Why is it that we do not require a regular reminder to brush our teeth, to eat, to tie our shoes, to dress, to go to work, to watch television or to check our email. On the other hand we may need to be regularly reminded to be grateful, to have fun, to make a point of complimenting others, to be confident and to be positive. One might be tempted to say that eating, working and checking email is more important than being grateful, having fun and complimenting others. This conclusion would be wrong since it is clear that all of the above are important to a satisfying and fulfilling life. The payoffs are different. If you don't go to work you don't get paid; if you don't eat you will be hungry and weak; if you don't check your email you will surely die! The payoffs for being grateful are...? To have fun are...? Being positive are...? Mostly feeling good about your life without having a powerful enough notion of just how critical your state of being is in everything that you do. Writing in My Happy Heart Journal every day about gratitude, meaning, having fun and complimenting others will connect you with the payoffs so that they can be equally as powerful and consistent as eating and tying your shoes. [Russell]
Happiness as an ideal
I have recently had the insight that I have had an idealized notion of happiness that I carried in my head. It probably comes from watching children at play and reading about trying to access one's inner child. I also know that ideals of whatever nature are not achievable. This has previously set me up for being persistently unhappy. Through my daily journaling I have noticed a multitude of things that make me feel good. A beautiful morning sitting in my porch looking out over the lake; watching good comedy on television; having a good meeting with a client of my business; doing 60 km/hour on my jet ski; enjoying strawberry shortcake; spending time with our grandson are all part of the repertoire I have now noticed, recorded and made part of my new notion of happiness. There are many things said and written about happiness. I don't recall ever noticing the simple fact that a collection of good experiences duly noted as being enjoyable could be so powerful. [Russell]
Turbulence of the Mind
When my mind is turbulent, it is not the effective tool that it is designed to be. There is too much energy consumed by a multitude of thoughts which are not focused on an outcome and there is no space for input.
I was driving to a workshop last week that I would be leading. The Topic was The Innovation Life Cycle. I was listening to Metro Morning, a favourite radio program, and connected to an interview with a woman who had invented a headband which measures brain activity and reports it via an app on a smart device. Coincidentally, my mind was calm rather than consumed with rehearsal for the workshop and I immediately realized that I would not have heard the program had this not been the case. This was a big AHA in itself. The device promises to help reduce mind turbulence by measuring it. This makes total sense to me and I made a decision to check it out.
I have ordered the MUSE and will report my experience once it arrives. [Russell]
Getting Rescued
It's 3 a.m. It's pitch black. A voice somewhere near is calling desperately "help, anybody help". I stumble into some clothes and head to the shoreline of our lake to encounter a young man making his way to shore. His buddy to whom he has been calling is somewhere out in the lake. All I have handy is a kayak which I launch quickly and head out trying to locate the buddy from the sound of his voice. When I reach him, I grab his hand in a spontaneous gesture of human contact and in that moment have the profound vicarious experience of what it must feel like to know that help has come after two or more hours in cold water with hypothermia taking hold. The young man, after a hospital stay, is fine. For me the memory lingers as a reminder of the importance of human connection at all times but especially when we are in trouble of any kind. [Russell]
The words 'Good Morning' will never again be but a polite greeting...
The words 'Good Morning' will never again be but a polite greeting but rather a daily inspiration after reading and hearing this poem read by the recently departed Maya Angelou. [Russell]
ON THE PULSE OF MORNING, BY MAYA ANGELOU
A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.
But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.
I will give you no more hiding place down here.
You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.
Your mouths spilling words
Armed for slaughter.
The Rock cries out today, you may stand on me,
But do not hide your face.
Across the wall of the world,
A River sings a beautiful song,
Come rest here by my side.
Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.
Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.
Yet, today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more. Come,
Clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I and the
Tree and the stone were one.
Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your
Brow and when you yet knew you still
Knew nothing.
The River sings and sings on.
There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing River and the wise Rock.
So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
The African and Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the Tree.
