The Science of Happiness: What happiness is and how you can achieve it

See also:
Pharrell William's "Happy"
Bobby McFerrin's "Dont Worry Be Happy"

Your Mother is Always With You

It's not Mother's Day, nor is it her birthday. 

I just saw this and it moved me...so here you go.

Loving and missing my mom.

by Deborah R Culver

Aka Deborah R Force-Shy-Gerlach-Culver

Change is Good… You Go First Movie

Click here: Change is Good… You Go First Movie:

Great Thoughts and Motivation: Recommended Daily

People always say "Motivation is great but it doesn't last." I just tell them, bathing does not last either, that is why I recommend it daily." - Zig Ziglar

"Happy" by Pharrell Williams

"Happy" was written for the Despicable Me 2 soundtrack by Pharrell Williams. Pharrell came up with the idea for the lyrics by asking himself what being in a good mood truly feels like.

It might seem crazy what I'm about to say
Sunshine she's here, you can take away
I'm a hot air balloon, I could go to space
With the air, like I don't care baby by the way

Because I'm happy
Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof
Because I'm happy
Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth
Because I'm happy
Clap along if you know what happiness is to you
Because I'm happy
Clap along if you feel like that's what you wanna do

Here come bad news talking this and that
Yeah, give me all you got, don't hold back
Yeah, well I should probably warn you I'll be just fine
Yeah, no offense to you don't waste your time
Here's why

Because I'm happy
Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof
Because I'm happy
Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth
Because I'm happy
Clap along if you know what happiness is to you
Because I'm happy
Clap along if you feel like that's what you wanna do

Happy, bring me down
Can't nothing, bring me down
Love is too happy to bring me down
Can't nothing, bring me down
I said bring me down
Can't nothing, bring me down
Love is too happy to bring me down
Can't nothing, bring me down
I said

Because I'm happy
Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof
Because I'm happy
Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth
Because I'm happy
Clap along if you know what happiness is to you
Because I'm happy
Clap along if you feel like that's what you wanna do

See also:
Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry Be Happy"
The Science of Happiness

Honor Your Life's Calling - Excerpt from "I Can See Clearly Now" by Wayne W. Dyer

Look back over your life at the key turning-point moments when you were involved in some kind of a peak experience and being pulled in a new direction. Think about your soul and what it truly means to be motivated by your inner thoughts, rather than using some artificial external barometer as your life’s guide. Promotions are nice; salary increases are of course welcomed; a gold watch is a fine symbol of a long and devoted life; a grade on a transcript, a trophy, and so many more are all external indexes. They do not soothe or satisfy your soul. Your soul is not finite — it has no form — no beginning or end. It needs to expand — to grow, to avoid being labeled or compartmentalized.

Every move I made in my life was in the direction of more freedom that gave me the ability to decide for myself where to be each day, what to wear, how to speak, how my writing would proceed. These were nudges from my soul — the inner invisible part of me that is infinite and therefore always seeking expansion.

Stay in touch with and honor the calling you feel deep within you. Ignoring that will leave you feeling like a prisoner in your own body and in your own private world. Your soul is miserable when it is confined, or labeled, or told what it can or cannot do. Its theme song shouts out, “Don’t fence me in!”

As you begin to see more and more clearly, not only how and why your life took all of its twists and turns but what direction it is going to take from here on in, you will see that your soul will not ever lead you astray. This is because this is truly who you are — not your accomplishments or possessions, but that inner sense of purpose that seeks out immensity and expansion.

Listen when it beckons you in a certain direction, or when it sends you a teacher, or sets up a synchronistic series of events. It all feels so mysteriously exciting when it occurs because your outer world is finally meshing with your soul’s innate need to keep on expanding. It must and always will prod you this way because it is infinite, and therefore it must just keep growing. That which is infinite cannot be labeled or put into any kind of a box for safekeeping. To do so would deny its very nature and turn it into the opposite of infinite, which is finite.

