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

Forward email

Advertisements

Habits Karma Meditation & Mindfulness 1-16-2019

SECRETS FOR A HAPPIER LIFE   IAmHappiness101.com  Habits Karma Meditation & Mindfulness     let go and be ARE YOU ENJOYING THIS MOMENT …RIGHT NOW? Visit Our Website Habits Karma Meditation & Mindfulness Eating a small dish of ice cream before I go to sleep has become a habit that I occasionally break just to have some control over this evening pleasure. I guess it could be another habit that has developed to try to control the ice cream eating one. Over time we become accustomed to certain routines or similar responses to life’s happenings. Each time we respond in a similar way it deepens the grooves in our mind and the next time it becomes even easier to repeat the same habitual response. We build up what might be called good or bad karma from our actions and interactions with others. Sometimes right after we have reacted in a particular way we wish that we had not done that or had not said that. We had responded in a habitual way that we wish we could change. Meditation and mindfulness may be the answer. Just as there is a gap between the end of an out breath and the beginning of an in breath there is a gap between the cause and effect of the interactions between people. As the gap becomes longer between breaths there is more awareness of stillness. As the gap widens between stimulus and reaction the reaction can morph into a more thoughtful response. At first the response may be a wish that I should have reacted differently. Then — I could have reacted differently. Then — I thought about a different response but still got caught up in much of the habitual energy and it overwhelmed me. Then — sometimes I can keep my mouth quiet and wait for the tension to dissipate. Then — oh well there is that same trap I am happy not to fall into it again. With mindfulness the gap can widen to allow the above gradual changing sequence to change an old habitual response. Start by practicing to count first one then two and then three counts between the end of the out breath and the beginning of the in breath. Then between the end of the in breath and the beginning of the out breath. Especially notice the sensation of mild tension while the breath in stilled and not flowing in the gap. The key is to feel the sensation and allow it to be just as it is. The same waiting of a count of one two or three is plenty of time in the gap between stimulus and reaction to allow a settling and in time a more measured conscious decision as to how you choose to interact with the world. Clear seeing in the gap may transform moments of compulsion into moments of freedom. An unskilled emotional response may gradually be transformed into a new habit of saying or doing something helpful, compassionate or loving. *****************************************************************************   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       Click Here for archive of newsletters 2010-2017 Announcing SPIRITUAL GRAVITY a blog Spirituality Happiness Joy Wonder Deconstructed Visit Spiritual Gravity Click Here

MikeSelzerDDS@aol.com | BeJoyNow.com

Secrets For A Happier Life Air That I Breathe 12-27-18

SECRETS FOR A HAPPIER LIFE   IAmHappiness101.com

Air That I Beathe       let go and be

ARE YOU ENJOYING THIS MOMENT …RIGHT NOW?

Visit Our Website

Sometimes I jump to the end of the tale or legend before I have had a chance to really develop and feel the sensations that shadow along with the story line.  The best are myths that have a legendary mystical vibration that leave you with a tingle. They take wispy words and weave a tapestry of thought and keep stirring it until it thickens and becomes reified into the reality of the present moment. Pulled along by Spiritual Gravity mere thoughts are transformed into a tangible form that you can reach out and touch. “Sometimes all I need is the air that I breathe and to love you.”  A lyric by the Hollies. It feels like one of those legendary myths that may be deconstructed and then built back up. It begins with the simple story line “sometimes all I need is the air that I breathe.”  The air which is always all around is mostly taken for granted.  It is so ubiquitous and common that it is oxymoronic to think it might ever be “all that I need.”  However, we have all had that experience.  Most likely when something or someone has “taken our breath away,” and we are singularly focused on that long deep inhalation and slow smooth exhale. Try it right now as you are reading this.  Imagine the stillness and awe at the top of the mountain, the face of your first love, the birth of a child.  Let your eyes open wide and see beyond the physical forms in front of you; gaze into your mind’s eye.  Breathe in a very slow steady full breath as you imagine seeing and feeling that Awe. Not quite there?  Return to the story and go a bit deeper.  What was going on?  What had transpired prior to the awareness that the breath was so awesome and fulfilling?  Make up a story.  In the mystical tradition of the Torah this may be called midrash.  It is a deeper level beneath the surface story line.  Why is it sometimes and not all the time?  Is the you another person?  Is the you God?  Is the you the voice in your head talking directly to you? Return again to the story line and imagine the legend or allegory that it has grown out from.  The similarity of all of the animals that evolved out of the sea and have become dwellers on land and air and all breathe.  All of the air is shared over and over in and out for millennium. The energy of life is clothed in a molecule of oxygen breathed into your body and then released to give you life. Take in another slow deep breath.  Gaze deeper sensing the aliveness carried by the breath.  Sometimes when you remember or feel this energy you rise to the mystical awareness that all you need, at least for this moment, is the air that you breathe.  And then you feel the love for “you.” *****************************************************************************   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       Click Here for archive of newsletters 2010-2017

Announcing SPIRITUAL GRAVITY a blog Spirituality Happiness Joy Wonder Deconstructed Visit Spiritual Gravity Click Here