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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Alladin’s Closet House World 3-28-2018

SECRETS FOR A HAPPIER LIFE   IAmHappiness101.com

Alladin’s Closet/ House/ World

Be where you are…Right now

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

By: Michael D. Selzer DDS March 22, 2018   I hope you have enjoyed exploring Secrects For A Happier Life as much as I have.  Thank you for being there.     Secrets For A Happier Life will continue uninterrupted about every 6 weeks sent directly to you.     I am very excited about Spiritual Gravity my newest format.   It describes multiple chances to be pulled into your innermost essence.  Similar to earth gravity that has a continuous pull towards the center of the earth, unless blocked by something; Spiritual Gravity is a continuous pull towards your very center.     (It is a blog format that you can access. If you choose to follow Spiritual Gravity you can request that new blogs be automatically sent by email to you.)    I have copied the source blog below from Spititual Gravity I invite you to enjoy:    Aladdin’s Closet/ House/ World. Did you have an Aladdin’s closet that you played in.   Think back or watch one of your grandchildren free spirited and at play. Often as a kid I played in a tent made out of blankets and chairs and with a corner of the blanket tucked between the mattress and the bed frame. My favorite was the closet and entire room my dad built when I was a kid. And I got to help bang in lots of nails. I played and imagined many mysterious adventures in that closet. I named it Aladdin’s closet and I searched for the elusive flying carpet. Although in my playing I did really fly. At times now during the day I have started to become aware that I am thinking about Aladdin’s closet and I feel lighter and a bit more at ease for a moment.  As I explore this lighter feeling I wonder what else it may lead to.  This line of thought started out as a writing assignment (from a workshop with Laraine Herring) focusing on a black jacket.*  Proceeding with this assignment opened an exploration into a new world of imagination and possibly an uncovering of my true self.  I now know that spiritual gravity has been pulling me all along.   The exploration: I thought it might me interesting to explore this renewed sense of being in Aladdin’s closet and started to focus on the lighter feeling of being more at ease. The sense of lightness and ease was like the echo of a recent vacation. You know the feeling. When you come back from a really wonderful vacation or journey your mind/body has flash backs of memory in the days following your return.   You can see, feel, almost taste some of the highlights. In the same way I started to carry the lightness and ease of the closet with me and I would step into it from time to time when bits of routine stress would pop into my life. At first the echo would be just the feeling sense of lightness and ease from recalling just sitting in the quiet protected space of the closet.   The closet had a few strange and interesting physical characteristics and morphed its shape but was limited in scope.* The sense of ease of being in the closet’s limited activities expanded into more varied activities performed within my house. With this my imagination grew and expanded becoming the entire house with much more space and activity to play with. My thoughts became similar to building and rebuilding sand castles at the beach. It was just play with no set goal or agenda to accomplish. With that more routine everyday actions started to feel more at ease.  I was fully able to do everything as I usually would have done with the addition that it felt like a dream.  I could sit back and watch myself doing whatever I was doing without the running commentary of my mind’s evaluation of everything as it was happening.   The next shift was going beyond the house and into the entire world.  I was doing and observing what I was doing at the same time. I was starting to be able to shift from my routine worries of not being right, or good enough, or accomplishing something to go about my day with the sense of play as if I were still in the closet playing as a kid. It seemed I was in a “reality dream” of me being my true self, authentic and free to be me. It was exhilarating.  The next shift was that while I was going about my day already imagining that I was playing in the world of the closet/house/world I imagined spending time back in the actual closet I played in as a kid.   This dream within a dream grew dizzying as it repeated watching itself watching itself and went around a few more times. Short version:   Imagine that you are in a closet you played in as a kid.   Step in to the sense of play that you experienced in your closet.   Take that sense of play, of being in your closet into your life in this moment, Right Now; imagine that you are in your closet playing with this moment in you life.   Go in and out of the “closet” in your mind a few times during the day.  Do this until it becomes easy to shift your imagination between playing in the closet and your everyday reality of activities.   Expand the closet to become your entire house.   Expand again until your closet becomes your entire world. Your world closet becomes living in your  “reality dream”.   Then as part of your playing with this moment you imagine going into the closet you played in as a kid etc   Go around and around again – humming Row row row your boat Gently down the stream Merrily merrily merrily merrily Life is but a dream   * Read more of the story development on    SPIRITUAL GRAVITY               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   Click Here for archive of newsletters 2010-2017

Mountains, Lakes and Happiness 8-9-17

SECRETS FOR A HAPPIER LIFE   IAmHappiness101.com Austen at Lake Toxaway, NC Being Still — Listening For Happiness Like a dog enjoying the quiet of a mountain morning, we too can benefit from being still. Visit Our Website Lessons From A Mountain Vacation 3,750 feet High Hampton Inn Cashiers, NC By: Michael D. Selzer DDS August 9, 2017 Sometimes I can sit and just appreciate. With my eyes closed the cacophony of sounds all around me grows louder becoming a symphony of vibration.  Early morning at the lake in the mountains of North Carolina the multitude of rain drops striking leaves and ground, roof top and drain pipes drowns out the rustling of leaves in the light breeze of air flowing by. Rat-a-tat-tat as water gushes down the metal gutters.  Dripity-drip-drip as water overflows onto the edge of the porch.  And the continual higher pitched hum of small drops of rain cascading into the scintillions of leaves and pine needles in the towering trees echoes around the house. Listening, hearing and settling into the enjoyable concert I can almost feel and imagine the vibration of water dropping onto each leaf and pine needle creating the ripples of air striking my ear drums as well as my entire body. Drifting merrily along I found my thoughts back as a kid on a vibrating bed.  My Uncle George, my mother’s younger brother had a business of buying truckloads of  “stuff” at auctions; sorting it and selling back the best items.  Every so often we got a great deal on something we would never have bought directly.  One of these was a vibrating bed.  It was more of a couch for a den than a bed to sleep on but if you took off the back thick cushion it was smooth and flat.  A thick circuitous wire ran along the bottom of the support for the flat base cushion that was covered by a tan plastic.  When you plugged it in the motor vibrated the wire and the entire cushion vibrated as it hummed along like the rain surrounding me. The best memory I have was how nice it felt when you turned the vibration off.  I thoroughly enjoyed the calm quiet that flowed into my awareness when my whole body, eardrums, feet, legs, torso, and head became still. Mountain Music, Village Green in Cashiers, NC on August 4, 2017 But did it?  Beyond my awareness was my heart beating, blood circulating, digestion and respiration happening as well as the earth still turning and the entire Universe  expanding.  As with everything else stillness was relative. I have become aware that I am a part of the continual vibration of the universe and therefore part of the concert I am listening too.  Like pulling myself up by my own bootstraps I am hearing my own song. I am one wave within the vibrating ocean of sound that earlier appeared to be outside of me.  When I can sense both looking out from the inside at the same time as looking in from the outside the wall between the two dissolves.  The good, bad and the ugly are all just different instruments of the one band. The music of life is playing all the time but as with the vibrating bed sometimes you have to turn it off or go up to your mountain to appreciate the difference.  High Hampton Inn, Cashiers, NC Lake Toxaway, NC Lake Toxaway, NC To read past newsletters, click here.