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happiness

  • During a recent guided meditation, the facilitator shared the 5 Reiki Principles for us to contemplate. I realized that they are universal guidelines for all people, practitioners and non-practitioners alike, who desire to cultivate more happiness, peace, and wellness.

    I especially like the version that she shared. While we have access to the original material written by Usui Sensei, the founder of the Reiki system of healing that is most widely known today, translations vary greatly. I’m guessing it’s not easy to transform Japanese, a complex and highly nuanced language, into meaningful text while accounting for vast cultural differences and the passing of 100 years!

    In case you’re interested in being more happy, peaceful, and well, I’ll share the principles here.

    Just for today, I will not be angry.

    Just for today, I will not worry.

    Just for today, I will do my work honestly.

    Just for today, I will give thanks for my many blessings.

    Just for today, I will be kind to my neighbor and every living thing.

    I so appreciate the simplicity of committing “just for today”. That seems very doable! Tomorrow you can go back to being angry or worrying if you want, but I suspect that the benefits you reap might convince you otherwise!

    Notice the first line says that I will not “be” angry. In my mind, there is a difference between “getting” angry, and allowing the emotion to flow and dissipate, and “being” angry, as in stuck or attached to it. I might suggest “I will not hold on to anger” as an alternative if that seems useful.

    How in the world can we not worry? Perhaps it’s easier if we define worry as obsessively thinking about things we cannot control. It’s not helpful! Nor healthy. And very different from paying attention to what’s going on, taking the necessary steps to protect yourself, and making plans for things you are unable to affect now, but might in the future. If you can’t exert any influence over it, dwelling and wallowing will only weaken your life-force energy and subsequently, your immune system.

    I want to point out that “work” here refers to any activity that you offer in your home or community that benefits yourself or any other. It need not be a paying job, but that is included as well. Whatever you’re doing, make a choice to do your best and be honest- especially with yourself.

    Giving thanks for blessings is a wonderful practice for connecting to Spirit and attracting more things for which you can be grateful. Our brains developed over the millennia to notice problems as a way of surviving. Even though we’re no longer in danger of becoming lunch for a saber-toothed tiger, our default thinking is still negatively biased. Rick Hanson, meditation teacher and neuropsychologist says, “The mind is like Velcro for negative experiences, and Teflon for positive ones.” We have to make an effort to be aware of the blessings but it gets easier with practice.

    As the facilitator read the final line about being kind to neighbors, mine were hammering on our shared wall. How curious! It reminded me that there are consequences to thoughts as well as actions, and putting out annoyed vibes is not an act of kindness. It was a lovely opportunity to exchange irritation for acceptance, and remember that I am also sometimes noisy. The neighbors probably don’t love it when I turn up disco music while bouncing on my rebounder!

    While these words were written a long time ago in an immensely different world, there is much wisdom that can be gleaned from them. Even if you have no interest in learning Reiki, you can still benefit from contemplating how and why you might apply these principles in your daily life. Each and every effort will bring its own rewards in the form of greater happiness, peace, and wellness.

    Reiki Principles as a Template for Living Happily

    During a recent guided meditation, the facilitator shared the 5 Reiki Principles for us to contemplate.…

  • I probably sound like a groupie, but I am utterly enchanted by Dr. Rick Hanson’s work. I just read his newsletter, Just One Thing, Simple practices for resilient happiness from Rick Hanson, Ph.D. , and immediately wanted to shout from the rooftop.

    Resilient happiness. Who doesn’t want that?

    The newsletter is free, informative and totally relatable. I enjoy reading it every week. Today’s message was about feeling already full. I’m simply going to copy and paste the entire thing here as he says it all.

    No, I am not financially affiliated or rewarded in any way for promoting his (or anybody’s) work. This is just too helpful not to share!

    Is There Enough?
    The Practice:
    Feel already full.
    Why?

    One slice of the pie of life feels relaxed and contented. And then there is that other slice, in which we feel driven and stressed. Trying to get pleasures, avoid pains, pile up accomplishments and recognitions, be loved by more people. Lose more weight, try to fill the hole in the heart. Slake the thirst, satisfy the hunger. Strive, strain, press.

    This other slice is the conventional strategy for happiness. We pursue it for four reasons.

    1. The brain evolved through its reptilian, mammalian, and primate/human stages to meet three needs: avoid harms, approach rewards, and attach to others. In terms of these three needs, animals that were nervous, driven, and clinging were more likely to survive and pass on their genes – which are woven into our DNA today. Try to feel not one bit uneasy, discontented, or disconnected for more than a few seconds, let alone a few minutes.

    2. You’re bombarded by thousands of messages each day that tell you to want more stuff. Even if you turn off the TV, worth in our culture is based greatly on accomplishments, wealth, and appearance; you have to keep improving, and the bar keeps rising.

    3. Past experiences, especially young ones, leave traces that are negatively biased due to the Velcro-for-pain but Teflon-for-pleasure default setting of the brain. So there’s a background sense of anxiety, resentment, loss, hurt, or inadequacy, guilt, or shame that makes us over-react today.

    4. To have any particular perception, emotion, memory, or desire, the brain must impose order on chaos, signals on noise. In a mouthful of a term, this is “cognitive essentializing.” The brain must turn verbs – dynamic streams of neural activity – into nouns: momentarily stable sights, sounds, tastes, touches, smells, and thoughts. Naturally, we try to hold onto the ones we like. But since neural processing continually changes, all experiences are fleeting. They slip through your fingers as you reach for them, an unreliable basis for deep and lasting happiness. Yet so close, so tantalizing . . . and so we keep reaching.

