• Registered: 2006-11-12

Topic: happiness

An excerpt from http://physorg.com/news83781789.html

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(AP) -- As a motivational speaker and executive coach, Caroline Adams Miller knows a few things about using mental exercises to achieve goals. But last year, one exercise she was asked to try took her by surprise.

Every night, she was to think of three good things that happened that day and analyze why they occurred. That was supposed to increase her overall happiness.

"I thought it was too simple to be effective," said Miller, 44, of Bethesda. Md. "I went to Harvard. I'm used to things being complicated."

Miller was assigned the task as homework in a master's degree program. But as a chronic worrier, she knew she could use the kind of boost the exercise was supposed to deliver.

She got it.

"The quality of my dreams has changed, I never have trouble falling asleep and I do feel happier," she said.

Results may vary, as they say in the weight-loss ads. But that exercise is one of several that have shown preliminary promise in recent research into how people can make themselves happier - not just for a day or two, but long-term. It's part of a larger body of work that challenges a long-standing skepticism about whether that's even possible.
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I've been trying this simple exercise and it seems to work as described. Subconscious programming? Resonance with higher levels? I don't care why; I've been having a very nice day. smile

Two of the three links in the article are broken; the third leads to a research study/self-help group. If anyone can find the list of 100 techniques to increase happiness mentioned in the article please post them.

We're all butterflies flapping our wings and changing the world.
  • Registered: 2004-06-24

Re: happiness

Thanks for the great post. I need some type of protocol to train my mind or it tends to go negative, for years it "proved" itself right. Right now when I did this exercise, one of the positives I wrote down was actually a negative when it first happened but now I see it as a positive. A key point is that when I analyze "how it occured" it always proves that there is some kind of higher power running things because I didn't cause it to happen.

  • lyra
  • lyra
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  • From: my own private idaho
  • Registered: 2004-03-25

Re: happiness

This thread is kind of synchronistic.  Since about last week I've started a new habit before falling asleep, where I think back on the good things that happened during the day and what I'm grateful about.  I don't have a limit of three things, I just reflect back on anything that went well.   Even a seemingly mundane thing like having a good meal - it's something to be thankful for.  We kind of take it for granted in our modern society o' plenty.  So I've changed that and now actually stop and really think about things and have appreciation for stuff.   Pretty much the same concept as what's mentioned in the above article.  smile  It does create a noticable improvement.  I wasn't consciously looking for any sort of change, but it happened from the first morning I woke up after doing that.  I've stuck with it ever since and recommend it for others to try out and see what happens, if they're not already doing something like it.

"Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting "Holy shit ... what a ride!"  - Anonymous
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"I get by with a little help from my (higher density) friends."
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lyra's Website

  • Registered: 2006-06-28

Re: happiness

I have been doing something like this for quite a few years now.  Giving thanks for the good things in the day.  I have no limit either, and usually start with the seemingly mundane things like good food, safe travel, our home, my family all safe and sound and asleep in their beds, then whatever else that has happened in the day.

I have had the idea for some many years that it is important to use what you have, and to be grateful for what you have.  Not to let 'stuff' just sit around unused, and unnoticed, for then you block your natural abundance.  Like in 'The Colour Purple', everything just wants to be loved, and it will love you back.  cool

When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace. Jimi Hendrix 
  • Registered: 2005-12-20

Re: happiness

This is a very valuable exercise not only for happiness but personal spiritual development as well so I'm glad it was brought up.

The only question I have is how many of us are willing to see the positives in seeming negatives?  A good point was brought up by WEOPPOSEDECEPTION:

Right now when I did this exercise, one of the positives I wrote down was actually a negative when it first happened but now I see it as a positive.

For example, "negative" hyperdimensionally manipulated attacks, whether through other people or by the very overt infringement on mental stability by image/emotional "insertion", can be seen as positive for showing us our weaknesses and thereby allowing us to further refine our personal awareness and application of it.  While living "within" the illusion doesn't allow us to see anything truly objectively and causes most to be seen backwards, living "with" it after understanding it's illusory nature allows us to use the illusion for our individual and collective growth.  Christ consciousness may be seen as the state of being in which one is able to "see" and "hear" through the "eyes" and "ears" of the creator.  This objective state of consciousness is love itself and is expressed as such.  As a unified being, the creator doesn't need to judge any of its experiences or states of being as negative/bad or positive/good because they are all composed of and by the creator and originate with the original thought under the condition of free will. 

