Self-Help Happiness Blog

New on this blog is a blog carnival with a twist. This is the first Self-help Comment Carnival, where I share with you a few of the more interesting comments I have left on various blogs over the past week or so.

I loved this quote so much …

A pastor saw a beggar amidst the crowd at a Christian conference he was attending. He felt compassion for him and prayed to God, “Lord, please touch him!” Immediately he felt the Lord speak to his heart, “I will, if you will.”

… that I just had to leave a comment over at City Rescue Mission

When Stacey at The Habit Building Challenge started talking about – you, guessed it – habits, I could not resist putting my oars into the water …

I have always believed this is true, that habits define how we succeed or fail at things. We are creatures of habit and we will do mostly things we are accustomed to, so we better make sure those are good things, positive things, productive things. That’s why when I write my book on happiness, I focused on the habits that can make the biggest difference, mostly negative habits that can and should be turned into positive habits.

I had to agree that Dr. Sahnnon Reese’s Life is Abundant (and all of ours are, too) …

Those are ten great reasons why your life is abundant. Even if you stopped after the first two – I am healthy and strong, and I have what I need – your life is abundant. The rest are all great, too, wonderful bonuses. But the fact that even the “poor” people in North America and Europe are rich beyond the wildest dreams of our great-great-great-great-great-grand-parents is enough to make us abundant.

I could go on and on about materialism run amok, but The Cyber Monday No Show did a pretty good job for me. I just added a few words…

Bravo! The last thing our spoiled-brat society that is drowning in overconsumption needs is a holiday dedicated to shopping. Which, unfortunately, is overshadowing the very holiday on which we are supposed to feel gratitude for our overabundance. When greed battles gratitude, look who wins. People may say with words that they support the Occupy Wall Street protesters, but Black Friday and Cyber Monday prove that they would much rather feed the beast than tame it.

On Accepting Inconveniences as a Part of Life, I added this…

Beautiful. I have always said that the reason we get sick is so as to appreciate our health the rest of the time. And the reason we have winter, is so we can appreciate the summer (I still haven’t reasoned away why we need 5-6 months of winter, but that’s another story).

And I got mushy (no, that doesn’t happen very often!) at Kevin’s 20 Things I’m Thankful for this Thanksgiving post …

Kevin, a wonderful list of things to be grateful for, and I think I see my name between the lines there. I can say wholeheartedly that it goes two ways; the “cyber friends who helped make my blogging career possible” are just as grateful for your ongoing support. It has been said before, but in many ways I feel we are more like a family than folks who work together in offices. We have all the support and none of the office politics. Happy Thanksgiving.

“Good luck!” We wish it to people in earnest. We hurl it at them with sarcasm. But few people really understand the links between luck and happiness.

One of the questions I used to ask in my live seminars is whether a lucky rabbit’s foot can bring happiness. Some wise guy always shouts out, “Not for the rabbit!” But the answer is in fact “yes.” When researching my book, Climb your Stairway to Heaven, I found compelling research to show that people who believe themselves to be lucky tend to be happier. And if that takes a lucky rabbit’s foot or a lucky ritual or if you have a lucky number or color, that is just great.

But luck is more than superstition.  believe it or not, there is science behind luck.

A few years ago, I wrote a review of The Luck Factor by Dr. Richard Wiseman, and this week I was thinking of that book again.  I decided to look up my review and also to share it with you.  

The author is Dr. Richard Wiseman, and he conducted several years of research into the science of luck.  His conclusion is that luck is something we make for ourselves, and he lays down four principles for changing our luck. “Dr. Wiseman’s central thesis is that luck can be predicted and therefore controlled. He offers four “principles of luck”, then explains how we can harness these principles to live luckier lives.”

Most books that draw on good psychological science are more boring than a rendition of the Antarctica national anthem.  This one is an easy read and a fascinating read, and Dr. Wiseman includes many fun exercises to illustrate his points. This book gets a ten-out-of-ten from me. Read the full review.

Imagine a public relations firm whose philosophy is “tell the truth at all costs”. Not possible? Not for Mark Demoss, founder of PR firm the Demoss Group. He created exactly that.

His book The Little Red Book of Wisdom contains boulders of practical guidance packaged in interesting, nugget-sized chapters. Half of the book specifically addresses the business world and the second half covers personal matters a refreshing change from the typical success-manual mode.

