How to Be Truly Happy – Within

[Guest guest]

When I received this from a friend in Panama, it seemed like a good article

to share with this list.

 

Rich in Minnesota USA

 

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Rick Foster & Greg Hicks

 

Truly happy people have a profound, enduring feeling of contentment and

well-being. This feeling comes from the internal knowledge that they can deal

productively and creatively with just about anything life confronts them

with... good and bad.

 

Some people naturally have a happy disposition, but our research on happiness

has shown that happiness is really a choice.

 

These choices work in your mind and body to form a whole that is greater than

the sum of the parts. Together they create deep, long-term happiness. The

choices...

 

INTENTION

 

Choose to actively commit yourself to your own happiness. This will become

your compass, guiding all your decisions and actions.

 

ACCOUNTABILITY

 

Choose to create the life you want to live... assume full responsibility for

your actions, thoughts and feelings... and refuse to blame others for your

unhappiness.

 

Blame is just a way to avoid responsibility. Happy people don’t see

themselves as victims -- regardless of their circumstances. They focus on

finding solutions to their problems and ways to make their lives better.

 

IDENTIFICATION

 

Choose to look deep into yourself continuously to assess what makes you

uniquely happy, rather than accepting what others say should make you happy.

It is an act of supreme kindness to yourself to look into your soul, identify

your needs, aspirations and passions, and decide, “This is what I need.â€

 

Helpful exercise: Sit down in a private, comfortable place with a pen and

some paper, and ask yourself “How do I feel right now?†Note your feelings,

set a timer for four minutes and then write down everything you can think of

that makes you happy.

 

When the timer goes off, stop writing and again note how you feel.

 

Then study your “dream list†and see your reactions to it. How much of the

list shows the real you... how much represents what others say you should

want?

 

CENTRALITY

 

Choose to make what creates happiness central in your life. If you can’t

pursue all your central desires right now, just do something every day that

makes you happy.

 

Look for a common thread in the items on your dream list, and think of ways

to integrate them into your life if they aren’t there now.

 

Example: Barbara and Malcolm were a successful Hollywood couple. They had a

huge income and lived in lavish style, but were dissatisfied. Barbara wanted

to be a sculptor, and Malcolm wanted to write to please himself rather than

producers. Their choice: They flew off to Italy, where Barbara perfected her

art. Now, 10 years later, she is an award-winning sculptor. Malcolm now works

as a freelance writer.

 

RECASTING

 

Choose to convert problems into opportunities, and traumatic experiences into

sources of emotional energy.

 

Happy people respond to painful situations in two stages. First, they feel

the pain deeply, listening closely to what their minds and bodies tell them.

Then they transform their feelings by asking what lessons they can learn and

how they can grow from the experience.

 

Example: Adele, 53 years old, experienced a series of losses during a

two-year period. Her parents died, her house burned down, her restaurant went

bankrupt and her husband left her. Even her dog died.

 

Her reaction: “As my initial shock began to clear, I began to feel hope.

There was one big opportunity -- I had a clean slate. As long as I had to

create a new life, I was going to create a happy one.â€

 

Adele built a new emotional support system of friends. With insurance money

from the fire, she built a new house. She used her gourmet cooking skills to

start a successful small catering business. She says, “I have a feeling that

I can thrive in hard times. I feel content and tranquil.â€

 

OPTIONS

 

Choose a flexible approach to life’s journey. If you are always open to new

possibilities, life offers a daily bounty of opportunity.

 

Example: Phyllis, now 70 and semiretired, was a pioneering woman engineer.

She started out trying to imitate the male professionals, but found their

career path too rigid.

 

With a talent for writing, she applied for a low-level job on an engineering

magazine and was offered a much better position instead. Her multiple

interests and talents eventually led her to the presidency of a large

engineering corporation.

 

APPRECIATION

 

Choose to make every experience precious by fully appreciating each moment

and all the people with whom you share your life. When you live in the

Technicolor present, worries from the past and anxieties about the future

fade away. And freely expressing your appreciation for others forges

stronger, warmer relationships.

 

GIVING

 

Choose to share yourself with your friends and the larger community and to

give without expecting a return. The highest level of giving is to help other

people become independent. But even small personal acts of kindness,

unrelated to material items, help to improve the fabric of our lives. And

although you give without expecting anything back, it provides wonderful

rewards.

 

Every day, look for opportunities to give nonmaterial gifts that people

really need -- advice, resources, compliments and feedback.

 

TRUTHFULNESS

 

Choose to be honest and accountable to yourself and others. Without truth,

there can be no real intimacy in our most important relationships, and we

even lose contact with our true selves.

 

Happy people don’t allow rigors of family, work or social demands to violate

their internal contract to tell the truth. They are adamant about

understanding their own “truths†in any situation, testing their reactions

to people and problems to preserve a state of integrity.

 

Example: When Livia opened her Midwest art gallery, she decided that she

would always give artists her honest reaction to their work. Because she kept

this code of honesty, artists seeking to improve their work flocked to her

gallery.

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" If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will avoid

one hundred days of sorrow. " - Chinese proverb

 

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