Archive for: Our Happiness Blog

One of the hottest trends in the book world today is coloring books for adults. These coloring books are displayed front and center in every bookstore I enter and I wonder how they achieved such widespread appeal. It turns out that the process of coloring is similar to meditation. Because your attention is directed toward selecting colors, staying within the lines, and bringing an image to life, you distract yourself from worries, thoughts, emotions and life’s problems.

Coloring is a form of stress relief in itself, but the process has many subtleties that can help you reach a deeper level of calmness. For instance, cool shades such as green, blue, and purple have a natural calming influence on your mind. You can also use coloring to reduce stress during short periods of the day. Instead of playing the frustrating new puzzle app on your phone while you are seated in a waiting room, you can use a coloring app or pull out a wallet-size coloring book and crayons from you bag. Although coloring books for adults are filled with intricate details, you can carry the books along with you to help reduce your stress in fifteen minutes here and there. Finally, coloring provides you the opportunity use your imagination and tap into creative processes that you may have not have used since your elementary school years. So if coloring is one of your favorite pastimes from your childhood, consider stopping at your local bookstore to purchase a coloring book and crayons. It can help you unwind at the end of the day and is less strenuous than getting on the elliptical machine to relieve stress.

Do you ever look back on your life and regret some decisions or behaviors? Regrets can come in all shapes and sizes. Some take the form of words you wish you never said like during an argument with a partner or a friend. Other regrets are missed opportunities such as not attending college or not visiting an ill family member one last time before they passed away. Sometimes regrets may become the soundtrack of your life. As the playlist repeats, you may blame yourself for behaviors in your past. You may wonder, “What is wrong with me? How could I possibly do something like that to someone?”

Consider this quote from Desmond Tutu, “Forgiveness says you are given another chance to make a new beginning.” By forgiving yourself, you are reminding yourself that you have new insights about the past and can put this awareness into action in the future. It is when you begin forgiving yourself that you open up to the prospect of serenity and personal satisfaction.

Mark your calendars because Friday, October 2nd is World Smile Day®! Honoring Harvey Ball, the creator of the smiley face, World Smile Day is devoted to doing small acts of kindness in order to put smiles on the faces of others. The smiley face celebration began in 1999 in Mr. Ball’s hometown of Worcester, Massachusetts. Every year Worcester and communities around the world hold festivities in celebration of kindness, happiness and the smiley face.

A Brief History of the Smiley Face: Mr. Ball was hired for $45 by the State Mutual Life Assurance in 1963 to create a symbol to improve morale within the company. The company’s purchase of Mutual Company of Ohio lead to poor employee morale. Within ten minutes, the smiley face was born and the company used the design to promote happiness among employees. By 1971, the smiley face had reached international fame.

So take some time this Friday to celebrate the smiley face and promote kindness in your community. Tip a barista, open a door for a mom struggling with a stroller, and thank a cashier for bagging your groceries. Kindness is contagious and it only takes one small act to add some cheer to someone’s day.

And remember…”Have a nice day!”

A short time ago, an old college friend called my cell in tears. It was the can’t speak type of sobbing that puts you on high alert because something is dreadfully wrong. She relates to me how she just received a call from her sister who found a large abnormality on her skin. It was first spotted a few weeks ago and she had already seen a professional. Although the expert was unsure about the spot and referred her for further testing, the sister calmly ensured my friend that “Everything is fine, have no worries, I need to hang up to get ready for the party.”

“No worries? Get ready for the party? How can she be so ok with this? The expert has no idea what is wrong with her? What if it’s cancer?” my friend screams to me. Her emotions had reached a hurricane level of five with a mixture of anxiety about what will happen to her sister, fear of the worst possible diagnosis, and betrayal due to two weeks passing by without any notice about the spot. Surprisingly, her biggest point of contempt was that her sister was attending a party despite this seemingly terrible news. “How could she be attending a party while I’m here crying?” The answer: radical acceptance.

Radical acceptance is saying that reality “Is ok” or “It is what it is” even though we don’t like reality or don’t approve of it. My friend’s sister was probably terrified of the future, but at that moment she radically accepted that the abnormality was part of her reality and she did not let it interfere with her happiness. We all experience pain throughout our lives. If we attempt to avoid the pain or pretend that it doesn’t exist we also reduce our ability to experience happiness. By accepting reality for what it is instead of fighting against it, even if only for a second, we can shift our minds toward joy and happiness.

September kicks-off one of the most magical times of the year as leaves begin to change colors, children laugh on school playgrounds, trumpets roar during high school football games and morning beverages taste more like pumpkins than actual lattés. Our senses switch into overdrive as we indulge in the sights, sounds and tastes of the season.

