What is the meaning of life? To be happy and useful.
— Tenzin Gyatso
14th Dalai Lama
As wonderful as the holidays can be, they can also be exhausting. By the time I get through Christmas, I’m so worn out that I have a very hard time even considering making resolutions. I have to rest up or I feel completely unable to do anything but put my head down and just keep moving.
This year, as I head for my big X0th birthday (I’m not telling), I’ve decided to try something different. I want to be happier with my life. I’m getting way too old to wait for someday, so this is the year of building a healthier and happier me.
I’m inviting you to join me on this journey. I’m not sure where it’s going to take me but I’m beginning today. Would you like to join me? I’d love to have you come along. I’m starting with my whine list – by defining what works for me and what doesn’t.
What stops us from being happy?
I know that part of what stops me is that at certain times, I whine – to myself, of course – about all the things that aren’t exactly to my liking. You probably have a “whine list” too –reasons that you are unhappy – or at least, not as happy as you want to be. It’s probably not a huge feeling, just something that weighs you down – telling you that you’re not really happy. So, before we go any further with this post, do me a favor and make a list of the things that are making you unhappy today. Continue reading » Happily Flourishing
“Healing,” Papa would tell me, “is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature.”
— W.H. Auden
Pain is a sign that something is wrong – a muscle injured or a loss endured. It has a positive role to play in our survival. But when we are in pain, it doesn’t seem positive. It hurts. It distracts us from the behaviors that we know work. And, because we are distracted, we sometimes don’t make the best choices.
At the beginning of my great adventure, my second day on the job, I fell. I stepped on a seed pod, turned my ankle and ended up on my back like a Continue reading » Healing the Pain
Anxiety is the rust of life, destroying its brightness and weakening its power.
— Anonymous
Recently, I’ve been reading another book about how our brains work. In Dr. Daniel Amen’s book Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, he describes the chemical interactions that occur as a result of our thoughts. Putting these various pieces of research together, I have learned that I can affect how my mind behaves and I can create an outlook that serves me. With that comes greater freedom from anxiety and depression and that makes it worth working at understanding the science, and developing the skills that conform with the research.
In some of my most recent posts, I’ve written about the effect of thoughts on the shape and structure of our brain. Repetitive thoughts or actions become imprinted in our brains and the more repetitive they are the deeper the imprint. The deeper the imprint, the harder it is to change them.
With the addition of Dr. Amen’s research, we start to understand how Continue reading » Get Rid of the ANTS
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
— Mahatma Gandhi
Every Sunday, after I go to Mass, I meet a friend for lunch. She has two sons, both of whom have struggled with addiction issues. Both have also been trying to figure out what to do with their lives. The younger son, Rhett, has tried to find a career of sorts but he’s struggled because he did some not-so-smart stuff a few years back. Because of his record, he finds it hard to find a job with a future and is waiting for these items to “fall off” his record. Even then, finding a job he’ll like is a challenge.
Recently, Rhett has been showing signs of moving forward. First, he decided that even though it may be difficult to succeed in this overcrowded field, he would enroll in a film study certificate program at a local junior college. (As a graduate of a junior college system, I can only say, “Thank heavens for junior colleges!”)
To get started, he enrolled in six units during the summer semester. For someone starting out cold, summer semester is a huge challenge. The same amount of study material is squeezed into Continue reading » A Story of Personal Power
OY! I have waaaay toooo much to do. (I get to say OY, I come from Chicago and it’s better than swearing.) It occurs to me that there comes a point in time when my immediate todo list (as in must get done by yesterday) becomes so overwhelming that I freeze. We haven’t spent a lot of time describing learned helplessness and how to deal with it, but I think one of the things I do is decide that since I can’t get it done, I won’t try. So, here’s my three steps on how to deal with WAAAAY TOOOO much to do.
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