Today, the first and last of every Tree
Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the River.
Plant yourself beside me, here beside the River.
Each of you, descendant of some passed
On traveller, has been paid for.
You, who gave me my first name, you
Pawnee, Apache and Seneca, you
Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then
Forced on bloody feet, left me to the employment of
Other seekers- desperate for gain,
Starving for gold.
You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot...
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought
Sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.
Here, root yourselves beside me.
I am the Tree planted by the River,
Which will not be moved.
I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree
I am yours- your Passages have been paid.
Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.
History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.
Lift up your eyes upon
The day breaking for you.
Give birth again
To the dream.
Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.
Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts
Each new hour holds new chances
For new beginnings.
Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.
The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me, the
Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.
No less to Midas than the mendicant.
No less to you now than the mastodon then.
Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.
Trouble with many thoughts at once...
We have the ability to think of many things at once. The thoughts are likely a combination of thoughts from the past, present and future. Depending on the intensity of the emotion attached to the thought, it can crowd our present in such a way as to make us miserable and ineffective. In order to shift the energy, almost any action will do. By engaging in an activity that gets us totally involved, the offending thoughts dissipate and are forgotten.
This morning for me is a good example. Scary thoughts about transitioning our business and the impact on our clients, troubling thoughts about the water pump that is not working properly and thoughts about the yard work that needs to be done are all crowding my brain causing stress and worry. By trouble shooting the pump I can take action which will get my brain involved in finding a solution. There will be no space for the other thoughts and I will feel better. Alternatively, I can go to the community centre to play Pickle ball, an even better action. [Russell]
Rules to live by
We have an interesting relation with rules. Rules provide the framework for civilized behaviour. We quite often have different rules for ourselves than for others without even realizing it. One that I find amusing is the notion of sharing wealth with others. People on the left of the political spectrum point to those who are more wealthy than they are as candidates for sharing while simultaneously being against any increase in taxation on their income. In other words "I am for sharing wealth as long as it is not mine".
The world is really getting good at making rules. For those of us of a certain age, there was a time when seat belts did not exist and kids roamed free in cars. The rules now dictate that baby car seats now have a shelf life and need to be replaced according to a schedule. One can analyze this phenomenon from many points of view. The desireable social value is an increased awareness about safety however it is achieved.
We are very good at making rules for ourselves as well. The rules can be either liberating or restricting and we have self-rules for just about everything. As I get older I am very aware of the myriad of physical challenges as people age. A story I came across this morning was of a person who slipped on the stairs and decided it was no longer safe to walk normally up and down stairs. This resulted in an eventual reduction in mobility and a decision to avoid stairs and a downward spiral in physical well-being. Our preoccupation with safety across the spectrum of ages and stages of life can be limiting whether from rules which are imposed from society or those we wittingly or unwittingly choose for ourselves.
A rule I write daily in my Happy Heart Journal is "My thoughts determine my reality". It creates an awareness about the multitude of rules that I make up for my life. [Russell]
Study finds marriage key to a happy heart - BLOOMBERG
Research backs early studies showing couples more likely to live longer than singles
BLOOMBERG
Being married appears to be good for your heart, a massive new study says. Man-led men and women had lower rates of heart disease than those who were widowed, divorced or single, with fewer conditions like hardening of the arteries or blood clots, a study found.
The research, which analyzed medical records of 3.5 million Americans evaluated for heart disease, was presented Friday in Washington at the American College of Cardiology meeting.
While reasons behind the marriage findings are unclear, it supports previous studies that show couples tend to be healthier and live longer than singles.
While those married had a lower chance of developing blood clots, experts say people should not rush to the altar to reduce their risk for cardiovascular disease
The study reinforces the idea that heart health can be affected by social as well as physiological factors, said Vera Bittner, chairwoman of ACC's Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease Committee.
"We cannot estimate cardiovascular risks purely based on metabolic abnormalities that we can measure but psychosocial variables could also be very important," said Bittner, a professor of medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, on a conference call with reporters.
