Secrets for Happier Life 4-22-2010

 

Secrets For A Happier Life: Ideas, Inspiration & Practices Quick Links   YouTube Visual Musical Secret    Joy Coaching     Boca Smile Center             I would love to hear from you      Share your happiness tips and see them in a future newsletter                                             Email Link                           (561)487-4555      Spread The Word Want to live around happier family and friends?    Smile of the Week        “Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory”    Albert Schweitzer Be Happy Now April 22, 2010 Dear Michael,        Welcome to Secrets For A Happier Life.    Like rain dripping into and filling a bucket, your life can become happier one drop at a time. For over 25 years I have gathered thoughts and experimented with practices related to increasing joy.  I am happy to share them with you.    Yogi Berra is reported to have said, “It’s like deja vu, all over again.”  Was he talking about our lives and how we  seem to be on a merry-go-round bumping into the same problems over and over again?  What does it take to step off into a new direction?   If he were asked how many psychologists it takes to change a light bulb Yogi might have answered, “only one, but the light bulb has to really want to change.”  Are you ready?  How is your light? Your happiness?   Right now what can you do to add another drop of happiness to your life?  Remember, happiness is a road you travel along, not a destination.  I invite you to begin with Small Moments of Happiness and Quick Changes below.    Yours truly,     Michael Selzer DDS   Small Moments Of Happiness   Notice that when you laugh you are happy. Notice especially that when you are laughing your whole body is moving. It’s in motion. You have stopped thinking, have let go and relaxed and allowed your body to move and shake. You are happy for at least that moment. And then like the ripples settling down in a pond the waves and motions of laughter settle back to our routine level of being. The trick to being happy is to have more small moments of happiness and then let the natural brain chemistry learn to stimulate this happy response more and more often.   Quick Changes   Right now recall a moment when you were happy. Expand the image of that or the sense of that moment of happiness. Make it big and bigger in your minds eye. Put it on a TV screen, a movie screen, an I-max screen.                                                                        Or, you can also pretend. That’s right, merely make up a good thought. It works just as well. The brain does not differentiate between real and pretend. It just registers a path for each thought. As you have more happy thoughts the path gets deeper and easier to access and reverberate with other thoughts. That’s it. Hold onto the awareness of happiness and let it soak into your body down into your finger tips and toes.    The trick is to continually just let go of unwanted thoughts and replace them with happier ones. Gradually the groove of happy thoughts becomes the routine.   Do this practice 3 to 6 times a day or whenever you realize that you are not as happy as you would chose to be. Allow the groove of happiness in the brain’s chemistry to get deeper and deeper.   Happiness: A Puppy’s Perspective   Or just take a puppy to the beach 1. More drops fill your bucket faster.  Every hour think ten happy thoughts.  They can be real or pretend.  The groove in the brain will get deeper either way.  For those old enough to remember that may be where, “it’s groovy” comes from.   2. When an unhappy thought comes up, immediately think the opposite.  Turn it into an opportunity to experience a happy thought when you most need it.  Again, its okay to pretend.   3. Before you fall asleep at night review happy thoughts.  Form an intention to continue filling your bucket with happy thoughts tomorrow.  As you sleep the brain continues to process the last conscious thoughts you have.   Upcoming topics in future newsletters *More on how to train your brain *How awareness to body sensations deepens happiness *How to enhance the good moments of each day

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Open Free Dropping Sticky Mind 7-16-2019

SECRETS FOR A HAPPIER LIFE   IAmHappiness101.com

Open Free Dropping Sticky Mind   let go and be

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I used an old band-aid the other day. It worked fine but my finger remained sticky for hours after I took it off. It felt so much freer when it finally was gone. I could touch things again without that sticky feeling following me around. Sometimes my mind is also free of all of the “sticky thoughts” that cling to it and feels fuzzy. Sometimes my mind feels free. Can you describe the state of mind that is free from clinging? Where there is no stickiness nothing grabbing at your mind. Just like that feeling of stickiness on your fingers and you finally get it off and you can touch things without feeling that stickiness. Or when your mind can touch the experience that is coming in from the sense windows without clinging to something else at the same time. That pure direct experience uncluttered by stickiness to something ; whether it is a lingering thought of the past or a projected thought of the future. The stickiness can be a leftover worry, a concern, a memory anything which is different than the sense window experiences of sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell and even thoughts. Anything that divides even the slightest amount of your attention away from just, seeing, hearing, smelling, touching or tasting. Can you imagine a pure un-sticky experience? What would that state of mind feel like?  What is the experience of being open and free? Can you surrender to the experience can you open to that experience?   Does it have characteristics of body awareness sensation. Is it an open mind sense of freedom? Like, the feeling when the air is so pure or the water so clear or the music just so that,   “I can just hang out all day” from a mind/body standpoint. When the body feels weightless, airy, no pressure comforting and floating. For one minute or perhaps for merely 10 seconds (right now) just be. Just for one full slow breath. As you breath in allow only the thought and sensation of breathing in and only the thought and  sensation of breathing out. Especially the release of the breath as it flows out all on its own. Being completely free and open. Okay take one more breath and then back to work. *****************************************************************************   We are all familiar with earth and space gravity.  Everything pulls and attracts everything else towards it.  The earth is so large in size compared to all of the objects we come in contact with that everything seems to fall toward the earth.  Spiritual gravity is similar in that everything is pulled or attracted to the center of the Heart of the Universe.        SPIRITUAL GRAVITY a blog                 CLICK HERE for  8-9-17  Mountains Lakes and Happiness                  CLICK HERW for 9-6-2017  Lemons Goldilocks and Happiness                 CLICK HERE For 10-4-17 Smile Workout for Happiness                Click Here for  11-2-2017  Turning Inside Out For Happiness                   CLICK HERE FOR 2-18-2018   MEDITATION PENICILLIN   Alladin’s Closet House world 3-28-18    Wanting 6-18-2018   Potato Chips and Ice Cream 6-21-2018   Let Go And Be July 20 2018   Your Breath is more than air 8-30-2018   Flowing Zone 9-26-2018 Finding You 11-2018 Air That I Breath 12-27-2018   Habits Karma Meditation & Mindfulness  1-16-2019   There Is No Traffic Running Through Your Bedroom 2-6-2019   Parachuting Your Higher Self 3-15-2019   Karma Yoga Try It On April 2019   Karma Yoga Try It On May 2019     Click Here for archive of newsletters 2010-2017