I use the phrase I am as a declaration of fact, regardless of what anyone around me says, or even what my own eyes and ears tell me is true. I am is the name that God used to identify himself to Moses and to all future generations. I encourage you to use these two words to see first in your imagination what it is that you intend to see, manifest into your physical reality. I declare every day, I am well, I am perfect health, I am content, I am love, I am God.

by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

See also:
Change Your Thoughts Change Your Life

What To Do When You're Stressed Out

Stepping up the self-care helps us boost our immunity to stress.  

Stress happens—to everyone. There are many tricks to releasing stress that give us respite from feeling overwhelmed. Merely thinking about doing these things is not enough; in order to take care of our stress, we actually have to take some of these steps. Start small—try one or two of these suggestions. 

10 Simple Things To Do When We're In Over Our Heads:

1. Community. Hanging out with friends helps us feel better. Spending time with actual human beings boosts our mood. It energises us, even if it’s people we don’t really know, at the local café. Sharing smiles with people gives us a lasting warm fuzzy. 

2. Take breaks. No one can thrive when we’re sitting at the computer for hours on end, all day long. Take a five minute break every hour. Walk to the water cooler and rehydrate, do 10 jumping jacks, do a deep forward bend, walk to the break room and refill your coffee cup, have a quick phone chat with a friend or step outside and take a peek at the sky. 

3. Get enough fresh air and sunshine. This is important, especially in the wintertime. Spending time outside breaks up the monotony and reconnects us to nature. An easy way to “cheat” is to walk or bike to work. If we have to bus or car commute, park a few blocks away from the office. If we work at home, a quick walk around the block will suffice. If it’s cold, bundle up. There are really no excuses when it comes to being outside and enjoying the day at least a little bit. 

4. Eat food cooked with love. Make sure to eat enough veggies. Eat real food and avoid processed and packaged food. Have a snack— if you’re experiencing mood-faliure, get your blood sugar up. 

5. Meditate. Practice sitting meditation every day for at least 10 minutes. If you’re too busy, meditate for one hour. Our minds are made for thinking. Consciously taking a break from our thoughts heals stress on many levels. I meditate every day for 10 minutes, first thing in the morning. It makes me feel like I’m cloaked in a protective blanket all day long. 

6. Exercise. Our bodies are made to move. People have a lot of energy and sitting still for too long can drive us stir crazy. Exercise, even a little bit, is important everyday. It releases negativity and makes us feel good. It gets our heart pumping and our lungs breathing. My favorite ways to exercise are walking the dog, biking, hiking, yoga, dancing, skiing, snow shoveling, gardening and sex. 

7. House Plants.It’s nice to be share space with other living things. House plants are natural air filters. They live on water and sunlight. That’s affordable! They bring relaxing and cheerful energy to a room. They are quiet. If you have to vent, houseplants are good listeners. 

8. Stretch. Practicing yoga, even a little bit, breaks up the” fuzz” between our muscles and fascial tissue. A good stretch can give us the “space” we need to buckle down and take care of our responsibilities. 

9. Get enough sleep. Our bodies are rejuvenated with a good nights sleep. Enjoy a relaxing ritual before bed, to ensure a restful night. Have a cup of chamomile tea, meditate take a hot epsom salt bath, or read for 15 minutes. 

10. Laugh. Read something funny. Talk to someone funny. Watch a funny video. Amuse yourself. Laughter really is the best medicine.

In today’s busy world, it’s easy for anyone to feel overwhelmed; using creative solutions to deal with stress can help us prevent burnout.

by Ashleigh Hitchcock

See:
Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry Be Happy"

How to Clear Your Life of Negative Energy

You know that like attracts like, right? So here’s the deal: Positive people are drawn to positive energy; negative people are drawn to negative energy.

We tend to perceive negative energy as something other people have. Sure, sometimes we feel negative – as in, “go away and leave me alone, world!” but did you know that negativity can be so ingrained in you that it goes unnoticed?

