Here’s a 3 minute inspirational movie about finding joy, filled with a lot of quotations.

I enjoyed it!

Karin

• Finding the unfindable

• Adoption Corruption 16) Speak to PAP’s formally and informally about finding ethical agencies

• How about finding those boys in Missouri!

• Quiet time

• Guangdong Province factories

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I thought this quote had both teeth and power. So often when unfortunate things happen folks say the latter phrase which is hardly helpful.

Karin

That some good can be derived from every event is a better proposition than that everything happens for the best, which it assuredly does not. -James Kern Feibleman, philosopher and psychiatrist (1904-1987)

• Remembering and forgetting

• To recover: talk lovingly to yourself

• We with two mothers, poem by Eun Mi

• How we get through hard times

• Miscellaneous quotes on prayer

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Norris Burkes had another thought provoking column this week.

Andi Bowsher, author of Praying the Pattern …says , “Paul [when he said to pray without ceasing] was suggesting making life into prayer rather than making prayer into a life.”…I can spend all week praying for fresh inspiration and still get nothing but a frustrated editor muttering some pretty unspiritual words about my column being past deadline. But when I seek to make my life a prayer, when I seek to serve and to become the answer to the prayers prayed by others, I get real inspiration…I pray to become the prayer… Norris Burkes (to see the full article go to his website.

I keep coming back to the idea that our lives are really the answer to someone else’s prayer when we live our life as a prayer or are conscious of it. I think I’ve been aware of that on occasion, but not as a guiding principle. (Elsewhere in the article Burkes talks of ‘living the principle that Bowsher describes.’)

Can you think of a time when you were the answer to someone’s prayer? Perhaps you didn’t recognize it at the time.

Karin

• Thinking about prayer

• Miscellaneous quotes on prayer

• On prayer

• Surrender to life

• “There Is A Reason You Are There”

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So what can you do to maximize happiness and minimize the opposite?

Some things seem like common sense (not revolutionary):

…the revolutionary idea that true happiness lies in building on our strengths, not rooting out our flaws. Liz Seymour

If I’m going through hard times, I try not to beat myself up over it. That just gives me two things to handle: the problem and my reaction to it. The problem is bad enough without feeling badly over how I might or might not think about it.

This analogy came to me: We use a hammer to pound something into the wall, not to beat ourselves over the head with it, which would only make us black and blue and not yield the results we’d like.

If we fault ourselves for the flaws we all have, we aren’t using the hammer on the problem, but on ourselves. Ouch!

Martin Seligman’s website authentichappiness.org is an interesting place to visit.

Here’s some easy things you can do to increase your happiness, from the article by Liz Seymour:

1. Write a letter of gratitude to someone from your past who has been particularly kind to you, but who you’ve never properly thanked, and hand deliver it, if possible.
2. Every morning for a week, write down 3 good things that happened and explain what brought them about. [Make it a habit to do it at least in your thinking.]
3. Take the signature strengths questionnaire on the above site, then use one of your top 5 strengths in a different way every day for a week.

Sometimes I think these ideas are contrived, in the sense that if you have to consciously think about doing them, then they may be just on your to-do list, but not internalized enough to be anything but something else to stress over. So take the ideas and make them your own in a way that is a help, not a hindrance to making your days easier. Make it a habit to use your strengths every day, then to recognize that you have, don’t beat yourself up for the things you are still unable to do or accomplish. There is another day and plenty of other opportunities. There is value in just being you.

Karin

• The elusive nature of happiness, part 6

• The elusive nature of happiness, part 5

• The elusive nature of happiness, part 3

• The elusive nature of happiness, part 2

• The elusive nature of happiness, part 1

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H = S + C + V
Happiness = Set Point + Conditions of Your Life + Volunteer Activities

The S and C account for …60% of our happiness. “But that still leaves 40% which is really quite a lot.” [Lyubomirsky] Liz Seymour

I’d like to know where they get their percentages. I think there are times when C can be a lot more than 60%. It can permeate the whole of life, even if we have happy moments.

We have to fight for the kind of life we want — and that includes our happiness. Make the choices that increase our overall sense of well-being.

Martin Seligman, originator of the term ‘positive psychology’ [director of the Positive Psychology Center at the U of PA] divides the building blocks of happiness into two broad categories: pleasures and gratifications. Pleasures are sensual and emotional (a good meal…a back rub) but generally fleeting in their effect. Gratifications are those activities that call on our skills and strengths and give us a sense of a job well done. [He] divides [these] even further into what he calls ’signature strengths’ — marks of character such as perseverance, kindness, curiosity, and humility that make each of us the individuals that we are.

…[Haidt] assigned [psychology students] four activities: attend a lecture, perform an act of kindness, express gratitude to someone, [or]eat an ice cream cone. Only the ice cream cone failed to lift the student’s mood for the whole day. … “We are most fully engaged in life when we are part of something that isn’t just for ourselves.” Liz Seymour

Well, no wonder food is not really a comfort, if this holds true. Of course, we knew that empirically, but now it is confirmed. I’m still not ready to give up chocolate, but if I go for a while not eating it, I find I don’t want it.

