Secrets For A Happier Life 9-16-2010

Other analogies of this concept are: weight lifters have a lot of strength and if you practice lifting weights you can gain strength, fire gives off heat and if you rub two sticks together creating heat you can make fire.

I invite you to continue reading below.

Yours truly,

Michael Selzer DDS

One of the attributes of happiness is generosity. And by by practicing generosity you can re-build waning happiness. That, like the hub of a wheel, is the central thought of this issue of the newsletter. All of the other concepts that come out of this hub are like spokes on the wheel and relate to this core.

Quick Changes

One person’s happiness and generosity might be another person’s undoing. We are all in differing spheres of sharing.

Although we live in a money-centric culture, we can also be generous with our time, our energy, our ideas or our good wishes.

What causes us to lose our open heart of happiness and generosity is resistance to life’s events. If you are not pushing life away nor pulling it towards you there is no resistance to life and a natural state of happiness along with generosity ensues.

However, when we resist what is happening, the spaciousness around our heart starts to close. What we are resisting, in fact, is not the event that has taken place; its already happened, like spilled milk. We are resisting our thoughts and reactions to the event. We are using our will to resist what has already happened. This resistance closes down our energy and we lose happiness.

One of the ways to rebuild happiness is by doing generous actions. They do not have to be big life changing events. Remember a bucket of rain water gets filled one drop at a time.

Lets look at a few routine actions that we do each day.

1. Holding a door for someone we may not know.

2. Saying thank you for a routine service in a restaurant.

3. Greeting a person you work with each day.

Each of these actions can be done in a repetitive routine socially cordial manner or they can be done with the intention of generosity. Changing and becoming aware of our actions and adding intention to them can transform both their effectiveness on others as well as ourselves.

Practicing generosity drop by drop builds happiness and when the core of happiness is sufficient, like a fire, it starts to maintain itself and continue burning giving off its natural generosity or heat respectively.

It certainly is difficult to just drop all resistance. Fortunately if you can find one repetitive life event and drop resistance to that one there is an automatic dropping of resistance to many similar events. If you drop a fear of dogs or flying and just sit with their uncomfortable feelings for a short time the fear will pass through you.

An additional benefit is that when fear comes up from other events you have already become able to allow it to be there with little or no resistance. With less resistance your level of happiness will stay high and your natural generosity will increase.

Small Moments Of Happiness

An attribute that comes easily from having happiness is a natural generosity. You can rebuild lost happiness by practicing generous actions.Each generous action strokes the core,

leaving some echo or resonance that

builds up and allows happiness to grow

one drop at a time, from each act of

generosity.

There is the natural radiance of generosity and there is also the re-building of that central core so that when the core is large enough, like a fly wheel, happiness starts to radiate on its own.

A magnet radiates magnetic attraction when all of its molecules are lined up in the same direction. You can take a pin that does not have magnetic qualities and rub it with a magnet a few times in the same direction, lining up its molecules, and the pin will now have magnetic qualities. In the same way acts of generosity line up and build our core of happiness.

Therefore we can see that the happiness we are looking for comes about in two ways, (1)the natural exuberance of happiness and (2) the willful building up and development of happiness.

However, it is important to also remember that happiness wanes or at times can get lost.

Happiness: A puppy’s perspective for living in the moment

Start with one thing. Just drop the resistance to that one thing. When it occurs meet it with acceptance. Hold the acceptance of that event in an open space. Allow what has already happened to be there as it already is. Relax into whatever sensation is there (like a hanging puppy). Soften around the sensation as you breath in and just watch whatever your experience is.

Decide to choose happiness in this moment, and to choose happiness for this breath. If due to this event action is needed then do so with a calm mind. If action is not needed for this event then allow the happiness to grow.

Can you be generous with yourself at this time? Can you let go and relax and allow happiness? In this manner you can utilize many more of life’s events to grow happiness.

Golf Secrets: A golfer’s perspective for living in the moment

Most of us have a smooth practice swing and then more of a trying-to-hard slash when we swing at the ball. Try rating how closely your swing at the ball is to your practice swing. Use a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being closer) and rate smoothness of swing, speed and follow through. Note it on the score card for each hole. Watch how you get more higher numbers after 6 or 7 holes and a better ball flight.