That’s because negativity sometimes wears a disguise called ‘reality’. It’s easy to rationalize that you’re ‘just being realistic’ in not daring to act on a dream – and believe it!

You may assume that positive people are not being realistic – that they’re being naive, that they are in denial with their heads stuck in the sand, that they put on fake smiles in the face of difficulty and so forth. But are they really happy idiots or is there something to their positivity?

Consider this: since when does ‘being realistic’ necessarily mean that things will go wrong and that you have to accept that as the truth?

That doesn’t mean that being realistic is automatically negative. When you view the world from a ‘realistic’ standpoint, you can’t help but be negative IF your version of reality is negative.

If your version of reality is negative, you are conditioned to believe that whatever can go wrong, will go wrong and whatever can go right, will probably go wrong too. Your unconsciously held beliefs make you into a negative person without your being aware of it!

So – if this negativity is so ingrained in you that you don’t notice it, how do you determine whether you’re stuck in a cloud of negative energy that is attracting the wrong people, wrong situations and wrong feelings? And how can you be sure you’re not perpetuating that negativity?

Here’s a quick quiz to gauge the level of negative energy within you:

• Do you complain? All the time or just sometimes?
• Do you often discuss what’s wrong in the world more than what’s right? This includes the ‘terrible’ weather, ‘horrible’ traffic, ‘idiotic’ government, ‘lousy’ economy, ‘stupid’ in-laws, etc.
• Do you criticize? All the time or just certain people?
• Are you attracted to drama and disaster (can you unglue yourself from the TV when there’s a news story of a disaster and can you avoid getting involved in the lives of dysfunctional celebrities?)
• Do you blame? All the time or just certain situations?
• Do you believe that you have no control over most of your results?
• Do you feel like a victim? Do you talk about people doing things to you?
• Are you grateful for what is or will you be grateful when things finally start going right for you?
• Do you feel like things are happening to you? Or do you feel that they are happening through you?

This last two points are important:

If you’re not grateful except when things go right, you are negative. Gratitude is positive. If you are grateful for what is (including the unpleasant school of life lessons, then you can invite more and more positive energy into your life.

Believing that things happen to you puts you in the role of victim; then it’s easy to be negative because it’s convenient to give up that power. So consider this alternative: who or what is to blame when GOOD things happen to you? Do you acknowledge that you are responsible for the good things – as in, you worked hard, you earned it, etc… but blame external events or other people for your failures? So how come, when good things happen, they are a result of what you do, but when bad things happen, they are not your fault?

Nobody likes to hear that. It takes courage to accept that you create your life experience!

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you are holding on to negative energy to some degree! To clear your negative energy and raise your vibration, you will need to retrain yourself to choose a positive attitude.

Here’s another interesting idea to consider: have you noticed that positive people seem to get what they want out of life, and even if things don’t go their way, they still enjoy their lives… while negative people whine and moan about their misfortunes and even the good things in their lives?

To clear negative energy, try this 3 -step process:

1. Take ownership: “When you think everything is someone else’s fault, you will suffer a lot. When you realize that everything springs only from yourself, you will learn both peace and joy.” – the Dalai Lama

2. Cancel negative thoughts and replace them with positive thoughts. This takes practice, dedication and making a decision to see the world through the eyes of “what can go right” instead of “what can go wrong.” You’ll have to catch yourself anytime you are acting out or speaking out your negativity, and immediately change your tune.

3. Use the Love or Above Spiritual Toolkit to clear your energy and bring more light and love into your life; visualize the positive instead of getting sucked into negativity; overcome past conditioning; think intuitively from the soul instead from ‘reality’; create a new, desired reality in your imagination and manifest it in the outer world. Nobody wants negative energy to permeate their lives, yet many of us allow it. But we allow it unconsciously, based on past conditioning that suggests an inevitable outcome to certain situations. When you overcome that conditioning and realize that the future is NOT cast in stone but that you have more control over your circumstances than you believe – then you can begin to consciously design your life.

