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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Drop Thought Into A Well Of Happiness 9-20-2019

SECRETS FOR A HAPPIER LIFE

Drop Thought Into A Well Of Happiness   let go and be

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Where are your thoughts right now? Are you scanning these words or deeply concentrating on thinking about what you are reading? Is you mind miles away still thinking about the last thing you were doing? Or thinking about something that you want to be doing later? Can you focus your attention on these words right now or are you scanning to see if it seems to be interesting?   You might check you posture and breathing right now to find out.   There is a balance between thought and bodily sensation. Each one can used as a glide path into a calm happy place within the other. Generally the mind thinks thoughts and the body creates sensations.   And the thoughts and sensations intermingle and affect each other. The less interference or direction that the mind is given by the will the better  off it is.    When something stimulates the mind like the news about an approaching hurricane thoughts are produced.   If you are a surfer your thoughts might be soaked in adventure. If you live in a trailer possibly thoughts of concern and preparation. In either case its best to watch the thoughts come and go without trying to enhance or diminish them. Like a hand placed in a smoothly flowing stream of water any interjection of willful influence on the thoughts creates a disturbance in their natural flow. When your thoughts create a feedback loop of too much worry or too much excitement try this:   Stop trying to change your thinking.    Let your thoughts alone.   Shift to notice what you are feeling within your body.   Pick out one area of tension or sensation.   Relax that specific spot.   Soften the area of the sensation.   Release any tension you can feel in that area.   Even a small release is sufficient.   Allow gravity to let it settle.   A natural well for sensation to flow into has been created. You will notice that the thoughts that you left alone have also fallen into the well and a natural greater sense and sensation of happiness has taken its place.    Enjoy. ***************************************************************************** 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   Open Free Dropping Sticky Mind July 2019   Stop Listen Look 8-16-2019 Active Meditation 9-5-2019     Click Here for archive of newsletters 2010-2017

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Active Meditation Secrets For A Happier Life 9-05-2019

SECRETS FOR A HAPPIER LIFE

Active Meditation   let go and be

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The drive up into the mountains was a long haul from South Florida. Focus, attention to the road, drive, look, attention, drive, listen, drive. All of the built up wear and tear vanished at the first glimpse of the mountains while still in Georgia. Sitting behind the wheel now returned to an active meditation from having been solely a means to go from one place to another.   Once at the mountain lake I always enjoyed another transformation. It was a short swim from the dock at the lake’s shore to a small float anchored to the lake bottom. The water was always cold with a thin layer of warmer water on top. I swam quickly and climbed onto the float.   As I sat still doing had transformed again into being. When I was ready the swim back was calm, peaceful and what I call active meditation.   I have found that there is a link between our exterior life and our interior life. And that our interior life of contemplation and meditative attention does not have to occur mainly within a formal sitting meditation. Our meditation attention can be channeled into any external object or experience or activity. There is a linkage that connects everything to everything else. What we primarily see is the external cover while the entire story lies inside.   Finding ways to pierce the cover erases the boundary between our inner and outer life. Attention is the key and when placed within a keyhole of intention the doorway between inner and outer opens.   Try this let:   Attention be looking and noticing. Intention be the effects of candle light.   In the evening switch off the lights in your kitchen and use a few candles to light the room. Use looking and noticing as the shapes of routine things have changed their appearances. Smudges on the stove have almost vanished, the specks on the floor have stopped screaming to be washed away and the clutter has softened to bumps on the counter top. With the softer light with its slight flicker the room has transformed into a haven of calm and quiet ready for meditation.   What other combination of attention and intention have you used to soften the wall between your outer and inner experiences? When the right intention is present in mind and you allow your body to do its own thing routine tasks may become an active meditation bringing you more moments of happiness throughout your day. *****************************************************************************   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   Open Free Dropping Sticky Mind July 2019   Stop Listen Look 8-16-2019     Click Here for archive of newsletters 2010-2017

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