SIX STEPS FOR HAPPINESS AMIDST CHANGE

Posted by gwendolyn at 1:58 pm

I was reading an article from Tal Ben-Shahar a Harvard PhD in organizational behaviour. He studied in positive psychology and wanted to know if we as humans could learn to be happy.  What I found was enlightening and validated that I am indeed, on the right path.

So I share with you six tips for Happiness.

1. Give yourself permission to be human and all that it entails. The positive emotions of joy and passion to the negative emotions of fear and sorrow. The emotions are neither good or bad they just are so, rejecting them only lead to more frustrations and unhappiness.  I found this to be true for me when deal with my loved ones deaths. At first I tried to hid my sorrow but soon learned that rejecting it just made it last longer. My friends soon accepted that my emotions lay very close to the surface and I let them show.
2. Happiness lies at the intersections between pleasure and meaning. For many years now I wake and say to myself.  “What kind of day do you want to have?”  If   I was tired it was “I want more energy”,   if I was sad it was “ I want to laugh”.  My goal that day was to find that “thing” I was missing. I found that I would then start looking for and engaging in activities that were both personally significant and enjoyable. At the end of the day I would reflect that yes I got what I was looking for.
3. Happiness is mostly dependent on our state of mind, not on our status or our bank account. If you have stayed in the same career for 16 years like me, you soon identify yourself with what you do not who you are.  When we meet new people the first question is “What do you do?” which leads to them pigeonholing you into “I bet they make this much money”.    In taking the leap in to a new challenging career I choose to focus on myself and what I wanted out of life and not  the interpretation of what society thought I should do.   My wellbeing has always been determined looking at the glass half full.
4. Simplify!! When we are too busy to enjoy life because we are trying to doing that one more thing deemed important we lose sight of why we are here. When we want quantity of things over quality of life we give up our happiness in the process.  This year I have moved into a new house. I spend many days trying to decide what would stay and what would go.  I finally decided to let go of a lot of stuff that no longer served me.  As a result I feel a lot lighter and less encumbered by having to manage more stuff.
5. What we do –or don’t do – with our body’s influences our mind. Boy was this was hard one for me.  After years of working non stop, not getting enough sleep, not eating right and putting others first my body said enough and start to shut down ritually.  With the help of my fabulous Doctor (yes, they are out there).  I now feel healthier and younger than I did 10 years ago.  My struggle now is to be consistent with my exercise, healthy eating habits, and sleeping in when my body’s tells me to.
6. Express gratitude. Like everyone we tend to take our lives for granted.   The love I receive from my friends, family and God has helped me in ways I never knew possible.  I have learned to appreciate and delight in everything life has given me. Sometimes the great’s gifts we receive are wrapped up in simplest things like a hug, a smile or a firefly.