What things give you the best day or the best feeling about yourself or your life? Kindness and curiosity rank up there with keeping involved in life.

Karin

• The elusive nature of happiness, part 5

• The elusive nature of happiness, part 7 (end)

• The elusive nature of happiness, part 3

• The elusive nature of happiness, part 2

• The elusive nature of happiness, part 1

• Life Savers Candy Nuts Advertising Collectibles

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• Ball Point Pens Pens Writing Instruments Collectibles

The largest single gift to a secondary school has been made to the George School, a Quaker school in PA.

What I find particularly interesting about this is that it is a pay it forward kind of story. Because of being treated well…and then being treated well again…

Never underestimate the power in treating someone well.

Remember that if the opportunities for great deeds should never come, the opportunities for good deeds are renewed day by day. The thing for us to long for is the goodness, not the glory. F.W. Faber

It reminds me of the story of the hotel in NYC. Many years ago a man needed a room when there were no rooms available. The desk clerk, really the manager George C. Boldt, gave the man his own suite of rooms, moving his family out. A friendship developed out of this. Eventually he became the manager of the Waldorf-Astoria. The man who needed a room was William Waldorf Astor. Snopes has the full story.

Karin

• Capturing the imagination of millions

• A great website for the 60’s

• Ni hao, Kai-Lan IHappy

• Dream Girls

• Meet the Robinsons, my review, no spoiler

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…things, whatever their number, contribute surprisingly little — somewhere between 8 and 15% — to our sustained happiness. Variables such as age, education, health, income, personal appearance, and even climate are ineffective at overriding our genetically determined set point.

…external factors have little impact on our level of happiness…our brains…turn out to be amazingly adapable to both good and bad circumstances…scientists can observe neurons firing most urgently to new stimuli; once nerves habituate to a situation, whatever its nature, they respond less…lottery winners …[or]paraplegic from an accident…Within a year after the event that changed their lives, they were pretty much back to their earlier level of happiness. That holds just as true for less dramatic conditions, says Lyubomirsky [professor of psychology at U of CA-Riverside and one of the originators of the happiness formula.] “If you make a stable change — …buy a bigger house… — you’ll get used to it after a while and return to your set point. It works the opposite way as well, which is why daily hassles make people very unhappy. You never get a chance to adapt because the conditions are constantly changing.” Liz Seymour

I don’t know whether this can be seen as good or bad. Good, if you are going through tough times, because you can hold onto the idea that a sense of normal will return, even if time doesn’t heal all ills, despite the adage. Bad, if you were really hoping that what you hoped for would do the trick on a permanent basis.

But isn’t it better to be aware of this than not to be and then be surprised when our highs aren’t sustained as we had thought. It takes some work to stay on top.

The same parameters that would seem to keep us at a certain happiness set point are the same parameters that lead to progress for all of us. After all, if we were happy and content with the status quo always, we’d still be in caves. A certain level of discontent and unhappiness leads us to find new solutions to old problems.

It’s the daily hassle thing we have to watch out for.

Sometimes I think it is similar to changing a channel on TV. We don’t watch a program we dislike. We shouldn’t have to think a thought just because it appears on the horizon of our consciousness. After a point, dismiss it or turn to something else to think about. Which is, of course, sometimes easier said than done, especially if we haven’t trained ourselves to do that — or didn’t realize we could.

Not so surprisingly finding things to be grateful for contributes to our happiness. Of course, sometimes I just don’t want to go there, say, if I’m mad…but eventually I do, and I do feel better. More about that (and what scientists find for those who do that) after a couple more parts.

Karin

• The elusive nature of happiness, part 6

• The elusive nature of happiness, part 7 (end)

• The elusive nature of happiness, part 3

• The elusive nature of happiness, part 2

• The elusive nature of happiness, part 1

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Here’s another way to deal with negativity. Likely it works. She is a motivational speaker.

If I don’t know what to do or don’t have a clear sense of my path, I wait. (That’s not to say I sometimes don’t wait and act precipitously.)

How about you?

Karin

I was having a conversation with a radio show host the other day and he asked me:

“Peggy how do you handle overwhelm or eliminate worry?”
The answer came to me in a flash.
I said: “I take action!” “I do something.”

I have found that when I take action toward solving a challenge, or toward achieving a particular outcome, it
always eliminates any negative feelings; such as overwhelm or worry. Peggy McColl

• Eric Clapton and JJ Cale, Danger

• Choosing courage and growth

• How irritable are you on any given day?

• On words

• There’s never a dull moment with kids around…

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[One] You can’t change your genes, but you can tinker with the essential wiring of your brain. Selective serotonin reuptake [this is such an interesting word to me...and has some spiritual parameters, even the next word, 'inhibitors'] inhibitors, such as Prozac, Zoloft, and others work to prolong the action of serotonin, the brain chemical that helps to regulate mood.

[Two] Meditation, it turns out, also works with the brain’s basic structure. Researchers at the Lab for Affective Neuroscience at the U of Wisconsin hooked meditating Tibetan monks up to brain monitors and found that the left prefrontal cortex — the part of the brain that is most active when we are happy and alert — lit up like Times Square. Follow up studies with a group of stressed-out employees at a biotech company proved that even non-monks can raise their set points through meditation. Liz Seymour

Don’t you find it interesting that they lit up like Times Square? Not just a small indication, but something significant?