The study is the largest of its kind, said Carlos Alviar, a cardiology fellow at New York University's Langone Medical Center and the study's lead author.
The findings don't mean people should rush out and tie the knot to reduce their heart disease risk, Bittner said.
The studies only show an association. Still, doctors need to make sure they know patients' marital status and whether they have support when ill, she said in an email.
"We are not advising people to get married as a way to prevent cardiovascular disease," said Alviar.
"When it comes to cardiovascular disease, marital status does indeed matter and it is important for clinicians to take this into account when they are examining patients."
Having a spouse may help promote a more robust lifestyle and ease access to medical care, researchers said.
In the study, 69 per cent were married, 13 per cent were widowed, 8.3 per cent were single and 9 per cent were divorced.
They found that those who were married had a 5-per-cent lower risk of vascular disease, which can include conditions like hardening of the arteries or blood clots, than singles and a19 per cent reduced chance of peripheral artery disease, in which plaque builds up in the body's arteries.
The greatest benefit was seen in married people who were ages 50 and younger.
Both widowed and divorced men and women had higher rates of heart disease, the study showed. Widowers and widows combined had a 3-per¬cent increased risk of vascular dis¬ease and a 7-per-cent higher chance of coronary artery disease, the most common type of heart disease and the leading cause of death in the US.
What are you looking forward to?
I put this question to one of my clients early in the year. He hesitated for a moment and then said 'more of the same'. He then qualified his answer by saying 'I am happy with what I have'. I responded immediately that it was the most powerful answer that I had heard to that question. The ensuing conversation about his forward projects was quite inspiring.
When we are focused on what is lacking or wrong we are pushing a big load of negative energy which needs to be overcome before we can move forward. It is small wonder that we have difficulty looking forward to anything because of the amount of energy it takes to accomplish our regular activities when we see them as burdensome.
Being aware of our negative thinking is the first step to eliminating it. Try to catch yourself complaining about the weather, your commute, your job, your family. Notice when others complain as a reminder just how much negative energy surrounds you and rather than adding to the negative chorus, stay out of the conversation by listening only or change it up by volunteering a neutral or positive comment. [Russell]
Overwhelm
Overwhelm can occur as a result of too much of anything. From a physical point of view, pain can be overwhelming or heat or cold. This creates a tangible danger to our bodies. Another type of overwhelm is due to psychological or emotional pain. This is usually experienced as anxiety, frustration or anger. The emotion is real, but quite often the overwhelm is not and may be the result of a habit. The brain has a way of multiplying the impact of 'too much to do', 'too much to keep track of', 'too many interruptions' and so on.
The facts are helpful whether the overwhelm is real or made up by the brain. When there are a few items requiring our effort, writing them down calls the brain's bluff and we can relax. When there are lots of items, writing them down allows the brain to create some boundaries, to set priorities and to plan. When there is a plan, the brain now has the needed instructions to proceed, reducing or eliminating the feeling of overwhelm and the resultant emotions. Overwhelm makes us unhappy.
The brain might interpret the additional task of writing down the facts as adding to the feeling of overwhelm and may find all the reasons not to do it. In this case the brain is an idiot! [Russell]
Happiness Journey
"We think about the future in a way that no other animal can, does, or ever has, and the simple, ubiquitous, ordinary act is a defining feature of our humanity." - Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness.
The ability to think is the gift. The fact that thinking can also bring a lot of grief is the curse. Why our thinking creates grief is the question. How to manage or change our thought processes is the happiness journey. [Russell]
The Principle of Thought
This piece is excerpted from You Can Be Happy No Matter What by Richard Carlson, Ph.D.