    For these reasons, deep down there is a sense of disturbance, not-enoughness, unease. Feeling threatened and unsafe, disappointed and thwarted, insufficiently valued and loved. Driven to get ahead, to fix oneself, to capture an experience before it evaporates. So, we crave and cling, suffer and harm. As if life were a cup – with a hole in the bottom – that we keep trying to fill. A strategy that is both fruitless and stressful.

    All the world’s wisdom traditions point out this truth: that the conventional strategy for happiness is both doomed and actually makes us unhappier. The theistic traditions (e.g., Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity) describe this truth as the inherently unsatisfying nature of a life that is separated from an underlying Divine reality. The agnostic traditions (e.g., Buddhism) describe it as the inherent suffering in grasping or aversion toward innately ephemeral experiences.

    Call this the truth of futility. Recognizing it has been both uncomfortable and enormously helpful for me, since you gradually realize that it is pointless to “crave” – to stress and strain over fleeting experiences. But there is another truth, also taught in the wisdom traditions, though perhaps not as forthrightly. This is the truth that there is always already an underlying fullness.

    When this truth sinks in emotionally, into your belly and bones, you feel already peaceful, happy, and loved. There is no need for craving, broadly defined, no need to engage an unhappy strategy for happiness. And you have more to offer others now that your cup is truly full.
    How?

    Recognize the lies built into the conventional strategy for happiness to wake up from their spells. Mother Nature whispers: You should feel threatened, frustrated, lonely. Culture and commerce say: You need more clothes, thinner thighs, better beer; consume more and be like the pretty people on TV. The residues of past experiences, especially young ones, mutter in the background: You’re not that smart, attractive, worthy; you need to do more and be more; if you just have X, you’ll get the life you want. The essentializing nature of cognition implies: Crave more, cling more, it will work the next time, really.

    As you see through these lies, recognize the truth of fullness. In terms of your core needs to avoid harms, approach rewards, and attach to others, observe: that you are basically alright right now; that this moment of experience has an almost overwhelming abundance of stimulation, and you probably live better than the kings and queens of old; and that you are always intimately connected with all life, and almost certainly loved. Regarding our consumerist and status-seeking culture, consider what really matters to you – for example, if you were told you had one year to live – and notice that you already have most if not all of what matters most. In terms of the messages from previous experiences, look inside to see the facts of your own natural goodness, talents, and spirit. And about the impermanent nature of experience, notice what happens when you let go of this moment: another one emerges, the vanishing Now is endlessly renewed.

    Abiding in fullness doesn’t mean you sit on your thumbs. It’s normal and fine to wish for more pleasure and less pain, to aspire and create, to lean into life with passion and purpose, to pursue justice and peace. But we don’t have to want for more, fight with more, drive for more, clutch at more. While the truth of futility is that it is hopeless to crave, the truth of fullness is that it’s unnecessary.

    Finding this fullness, let it sink in. For survival purposes, the brain is good at learning from the bad, but bad at learning from the good. So, help it by enriching an experience through making it last a 10-20 seconds or longer, fill your body and mind, and become more intense. Also absorb it by intending and sensing that it is sinking into you as you sink into it. Do this half a dozen times a day, maybe half a minute at a time. It’s less than five minutes a day. But you’ll be gradually weaving a profound sense of being already fundamentally peaceful, happy, loved, and loving into the fabric of your brain and your life.

    Needless to say I highly recommend signing up to receive this gem in your inbox every week. He also links his podcast, classes, and other news in the world of resilient happiness. And I want that for all of us.

    Is There Enough?(Hint: Yes! If We Change the Way We Look at Life)

    I probably sound like a groupie, but I am utterly enchanted by Dr. Rick Hanson’s work.…

  • One of the quickest and easiest ways to raise vibration is to express gratitude. Being grateful instantly elevates me to a sensation of peace and brings with it the knowingness that everything is exactly how it is supposed to be; even if I can’t see that from my human perspective. As I’m oozing gratitude into the atmosphere, I’m drawing more experiences for which to be grateful and simultaneously sending out blessings to everyone and everything I acknowledge.

    Lately I’ve been spending a few minutes every night before bed reviewing the day and feeling gratitude for the experiences, events, people, and places in my life. Even the challenges usually contain a gift- a new understanding, renewed patience or tolerance, evoked courage or boundaries, or perhaps surrender of expectations. I do a chronological scan of my day, and finish by feeling grateful formyself  for taking such good care of me, and all the teachers who taught me how.

    Grateful for my home and the comforts within it, the food which nourished me, my body that carries my essence around. Grateful for my work, my colleagues, my clients, and the opportunity to share my gifts. Grateful for my friends, my family, that friendly neighbor who always gives me a big smile and a huge wave. Grateful for music and the electronics that expand my ability to connect, for air conditioning, and public transportation. Grateful for the freedom and opportunity to explore personal growth and spiritual evolution.

    Realizing the vast quantity of things for which I am grateful creates a sense of security and well-being. This sets me up for a peaceful night and restful sleep, which sets me up to awaken feeling refreshed and energized. Starting the day off in a good mood creates a Domino effect of feeling grateful, radiating joy, attracting kindness, and on and on and on…! That five or ten minutes before bedtime are not only rewarding in the moment, but also a great investment in a happy future.

    Radical Self-Care, Gratitude

    One of the quickest and easiest ways to raise vibration is to express gratitude. Being grateful…