about how fear bind us, edits our hopes and diminishes
our potential for happiness. Baker reminds us that fear is the
repository for our past traumas, our fear of the future and our archaic
instinctual terrors. Fear can be a gift, our way of staying out of the
darkness and moving into the light of awareness and new beginnings. But
if our fears own us, we have to break free...by awareness of those
fears, and through the courage to challenge our fears to see if they
are still real.
One of those fresh starts is the decision to be happy.
Yes, but how?
First, by love. Love yourself enough to create a life you will love
living. Entertainment legend George Burns, whose own sense of purpose
helped him live to 100, offered this wise advice: "Everyday, do
something you love."
Here's several questions to begin your own happiness audit: "Am I
living a life I love, and one that allows me to be happy?" Listen to
the wisdom of your heart, and tell yourself the truth. Ask yourself:
• What brings vitality to my life? When do I feel most alive?
• What is my proudest achievement?
• What is my greatest gift? My legacy?
• For what are you most grateful?
These questions invite you to ponder the symphony of your
experience, the missed notes, the flourishes and the coda. I don't deny
that life can be rough, that you can (and will) experience mistakes,
excesses, lies and lessons, and on occasional loss, grief and sadness.
Even Charles Schultz, the creator of "Peanuts," the cartoon strip that
brought us minor wisdom and wide smiles for decades, suffered his
entire life with serious depression, a melancholy temperament and
insecurities.
Happiness can become your default state and not some elaborate life
lie by acknowledging your gifts, your lessons, the people in your
"cast" who love and teach, tolerate and celebrate you. You can choose
between the ambiguity and clarity.
Thank you Mr. Franseky.