What’s going to happen then? Your positive energy will magnetically attract what you consider to be good and right for you: people, situations, things… and you’ll notice a huge, huge increase in your happiness and inner peace.

Why not choose positive energy? Make some changes within, and you’ll quickly see positive changes in your life. Enjoy the good feelings and abundance!

Source: loveorabove

Have Vision: Look Inward, Outward and Upward

Vision looks inward 

and becomes duty.

Vision looks outward 

and becomes aspiration. 

Vision looks upward 

and becomes faith.

- Stephen S. Wise

About 350 years ago, a shipload of travelers landed on the northeast coast of America. The first year, they established a town site. The next year, they elected a town government.

The third year, the town government planned to build a road five miles westward into the wilderness. In the fourth year, the people tried to impeach their town government because they thought it was a waste of public funds to build a road five miles westward into a wilderness. Who needed to go there anyway?

These were people who had the vision to see 3,000 miles across an ocean and overcome great hardships to get there. But in just a few years, they were not able to see even five miles out of town. They had lost their pioneering vision.

With a clear vision of what we can become, no ocean of difficulty is too great. Without it, we rarely move beyond our current boundaries.

- from Lee J. Colan

More great thoughts on having vision:

Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. - Ayn Rand

Where there is no vision the people perish. – Proverbs 29:18

The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight but has no vision. - Helen Keller

A vision without a task is but a dream. A task without a vision is drudgery. A vision and a task are the hope of the world. - Quote on a church wall in Sussex, England

Vision without action is a daydream. Action with without vision is a nightmare. - Japanese Proverb

The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps - we must step up the stairs. - Vance Havner

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. - Carl Jung

Vision is the gift to see what others only dream.  - Byrd Baggett    

Improve Your Life Using the 80/20 Rule

Ever think that living a healthy lifestyle is out of your grasp because your sweet tooth keeps overpowering your good intentions? Maybe your battle is with time and you feel like you'll never achieve a life where everything is harmonious. I have one little tip that can help improve your life tremendously—in all areas.

Commit to the 80/20 rule. Focus on your 80%. Leave 20% for flexibility.

Here's how it works:

1. Go for the 80/20 rule with food.

With this rule in mind, you can stay motivated and realistic. Choose healthy foods 80% of the time, or most of the time, and only indulge that sweet tooth 20% of the time or less. It's a good place to start. When you make the majority of your food choices healthy ones, your body will begin to crave the healthier choices. By thinking about the 80/20 rule, you can give yourself some freedom and flexibility to be human, but you'll be reminding yourself that most of your choices should be healthy.

2. Go for the 80/20 rule with exercise.

Only skip exercise 20% of the time. If you want to take a day off from exercise, that’s OK, but commit to exercising most days of the week.

3. Go for the 80/20 rule with your precious time.

Follow Stephen Covey’s advice and “Don’t prioritize your schedule, schedule those priorities.” Devote 80% of your day to your most important priorities. What things, if you accomplished them, would move the dial for you on your big goals?

Sometimes we can entangle ourselves in the little stuff, but at the end of the day, we don’t feel like we were truly productive. Start your day with the major stuff, and let go of the minor stuff until your more important priorities are accomplished.

4. Go for the 80/20 with your mind.

Work on that voice inside your head this year. Are most of your thoughts positive? While it would be fabulous to be 100% positive, 80% is a good place to start. Practice making your mind a positive place the majority of the time. Your thoughts determine how you feel—so why not choose the positive?

5. Go for 80/20 with your life.

Do yourself a favor this year and toss out that life balance concept, it can make you chase perfection which is unobtainable. Lean your life toward what matters to you most. Make sure the majority of your time is spent on what you value most. Doing so will make you happier and you will feel a sense of calm because what you value internally will match the external.

by Chris Freytag

10 Painfully Obvious Truths Everyone Forgets Too Soon

You know how you can hear something a hundred times in a hundred different ways before it finally gets through to you?  The ten truths listed below fall firmly into that category – life lessons that many of us likely learned years ago, and have been reminded of ever since, but for whatever reason, haven’t fully grasped.