What is most notable to me is how our senses rekindle memories and activate our happiness. Perhaps the taste of hot chocolate warms your heart on a crisp morning. Maybe the smell of the nutmeg candle on your coffee table takes you back to your grandmother’s house where fresh cookies are coming out of the oven. These memories and feelings reconnect us with our past and revitalize our happiness for the future. So take a minute and reconnect with your spirit. After all, waiting 10 minutes at the coffee shop for the first taste of your favorite specialty coffee may reinvigorate you for the day (or the week).

Standing in your new house you look out at the garden. Your own garden. Maybe your very first garden. It’s new, it’s exciting, it’s lush and green… and perfect. You buy some tomato cages and gently wind the plants through so they’re supported as they grow. You buy the right pesticide for those pesky green bean bugs. You go out there every night for a few minutes to weed, and you water when it hasn’t rained in a while. Sometimes you even spring for some special nutrient-rich soil. You spend the summer caring for and enjoying the fruits (and vegetables) of your labor.

By the next summer you have a baby and a dog and a new job and there is less time for the garden. It doesn’t bother you – you’re too wrapped up in the things demanding your attention – and even when you catch a glimpse of a gangly, fruitless tomato plant you aren’t really bothered and just tuck it away as something to work on next year.

One day you happen to glance out the window and it hits you. The garden is a complete mess. The weeds are taller than the plants, which have mostly rotted away or been eaten by grateful deer. The rusted cages are all bent and there are more leaves than soil now. Come to think of it, you haven’t seen a bean or a tomato in a few years.

Marriages, like gardens, don’t grow if they’re not tended to. Neglect can creep up slowly and sometimes irreparable damage can be done when you aren’t looking. Get back in the habit of tending to it – and enjoying it – every day. You both deserve it.

When I was younger (and fitter) I decided to take up mountain biking. I hadn’t been on a bike for a couple of decades but I had this new friend who was a hard-core biker and he promised to show me the ropes. So one day we went out on a trail where I could learn to jump logs. He demonstrated it for me – it looked smooth and effortless and above all, fun. My turn. Ouch. Try again. And again and again. Even when I stayed upright it was neither smooth nor effortless because my pedal would hit the log or I’d land with a turned wheel and careen off the trail. As for fun – it wasn’t, since I wasn’t doing it perfectly and that seemed pretty important at the time. My friend, a tireless cheerleader by nature, eventually sat down and his cheering turned to encouragement to move on. I frequently had to step to the side to allow other riders to pass before tackling that log again and again. I watched another newbie tentatively approach the log. He awkwardly made it over (pedal scraping, landing askew)… and continued on. Suddenly it hit me. There were lots of other logs on this trail, and other sights, smells, dips and turns that make the trail so amazing. And I was missing out!

There is very little in life we need to be perfect at. Hop on, do your best, know when “good enough” is actually good enough, and enjoy the ride.

Sometimes we find ourselves trying to live with something that is unacceptable but we don’t realize it because of its insidious onset – it crept up on us so gradually that we didn’t even notice the change. It’s like the (scientifically unsound) metaphor of the frog in the pot – it’ll jump out if put in a pot of boiling water, but if put in a pot of cool water that is slowly brought to boiling it will sit there until it boils to death.

We need to notice things creeping up on us but it can be hard since life is distracting. You focus on what needs immediate attention and then one day you turn back to yourself and notice you haven’t been happy in a while. Don’t accept unhappiness. Change the situation or change your mindset about it. Jump out before you boil.

We do a lot of hiding in American culture. Makeup, for example. Sometimes it’s just for fun but often (whether we realize it or not) it’s a real attempt to hide imperfections we don’t want others to judge. No one bats an eye anymore about someone coloring the gray away. Implants, botox, liposuction, veneers, and various anatomical lifts become more acceptable every year. We hide in other ways to escape judgment, like when we hold back our jokes, decline to share an idea, or fail to stand up for what we believe in.

When we’re afraid to show our true self it’s because we believe it would be terrible if someone saw the real us and decided they didn’t like it. So we cover up and know deep down that if they don’t like what they see it’s not that bad since it’s not the real us they’re rejecting. Plus, if they don’t like this better, hand-crafted version of us then thank goodness they didn’t see the real thing! The problem comes when we’re successful – when people see our façade and like it. We know we’ve sold them a fake so we live with the fear of being found out. We all have a desperate need to belong so we maintain the front and keep hiding. Paradoxically, we hide to belong. But:

“True belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect self to the world. Our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance… (in my research) fitting in emerged as the primary barrier to cultivating real belonging.” – Brené Brown, The Power of Vulnerability