Like The Demoss Group itself, The Little Red Book of Wisdom is atypical on every level: unapologetic-ally Christian, Demoss manages to frame his philosophies biblically without preaching or moralizing. Instead, he illustrates his points with personal experiences and current events in a conversational style that’s easy reading for harried executives.

But this isn’t a sappy read: with chapters like “Do Something So Difficult, You’ll Never Want to Do It Again”, and “The Best Defense is a Good Defense”, Demoss challenges readers with time-tested philosophies that he personally practices. Not one concept is overwritten: if Demoss can cover it in a couple of sentences, he does.

The Little Red Book of Wisdom deserves a place on every leader’s desk, for short bursts of inspiration on the long road of service.

Meredith Healey is a single mom, so she needs all the self-improvement she can get. She blogs about her progress at http://sinthesinglemom.blogspot.com/

Matthieu Ricard was born in France in 1946. The son of famous French Philosopher Jean-François Revel and painter Yahne Le Toumelin, he grew up amongst the French elite.  He studied biology and had a promising career when, in 1972, after completing his doctoral thesis in molecular genetics, Ricard decided to forsake his scientific career to the practice of Tibetan Buddhism. He moved to the Tibetan Himalayas and has been living there since then.  Since 1989, he has been the French interpreter for HH the Dalai Lama.

He was nicknamed “the happiest man on earth”, after he participated in a study conducted by the University of Wisconsin that aimed at evaluating the level of happiness of individuals, amongst which were Buddhist monks.  The test that used 256 sensors attached to the skull, and three hours of continuous MRI scanning, showed that Ricard’s happiness level was far above all other participants. That same study also proved the neuroplasticity of the brain demonstrating that meditation can play a key role in anybody’s quest for happiness, by restructuring the brain’s neurons.

Ricard has written several books. Amongst others,  Happiness: A guide to developing life’s most important skill, in which he gives advice on how to live a happy life.  One of the most important aspect of his teachings is that, as you can train your body, he believes you can also train your mind. For that reason, happiness is a skill that everyone can develop.

For him, at the source of unhappiness, there are feelings of jealousy, anger, obsessive desire and arrogance.  Since all of these emotions are fleeting and transient, it is possible to prevent them from invading your mind and tormenting you.

How do you do that?  First,  by not responding to the emotion.  If you feed the emotion, it will most likely grow.  However, you cannot deny it either.  You need to look at the emotion and let it dissolve.   By repeatedly practicing that technique, he believes that negative emotions can flow through you “as a bird crosses the sky and disappears” and therefore not affect your wellbeing.

According to Ricard, behind every thought lies what he calls pure consciousness.  Through love, kindness, benevolence, selfless generosity and compassion, and obviously through the practice of meditation, it is possible to access that pure consciousness and flourish.

When speaking of happiness, Ricard refers to the Sanskrit word for this state of being: sukha.

“Sukha is the state of lasting well-being that manifests itself when we have freed ourselves of mental blindness and afflictive emotions. It is also the wisdom that allows us to see the world as it is, without veils or distortions. It is, finally, the joy of moving toward inner freedom and the loving-kindness that radiates toward others.”

The author is Alina Boutros, who owns a University Master’s Degree in Literary Studies, has been researching happiness for the past year. You can read her daily posts on http://alina-500daystohappiness.blogspot.com

My family enjoys our happiest times when we are sharing mutual interests. Being the mother of two teenage sons, it is up to me to try to stay up-to-date with their interests, because they sure aren’t going to make the effort with mine. However, I have found that not only did I become closer to my sons by doing this, I also broadened my horizons and truly enjoyed many of their favorite things.

Here are some of the things you can do to better connect with your family:

1. Watch their favorite television shows
This is one of the best things you can do. Because television series are continuing, this can lead to ongoing conversations that can last for months or even years. You might also discover some great TV series that you never would have tried (My family used to talk for hours on end about Lost). (See 20 Best TV Shows for Parent / Teen Bonding).

2. In addition to watching your teenagers favorite films, introduce them to classic films that they would enjoy
There are so many great teen movies from the eighties that your teens would love and so many classic movies from throughout the years that they are ready to see now. Even if they prefer to watch them with their friends, you can still have great discussions with your teens about the movies the next day. (See 75 Classic Movies Teens Should See ).