Even if something "negative" isn't necessarily showing us our weaknesses, they may be experienced for the sole purpose of understanding the world around us so that we can make better choices as to what world we wish to help create.  Dealing with a psychopath or psychopathic tendendcies in people in our lives will most likely show you more about the weaknesses of others than yourself, but that exposure and resultant experience is the very thing needed to further reinforce your choice to primarily serve others or self.  It's up to the individual "god" to figure out how they wish to experience "God".

One must have originally fallen to get back up again.  The view from the ground and the process of getting back up makes the original fall all worth it in the end.  We may become injured by the fall or feel pain by rising up again but once standing we may reflect on what made us fall in the first place to avoid in the "future" and we will be better off for having seen the view from "below" which upon accretion into our being will increase objectivity and increase our spiritual strength and prosperity. 

Obviously those things that make us feel warm and fuzzy inside and are traditionally viewd as "positive" are how we normally view the expression of happiness but it may be seen as valuable to the individual to discover the covert potential germinating seed of light within the overtly dark episode or state of being.

This all may be nothing new for most of you here so only consider it a reminder to remember the true joy of the creator existant in all aspects of it's creation.

6 Reply by lyra (edited by lyra 2006-11-30 09:44:01)

  • lyra
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  • Registered: 2004-03-25

Re: happiness

Poffo wrote:

The only question I have is how many of us are willing to see the positives in seeming negatives?

Me!  (waves hand around)  haha  big_smile   Seriously, yeah, I do this.  In fact it happened on a minor level last night.   I was complaining about this woman who's recently begun emailing with me who's become annoying and weird, thinking about what an annoying inconvenience it's become to get their emails, and how I'm not going to respond anymore if they ever do email me again.   So, seems negative.  But then I piped up with the positives that have come out of the email exchange, because it did serve its purpose and several interesting topics came to light.   My conclusion was the email communication has served its purpose, and I recognize that it's time to move on.  So, a neutral to positive resolution.

On a grander scale, this past spring I was making my way through an intersection that had an accident and some lanes blocked off, so I had  to get way over to the right...and wound up curbing it and popping my right front tire.  haha  Would have just pulled over and parked my car and walked the mile or so home with Tom and then use his car to go get a new tire, but then we remembered......the day before he'd left his lights on and so his car battery was dead.  We  couldn't use his car even if we wanted to.  I wasn't going to call for a tow, no way, so just drove the mile or so home on a flapping piece of rubber over the rim.  Then jump started his car with mine, and then got a new tire.

Total inconvience, right?  Cost me like, $120 for two new front tires.  But yet it was all good.  My tires were bald anyway, and I had my State inspection coming up.  I would have had to get new tires anyway in order to pass the inspection.   May as well do it sooner than later, right?  and in the end it was just a crazy adventure that I look back on and  smile.   I mean, I seriously laugh at that now and still joke about curbing my car and popping my tire.  Too funny.   hehe  Plus, it was an excuse to eat out that night.  Which reminds me......my runnning joke is "Let's celebrate!"   I look for any excuse to be able to go out and eat.  Had to take a rare trip to a doctor last week (eye exam, for an eye issue) and spent $85 of my own money since I purposely don't have insurance, and left work early for it, taking the rest of the day off.  Other people would be all moaning and groaning that they're spending $85 and losing 4 hours of pay and having to spend the afternoon at the doctors...me, I'm just like, woohoo!  Only have to work a half day!   And I was happy to be going, since I would finally get an answer to what was going on.  And as far as the $85 is concerned...they originally told me it would cost $130.  So I saw it as a discount.  wink  After the appointment instead of bitching that I just spent 2 hours at the docs, I was just happy to hear that I wasn't going to like, go blind or anything, or that I have some horrendously serious issue happening.   So woohoo!  Let's celebrate and get a bite to eat somewhere!  big_smile   Good times!  And meanwhile, I had another 4 days off because of the Thanksgiving holiday.  smile  Life was good. 

It's all about whether the glass if half full or half empty.  Something may be bad...but it can always be worse!   So look on the bright side.

"Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting "Holy shit ... what a ride!"  - Anonymous
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"I get by with a little help from my (higher density) friends."
-----

lyra's Website

  • Registered: 2004-06-24

Re: happiness

It is useful for me to humbly admit, when possible, that I can never know the entire truth about any situation. I can only see it from a limited perspective based on past conditioning, judgement and expectation. It seems that the positive becomes evident sooner when I practice acceptance.

  • Registered: 2006-11-12

Re: happiness

Another happiness booster smile maybe not for everybody. Scroll faster for happiness?
http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/ … hought.php

We're all butterflies flapping our wings and changing the world.