"Because our thought systems are so familiar to us, they seem to be giving us true, accurate information...we accept familiar ideas and disregard the rest. Understanding the nature of thought systems can change this. We can see that our beliefs are merely a function of past conditioning (programming) and experiences. Had our past been different, our ideas about life would be different. The point here is not to change your thought system or your ideas about life, but to see the arbitrary nature of them. In short, new information is usually unwelcome within our existing thought systems. This is why we can be bothered by the same events or circumstances over and over again throughout our lifetimes. What we used to interpret as criticism we now see merely as an opinion from another person with his or her own thought system."
This excerpt helps to explain the oft stated phrase 'What other people think of you is none of your business". I have used this phrase to convince myself and others of the truth which Richard Carlson conveys. It is only recently that I have developed an emotional 'protection' from the messages conveyed by the world in the form of what is written and what people say. The protection is rooted in worthiness. The thought process which I and countless others on the planet have learned is that I am not good enough and we default to this emotional state when we measure ourselves against the arbitrary nature of the world. Through my daily process of journaling, I have regular evidence of the falseness of the thought process. It is the daily reminder that strengthens the emotional 'muscle' and reduces the 'bothering' that could so easily be triggered by words whether written or spoken. [Russell]
DO IT AND IT WILL COME
Each day I begin My Happy Heart journal with two short phrases. "I am happy; my thoughts create my reality." At a previous time in my life the phrases were simply ideas that I knew about and had been told that saying them regularly would bring them about. I guess I didn't practice enough because I didn't notice any change, especially on the happiness front.
Now when I write them, they are real. On the happiness front, I have now recorded more than 4,000 gratefulness experiences, with over 400 meaningful experiences and have noticed the fun things in my life. On a daily basis, I have been dipping into the vast resource of my subconscious mind and choosing the nice bits rather than the nasty bits. The tide is turning so that I no longer default to choosing what can go wrong, but what can go right. I clearly know by many written experiences that when I default to the negative, my day does not work as well as when I choose the positive. This may seem obvious, and that is something else that is now clear - THE POWER OF THE OBVIOUS. [Russell]
The Theory of Moral Sentiments
The Theory of Moral Sentiments - Adam Smith 1759
TMS is about how we perceive the feelings of others and how we order our minds to achieve happiness. Smith starts with the idea of sympathy - our ability to put ourselves in the shoes of another- and lays out a highly ordered account of the biases of human nature and the tragedy of the human condition, namely our reliance on fortune, our enslavement to the opinions of others, and our inability to stop thirsting after that which we do not have. Page 169 [Russell]
The Happiness Formula
I recently watched a PBS special by Dr. Deepak Chopra. A lot of what I have learned about happiness was reinforced. What was new is that someone has invented a 'Happiness Formula' which is simple and integrates the key ingredients.
H = S + C + V where
H = Happiness
S = Set point in the brain
C = Conditions of living
V = Voluntary choices
It is thought that the natural propensity towards happiness which is inherent in the brain accounts for 40 to 50% of our happiness; conditions of living which reflects our surroundings both materially and situationally accounts for 7 to 12%; voluntary choices which are the decisions we make about living in the positive or negative account for 40 to 50%.
Clearly, the numbers confirm that our conscious choice to live in the present, to be grateful, to support others, and to have fun easily overcome conditions of poverty, disability, tragedy and poor health. While there are plenty of people who demonstrate the truth of the formula by making choices that improve their happiness, there are multitudes who have not and who suffer unnecessarily by being connected to the conditions of living as being responsible for their unhappiness. [Russell]
Captured my imagination...
I came across a quote a few days and it has captured my imagination. "Of all follies, there is none greater than wanting to make the world a better place." - Moliere. It has done so because it seems to fly in the face of 'conventional wisdom'. It is human nature to be captured by the ideas that are currently prevalent (conventional wisdom) because we have only so much energy available. Living in a complex world uses up a lot of energy so there is often not much left for original thinking.
It is interesting to wonder what Moliere meant by his thought. Is the world already perfect and who are we to think that we can improve it? Will we be disappointed or distraught if our efforts are not effective? Is the world in such bad shape that nothing we can do will improve it?