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Karma Yoga Try It On May 2019

SECRETS FOR A HAPPIER LIFE   IAmHappiness101.com

Karma Yoga Try It On     let go and be

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Remember washing your first car? Giving your two month old a bath? Cleaning a scraped knee on your grand child? What these experiences all share is the love of spontaneously doing it. The enjoyment of doing something with an undivided focus of attention. And with the addition of timelessness. The goal was to get it done. The intention was to do your best. And you were free to take whatever time you needed. The feeling or zone you may fall into doing the above is very interesting. There is a sense of peace and quiet while your are involved in the doing. Like having your cake and eating it. To really understand this and feel it you need your own experience of it. Then with practice you can find your way to shift into this mind-state at will. Once there you will find that in addition to the tasks getting done they will take less energy and leave you fully refreshed and ready for the next one. One of the practices that was available at the retreat centers I have visited is the practice of Selfless or Karma Yoga. This practice is simply to complete some task either assigned or volunteer for with the mind/body intention of service for the community or common good as well as for yourself. I have done this many times and each time I have become more deeply connected to a mind/body tonality starting with skepticism and then moving on to acceptance to willingness to genuine enjoyment.   (as reviewed above) This last time was the cake. At lunch a spokesperson asked for a volunteer to help in the kitchen after lunch. I was ready. I was welcomed and offered an official apron. I immediately felt as one of the kitchen staff.   (By the way the food is so delicious and healthy that just to be associated with the kitchen felt like an honor) I was asked to dry a number of pots, pans, and cooking trays and place them in the appropriate racks. (I did not break anything)   Next I advanced to the retrieval of the remaining food on the salad bar. I was given a cart and asked to place covers over the trays, place them on the cart and return everything to the kitchen. With a trip or two in and out of the kitchen I was able to locate the correct sized covers. I started with the large trays that went fully from one side of the salad bar to the other. Each of the trays was separated by a thin aluminum bar. Everything was going fine until I got to the section of smaller trays. Not realizing that these smaller trays were supporting each other with a series of thin aluminum bars my mistake became immediately apparent. Two of the smaller trays one half filled with chopped onions and the other three quarters filled with a cold cooked grain fell two feet to the bottom of the salad bar with a loud thud and a small explosion of onions and brown grain. “This can’t be good,” quietly escaped from my mouth. Not a problem my chance for Karma Yoga had now increased al least triple-fold. I returned to the kitchen for some rags and finding the doors on the side of the salad bar I gained immediate and full access to the cool inside. I retrieved the two trays which fortunately had landed right side up. About one third of each tray of onions and grain had bounced out and was scattered on the bottom of the bar. As I was clearing the spilled food I slipped into a deep state of “Karma Yoga” my concentration sharpened and I lost all thoughts of that morning or my plans for the rest of the day. I was intent on cleaning. Once I finished with the inside, with refreshed energy, I returned to the kitchen in search of same clean towels and solution to wipe down the entire frame of the salad bar. I continued for about 20 minutes and cleaned every surface, uprights, side glass, aluminum strips, top glass inside and top side, face level shields and even the hinges on the side doors. I was in cleaning heaven. I realized one of the keys for me was that I had plenty of time and was in no rush to finish to get on to something else. I have continued this practice at home and have committed at least a 30 minute period each day to some activity that I attend to with the mind/body tonality of Karma Yoga. Not only am I thrilled and energized by this but my wife is slowly running out of projects for me to work on. If you need me to help with something let me know. The salad bar became a work of art in my eye as I sat there later for dinner enjoying the view. *****************************************************************************   We are all familiar with earth and space gravity.  Everything pulls and attracts everything else towards it.  The earth is so large in size compared to all of the objects we come in contact with that everything seems to fall toward the earth.  Spiritual gravity is similar in that everything is pulled or attracted to the center of the Heart of the Universe.        SPIRITUAL GRAVITY a blog                 CLICK HERE for  8-9-17  Mountains Lakes and Happiness                  CLICK HERW for 9-6-2017  Lemons Goldilocks and Happiness                 CLICK HERE For 10-4-17 Smile Workout for Happiness                Click Here for  11-2-2017  Turning Inside Out For Happiness                   CLICK HERE FOR 2-18-2018   MEDITATION PENICILLIN   Alladin’s Closet House world 3-28-18    Wanting 6-18-2018   Potato Chips and Ice Cream 6-21-2018   Let Go And Be July 20 2018   Your Breath is more than air 8-30-2018   Flowing Zone 9-26-2018 Finding You 11-2018 Air That I Breath 12-27-2018   Habits Karma Meditation & Mindfulness  1-16-2019   There Is No Traffic Running Through Your Bedroom 2-6-2019   Parachuting Your Higher Self 3-15-2019   Karma Yoga Try It On April 2019       Click Here for archive of newsletters 2010-2017

Announcing SPIRITUAL GRAVITY a blog Spirituality Happiness Joy Wonder Deconstructed VISIT SPIRITUAL GRAVITY CLICK HERE