3. Share music and video games with Guitar Hero or Rock Band
The Guitar Hero and Rock Band series of video games have been one of the best games to ever bring parents and teenagers together. Many teens first discovered classic rock through these games. Later versions began including new rock songs, which parents could then learn. An entire family can play at once as different band members.

4. Share Young Adult Books with your teens, adults love many of them also
I’ve become a big fan. I devoured the Harry Potter and Twilight series and just read and couldn’t put down The Hunger Games series, the hot new series that is coming out with its first movie next year.

5. Communicate with your teens through the type of technology they prefer
Most teens prefer text messages to phone calls. They will more happily respond to you if you contact them by the method of their choice. (See Text Messaging with Your Teens ).

Guest blogger Jennifer Wagner is the creator and writer of the blog, Connect with your Teens through Pop Culture and Technology,  where you can keep up-to-date of TV, books, movies, music, gadgets, the Internet, websites, education , and all things teenage.

Here is some good advice for young Aspergians (people with the Asperger’s syndrome) that really is just as good for any of us.  Related to Autism, Aspergians find social interaction difficult and might also have motor difficulties and tend to get lost in themselves sometimes.

In his book Be Different: The Adventures of a Free-Range Aspergian, John Elder Robison says:

“Find out what you’re good at and stick with it. In school, a lot of emphasis is put on identifying your weaknesses and then improving them. That’s important if your weaknesses are holding you back, but it’s not the path to greatness.Greatness happens when you find your unique strengths and build upon them. Building up a weakness just makes you less disabled. Building a strength can take you to the top of the world.”

This one is for all the parents and soon-to-be parents reading…

Parenting is pure happiness.
Full of mumminess and pappiness
You jump for joy
When you hear “It’s a boy”
And the room is filled with clappiness

Feel free to add your own limericks to complete the story.  Let’s see how creative you can be.  After all, what follows are sleepless nights, first steps, birthday parties, ballet lessons and hockey games.. 

Carl Honoré, author of In Praise of Slow, was a guest of Christine Louise Hohlbaum at the blog “The Power of Slow”.  Carl offered ten tips on how to slow down the pace of your life.  Here is that top-10 list: 

1. Downsize your calendar. 
2. Question your inner speed demon. 
3. Take up a slow hobby. 
4. Stop clock-watching. 
5. Rediscover the joys of the table. 
6. Take a walk. 
7. Meditate. 
8. Consider an alternative approach to your health. 
9. Vacation slowly. 
10. Turn it off.

It is comforting to know that I do about half of these. For more details on each of these points, you can read the interview here.

…is a blank screen.  According to a 31-year study of 30,000 people, TV sucks.  My wife won’t want to hear this, because she is tired of hearing me lecture about how I would rather do things than watch others do things.  Of course, my idea of doing things is not always what the study says will bring most happiness, being somewhat of a hermit…

“TV doesn’t really seem to satisfy people over the long haul the way that social involvement or reading a newspaper does,” says University of Maryland sociologist John P. Robinson, the study co-author. “It’s more passive and may provide escape, especially when the news is as depressing as the economy itself. The data suggest to us that the TV habit may offer short-run pleasure at the expense of long-term malaise.”

Robinson and his research team compared the activities of people who described themselves as happy with peeople who described themselves as unhappy.  The unhappy people watched 20 percent more television than the happy people.  Those who considered themselves to be happy were more likely to:

• be socially active
• attend more religious services
• vote
• read more.   

Interesting, the three articles I read on the study each quote different stats.  Geesh…sloppy journalism.  Here’s the original source:

http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/sociss/release.cfm?ArticleID=1789

Just a quick blog note today to let you know that I am quoted in the new Words to Help You Be Happy in All the Ways That Matter Most book, by Blue Mountain Arts.

This is a quotations book, and I am joined by a number of people you have probably heard of, such as Mary Lou Retton, Victor Hug and Suzanne Somers, as well as fresh, new voices.  You can find my quote on page 50 (actually, it is most of page 50).

As you can see, Amazon.com does not yet even have a cover image of the book, so you can be one of the first to pick up a copy.  (The copies do already exist – I am staring at one right now on my desk.) 

This handy little book makes a great gift.