For me, it gets me to stand back for a moment and be more aware of the wonder of the world and to be more conscious of the significance of individual human beings. [Russell]
Being Prepared
I am reading Chris Hadfields' book, An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth. In the part that I have read so far, he talks at length of being prepared for the worst thing that can happen to person's who fly into space. Lot's of things can go wrong, many of which can be rehearsed, while others require skill, focus and presence to fix in the moment in order to avoid the ultimate disaster which is to die. One of the biggest dangers is to make an already serious situation worse by taking a wrong action due to the fear caused by the situation. "We're trained to respond unemotionally by immediately prioritizing threats and methodically seeking to defuse them. We go from wanting to bolt for the exit to wanting to engage and understand what's going wrong, then fix it"
Since very few people have the life of an astronaut, how do we get the training which will automatically make us want to engage and understand what's going wrong, then fix it? The simple answer is that, for the most part, our training is more about being informed rather than problem solving. We have the capability at some level, but are more likely to want to bolt for the exit.
I have found The Happy Heart Journal to be instrumental in creating the training to engage in problem solving as a first response mechanism rather than a first response of the emotions of fear dread, anger or guilt. When your emotions are causing you to look for the exit, there is a much higher probability of taking an action that will make the situation worse. Since you aren't likely to die from the challenging situation, it is likely that your first response will continue to be emotional.
Each day when I write in The Happy Heart Journal I can anticipate potential stressful or challenging situations and use The Celebration of Success as a way to use problem solving based on facts to pre-empt the emotional response for the specific issue. I write about the facts of the situation and remind myself to stay grounded. The result is most often better and for sure feels better, providing momentum to repeat the process. Since I go into the day with a problem solving mindset, the odds are better that unanticipated issues will be approached in this way as well. A new habit starts to emerge and there is a saving of a million bucks for astronaut training. [Russell}
Harness negative events
Today was a tough day. Got some bad news that triggered an upswell in emotion - mostly fear. I felt like a dam burst - unfixable. After a little while, I went for a short walk and came to a new insight. Is it possible to convert that fear energy into happy energy. We tend to run away and distract ourselves or we bury and deny that it happened. Maybe this is not wrong but wrong in the details of how. What if we did one big happy event shortly after high fear event, like a cardiac arrest using paddles. Would this help to get the happy heart beat back into rhythm, restore the appropriate chemical balance. What could this happy heart -jolt - event be? [Russell]
The world creates happiness
Remembering that ten percent of happiness comes from the world, I was thinking about the nature of that ten percent. Two experiences come to mind. One occurred last night and one many years ago. Last night I experienced a live comedian who was expert at interacting with the crowd as well as having good material. It was impossible not to laugh and have a good time. Happy drugs were in abundance. The long ago experience was on a canoe trip with my wife and another couple. We were up early with the sun just coming up. We were in the canoes. The water was as flat as glass and there was a mist on the surface. It was an extraordinary experience that just had to be enjoyed. [Russell]
Human Joy... A Sport of Positive Emotion!
So says Albert Nerenberg a corporate laughter consultant according to an article in The Toronto Star by Linda Barnard. Laughing and smiling are known to stimulate endorphins, the so called 'happy drugs' which create feelings of well being. Who hasn't had the experience of spontaneously laughing at a youngster with infectious giggles or along with an adult who goes into convulsions of laughter while trying to tell a joke. Why are comedians always funnier when you are in the audience as compared to watching the video? Could it be because we are laughing with the laughers more than at the comedy?
According to the article, it is possible to create the laughing effect. That is, by perfecting the art of infectious laughter, one can elevate the mood of individuals and groups. Albert Nerenberg apparently has made a career of it and will have recently competed at the Great Canadian Laughing Championships. One hopes that this is more about spreading the mirth than winning the contest. That said, I'm in favour of anything that stimulates 'happy drugs'.
Go to the link to have something more to laugh about.
Toronto Star, Linda Barnard, Knock-knock. Who's there?
[Russell]