I’m glad non-monks benefit from meditation, because most of us aren’t monks, nor would we desire to live that kind of life. But we all live a life of community, even if our communities are more loosely run than a monastery.

Somehow this reminds me of the true life story I read recently, possibly in the magazine I read that is Indian-American. It talked about a woman in India with mental problems. She spent her time under a tree and people in her area took turns bringing her food and spending a bit of time with her. That made me think of community and how we could broaden our definition of it, to be more responsive to others and to ourselves.

[No, I wrote about it earlier in my blog and it was from a book.]

Knowing how to reduce our own stress levels is an important part of self-knowledge. It’s also important not to put ourselves last on the list of things to do or situations to find solutions for. Like the truism of putting on your own oxygen mask before helping another, we need to take care of ourselves so we have something to pour out for others. That’s easy to say in a life filled with lists and activities, but not so hard to put into effect if we take moments and begin to string them together in our days.

What I found interesting is to learn how few seconds we have to put on an oxygen mask, if we needed to, before we would black out. It is surprisingly short, not minutes. They always make it look so casual when they discuss it on a plane, but it’s not something to fool around with. There’s a truth there for life. We think we can put ourselves last (or maybe we forget about ourselves) until we reach the end of our resources and realize we should have caught the slide earlier.

I think taking care of ourselves is an integral part of happiness.

Take time to take care of yourself. Move your body. Do some stretching or some yoga, or both. Do something strengthening, either physically or mentally. Eat good food. Be sure to drink enough, especially in a hot climate — or if you are swimming for a long time — who knew you could get dehydrated when swimming. Get out in nature. Get into some sunshine (important for serotonin) or sit by a window with sun. Get out on the water or look at it. Even better if you see trees reflected in it. Find a friend and develop community, even if there are times when community seems the farthest from what is helpful. Read a book. Share a laugh. Do something for someone else. Let someone do something for you. Be compassionate, even with yourself. Stay well or get well.

Somehow it seems like a good sense of having a life of balance would take care of much of this without having to put a lot of thought into it. But doing a self-assessment once in a while would show us where we need to be more alert.

How good are you at any of this? Have you learned to put yourself first, at least in some respects?

More to follow.

Karin

• The elusive nature of happiness, part 6

• The elusive nature of happiness, part 5

• The elusive nature of happiness, part 7 (end)

• The elusive nature of happiness, part 3

• The elusive nature of happiness, part 2

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[The late David Lykken, a professor at the University of Minnesota, concluded, based on 3 decades of research on twins, much of it identical twins raised apart] that 50% of our proclivity for happiness or for melancholy (our ’set point’) is determined by our genes.

“From person to person, the variation is really quite large,” says Jonathan Haidt, professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and author of The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom. “Some people’s brains are set to see opportunities. Other people’s brains are set to see the world as full of danger.”

But genetics is not destiny.

“All the set point means is that in the same way some people have to work on maintaining their weight, you may have to work to achieve the same level of happiness as someone else. It may be harder, but it can be done. [Sonja Lyubomirsky, professor of Psyc at the U of California-Riverside and one of the originators of the happiness formula.] Liz Seymour

Sometimes I think we can be about as happy as we determine to be — and it might be hard work, which seems like an oxymoron.

I’m not sure what percentage could be attributed to genetics and what part to environment, the experiences we go through. Some experiences would be very difficult to rise above, no matter what our genetic base might be. One without the other is too simplistic. I think we can learn to deal with our set point in ways that increase our happiness and learn to stay away from behaviors, people or places that pull us down or are toxic to our happiness. This isn’t always possible, but at least we can attribute some of it to that, not all of it to ourselves.

There was a long period of time when I had an underlying sense of grief, when I was miscarrying, but during that time I experienced a lot of happiness. Partly it was because I made sure of it, or else I knew I would have been sunk.

I don’t discount anyone’s sense of grief. I honored it in myself, while at the same time that I brought happiness consciously into my days.

I never thought of my brain (or ‘a’ brain) as being the seat of the issues. Instead I reached out to a higher sense of consciousness that isn’t brain oriented. I still do. What hope would there particularly be if I pinned my sense of happiness or melancholy to my brain. It’s up to me to change my thoughts. (I realize some find solace with medications that work to change the brain chemicals to make it easier to change thoughts. I just choose to work it out another way.)

Anyway, just some random thoughts. I’ve never thought of my thoughts as being in the brain or originating in the brain, but in consciousness. That might seem semantics, and maybe it is, but I see this distinction made by other authors and researchers, so I’m not alone in it.

How about you? Do you find you have a certain base of happiness you work with? Can you work around it or with it to increase your joys? Or do you just accept what is, is. (Sometimes that’s a solution too.)

More to follow.
Karin

• The elusive nature of happiness, part 6

• The elusive nature of happiness, part 5

• The elusive nature of happiness, part 7 (end)

• The elusive nature of happiness, part 2

• The elusive nature of happiness, part 1

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