This, my friends, is my attempt at helping all of us, myself included, “get it” and “remember it” once and for all…                            

1.  The average human life is relatively short.

We know deep down that life is short, and that death will happen to all of us eventually, and yet we are infinitely surprised when it happens to someone we know.  It’s like walking up a flight of stairs with a distracted mind, and misjudging the final step.  You expected there to be one more stair than there is, and so you find yourself off balance for a moment, before your mind shifts back to the present moment and how the world really is.

LIVE your life TODAY!  Don’t ignore death, but don’t be afraid of it either.  Be afraid of a life you never lived because you were too afraid to take action.  Death is not the greatest loss in life.  The greatest loss is what dies inside you while you’re still alive.  Be bold.  Be courageous.  Be scared to death, and then take the next step anyway.

2.  You will only ever live the life you create for yourself.

Your life is yours alone.  Others can try to persuade you, but they can’t decide for you.  They can walk with you, but not in your shoes.  So make sure the path you decide to walk aligns with your own intuition and desires, and don’t be scared to switch paths or pave a new one when it makes sense.

Remember, it’s always better to be at the bottom of the ladder you want to climb than the top of the one you don’t.  Be productive and patient.  And realize that patience is not about waiting, but the ability to keep a good attitude while working hard for what you believe in.  This is your life, and it is made up entirely of your choices.  May your actions speak louder than your words.  May your life preach louder than your lips.  May your success be your noise in the end.

And if life only teaches you one thing, let it be that taking a passionate leap is always worth it.  Even if you have no idea where you’re going to land, be brave enough to step up to the edge of the unknown, and listen to your heart.  (Angel and I discuss this in more detail in the “Passion and Growth” chapter of 1,000 Little Things Happy, Successful People Do Differently.)

3.  Being busy does NOT mean being productive.

Busyness isn’t a virtue, nor is it something to respect.  Though we all have seasons of crazy schedules, very few of us have a legitimate need to be busy ALL the time.  We simply don’t know how to live within our means, prioritize properly, and say no when we should.

Being busy rarely equates to productivity these days.  Just take a quick look around.  Busy people outnumber productive people by a wide margin.  Busy people are rushing all over the place, and running late half of the time.  They’re heading to work, conferences, meetings, social engagements, etc.  They barely have enough free time for family get-togethers and they rarely get enough sleep.  Yet, emails are shooting out of their smart phones like machine gun bullets, and their day planners are jammed to the brim with obligations.  Their busy schedule gives them an elevated sense of importance.  But it’s all an illusion.  They’re like hamsters running on a wheel.

Though being busy can make us feel more alive than anything else for a moment, the sensation is not sustainable long term.  We will inevitably, whether tomorrow or on our deathbed, come to wish that we spent less time in the buzz of busyness and more time actually living a purposeful life.

4.  Some kind of failure always occurs before success.

Most mistakes are unavoidable.  Learn to forgive yourself.  It’s not a problem to make them.  It’s only a problem if you never learn from them.

If you’re too afraid of failure, you can’t possibly do what needs to be done to be successful.  The solution to this problem is making friends with failure.  You want to know the difference between a master and a beginner?  The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.  Behind every great piece of art is a thousand failed attempts to make it, but these attempts are simply never shown to us.

Bottom line:  Just because it’s not happening now, doesn’t mean it never will.  Sometimes things have to go very wrong before they can be right.  (Read The Success Principles.)

5.  Thinking and doing are two very different things.

Success never comes to look for you while you wait around thinking about it.

You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.  Knowledge is basically useless without action.  Good things don’t come to those who wait; they come to those who work on meaningful goals.  Ask yourself what’s really important and then have the courage to build your life around your answer.

And remember, if you wait until you feel 100% ready to begin, you’ll likely be waiting the rest of your life.

6.  You don’t have to wait for an apology to forgive.

Life gets much easier when you learn to accept all the apologies you never got.  The key is to be thankful for every experience – positive or negative.  It’s taking a step back and saying, “Thank you for the lesson.”  It’s realizing that grudges from the past are a perfect waste of today’s happiness, and that holding one is like letting unwanted company live rent free in your head.

Forgiveness is a promise – one you want to keep.  When you forgive someone you are making a promise not to hold the unchangeable past against your present self.  It has nothing to do with freeing a criminal of his or her crime, and everything to do with freeing yourself of the burden of being an eternal victim.

7.  Some people are simply the wrong match for you.

You will only ever be as great as the people you surround yourself with, so be brave enough to let go of those who keep bringing you down.  You shouldn’t force connections with people who constantly make you feel less than amazing.

If someone makes you feel uncomfortable and insecure every time you’re with them, for whatever reason, they’re probably not close friend material.  If they make you feel like you can’t be yourself, or if they make you “less than” in any way, don’t pursue a connection with them.  If you feel emotionally drained after hanging out with them or get a small hit of anxiety when you are reminded of them, listen to your intuition.  There are so many “right people” for you, who energize you and inspire you to be your best self.  It makes no sense to force it with people who are the wrong match for you.

8.  It’s not other people’s job to love you; it’s yours.

It’s important to be nice to others, but it’s even more important to be nice to yourself.  You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.  So make sure you don’t start seeing yourself through the eyes of those who don’t value you.  Know your worth, even if they don’t.

Today, let someone love you just the way you are – as flawed as you might be, as unattractive as you sometimes feel, and as incomplete as you think you are.  Yes, let someone love you despite all of this, and let that someone be YOU. (Read Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It.)

9.  What you own is not who YOU are.

Stuff really is just stuff, and it has absolutely no bearing on who you are as a person.  Most of us can make do with much less than we think we need.  That’s a valuable reminder, especially in a hugely consumer-driven culture that focuses more on material things than meaningful connections and experiences.

You have to create your own culture.  Don’t watch TV, don’t read every fashion magazine, and don’t consume too much of the evening news.  Find the strength to fill your time with meaningful experiences.  The space and time you are occupying at this very moment is LIFE, and if you’re worrying about Kim Kardashian or Lebron James or some other famous face, then you are disempowered.  You’re giving your life away to marketing and media trickery, which is created by big companies to ultimately motivate you to want to dress a certain way, look a certain way, and be a certain way.  This is tragic, this kind of thinking.  It’s all just Hollywood brainwashing.  What is real is YOU and your friends and your family, your loves, your highs, your hopes, your plans, your fears, etc.

Too often we’re told that we’re not important, we’re just peripheral to what is.  “Get a degree, get a job, get a car, get a house, and keep on getting.”  And it’s sad, because someday you’ll wake up and realize you’ve been tricked.  And all you’ll want then is to reclaim your mind by getting it out of the hands of the brainwashers who want to turn you into a drone that buys everything that isn’t needed to impress everyone that isn’t important.

10.  Everything changes, every second.

Embrace change and realize it happens for a reason.  It won’t always be obvious at first, but in the end it will be worth it.

What you have today may become what you had by tomorrow.  You never know.  Things change, often spontaneously.  People and circumstances come and go.  Life doesn’t stop for anybody.  It moves rapidly and rushes from calm to chaos in a matter of seconds, and happens like this to people every day.  It’s likely happening to someone nearby right now.

Sometimes the shortest split second in time changes the direction of our lives.  A seemingly innocuous decision rattles our whole world like a meteorite striking Earth.  Entire lives have been swiveled and flipped upside down, for better or worse, on the strength of an unpredictable event.  And these events are always happening.

However good or bad a situation is now, it will change.  That’s the one thing you can count on.  So when life is good, enjoy it.  Don’t go looking for something better every second.  Happiness never comes to those who don’t appreciate what they have while they have it.

Your turn…

What else would you add to this list?  What important life lessons do you often forget?  Leave a comment below and share your thoughts.

by Marc Chernoff, www.marcandangel.com