Habitual Happiness, Part 2

The world is running faster and faster, the pace has to keep up with our constant need to be stimulated. Movies, news and TV programing have gotten outrageously explosive, riveting us to the screens. So what's the solution? How does one go about unplugging from the programing of a lifetime and begin to create an authentic internal life?

I have a few beginning steps that have worked well for me and although they are not original, they are also not popular. However, those who have tried these ideas always have such great results, I must go ahead and list them here for your consideration:

1) Turn off the news. It's been 11 years since I've watched a news program or read a newspaper on purpose and I continue to be one of the happiest people I know. I trust that if something important happens, someone will come along and tell me or I will notice a headline or overhear a conversation. My news comes in manageable ways, I'm never inundated and yet I always find out what I need to know. In my experience, this is the first reliable step toward creating a happier life.

2) Write daily. This is the number one best way to begin accessing the contents of one's own mind. It takes dedication and a sincere desire to find out what's going on inside and a willingness to listen and go ahead and write it down. I started in 1994 by using the writing method called Morning Pages, described in The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron'. The Artist's Way is a wonderful creativity recovery method that molds itself to each person's unique personality, experience and style. While not easy, daily writing is by far the most effective tool I've ever seen to promote positive changes.

3) Read books. By following my nose I've stumbled upon some great books and learned about amazing things that I didn't even know I was interested in. Used bookstores are wonderful for browsing and so is the library. I avoid magazines with all the stimulating ads and color meant to tempt or influence me. By reading books, I've become the director of what goes into my mind and that is a powerful feeling.

So there you have it, the three best ways I know of to begin creating the habit of happiness. Welcome to my world! In future posts, I'll be elaborating on each of these methods and several others, my happy bag of tricks is fun to share!

Habitual Happiness, Part 1

Happiness is a practice and it can develop into a habit. Habitual happiness!

After watching Patch Adams (again), it's clear that excessive habitual happiness can be edgy and can make others a tad uncomfortable.

There's an unspoken social code hanging in the air and it's a moving target. As children we learn early on how to navigate the code by watching and reading the adults around us. Our parents are the primary code managers, they are the first to show us how to act in private and in public, what is acceptable and what is not, who to defer to, who to follow, who is important to please, who can be disregarded, and most of this social code training is done subtly and most often without awareness, using body language and facial expressions.

Children are born joyful! They have a marvelous capacity to burst forth with enthusiasm, laughter, friendliness, silliness, and constant movement. Watch a child waiting in line at the grocery store --- they are all over the place! While the parent guards the cart, the child or children explore the millions of details surrounding them. They are open to details.

As adults, we've learned to tune out the details. Of the thousands of sensory opportunities available in each moment, we notice or process just a few. Children can run circles around us processing details and they do.

And that's were social code training comes in. The core messages in social code training are: Fit in --- Don't make waves --- Don't stand out --- Don't make anyone uncomfortable. With this training we learn to stand still, sit down, and be quiet, all at the expense of joy. We learn to hand our power over to social conditions and then we quickly learn to let external conditions become our gauge for how we feel inside. The natural outcome of social code training for many of us is repression of emotions and habitually looking to external events and situations to define our internal states.

Television, computers and video games have grown in popularity for this reason. They give us constant external feedback which hooks us emotionally, thus reinforcing the habit of handing our emotional power over to a source outside ourselves. The challenge becomes creating enough external stimulation to compensate for all those repressed authentic emotions and thoughts. Let there be a lull and boredom sets in quickly. Oh, can't have that! What shall we do? Who will talk to us? Who will entertain us? Who will make us laugh-think-feel? What activity will provide enough stimulation and forced focus to keep us fully engaged with external stimuli because it's a sure bet that, at this point, we are practically incapable of actually hearing our own thoughts or feeling what's going on in our own bodies!

The world is running faster and faster, the pace has to keep up with our constant need to be stimulated. Movies, news and TV programing have gotten outrageously explosive, riveting us to the screens. So what's the solution? How does one go about unplugging from the programing of a lifetime and begin to create an authentic internal life?

In Part 2, we'll explore some ideas about how to go about reprogramming ourselves. Please, you're invited to add your comments here so that they can be included in the discussion!

Listen to Laughs!

Since the research has shown that listening to the sounds of laughter causes the body to respond as if you laughed, it's a good idea to surround yourself with laughter as much as possible on a daily basis to counteract stress and depression.

The physical benefits of laughter include opening of the blood vessels, reduced blood pressure, increased oxygenation of the brain and internal organs, all of this leading to greater relaxation and feelings of well-being.

Here's a Laugh-a-Long video to get you started. I created it this week using some favorite photos and the laughter sound track from the Practice Happiness! CD



Get your year off to a good start by increasing your laughter and listening to laughter as often as possible!

How My Dad Got Funny

It happened one day in November of 2003, just after I had returned home from the hospital after having my appendix removed. It was an unplanned surgery, as you can imagine, and my parents had driven the 125 miles from their house to mine to help me for a few days.

The appendix attack was perfectly timed to interfere with a major move to another city the following week. I hadn't even started packing but I had saved my boxes from the last move and Mom and Dad had to get them out and pack them. It took them four days and all I could do was encourage and direct. And laugh!

Somehow, starting with his grousing about my coffee maker the first morning, Dad became the funniest man on earth. I had to hang onto the counter and my tummy so I wouldn't hurt myself laughing! Almost everything he said and did for the next four days was hysterically funny. I was a laughter casualty, roaring, slapping my legs, dropping to the floor and asking, "How did it happen? When did you get so funny? And how did I manage to not notice this my whole life?!"

The transformation in my dour, practical, dry dad was amazing. Turns out he totally enjoyed being thought of as Funny Guy after a lifetime of Serious Guy. We all knew that my laughter attacks had everything to do with recovery from anesthesia and nothing to do with actual humor and yet we all had so much fun with it!

Funny Guy stayed with us for several years after that and we loved him and laughed at him and, in the end, he gave us all something to remember and talk about during that last painful year before he died.

This story goes to show that we all have a terrifically funny person inside us and sometimes all we need is for someone else to come along and release them. It's never too late to stop and laugh and it almost never requires anesthesia.

Happy New Year --- 2010!

New Year's resolutions are tricky! They're so fun to make and so easy to break and that's why I resolved to stop making them years ago. Now I'm wondering where the issue is and why it's so hard to fulfill New Year's resolutions.

A friend of mine has resolved to stop smoking, cold turkey, at midnight tonight. He hasn't done any planning, hasn't cut down, isn't going to use patches or gum or a support group. I'm standing by to see what happens. I'd love it if he succeeds but the odds are stacked against him. It takes more than a date on the calendar to undo 40 years of addiction!

My son has resolved to be more responsible with the small details of his life and stop avoiding them. He doesn't appear to have a plan for how to do that, just a vague idea that a pocket calendar will do the trick. There too, I'm standing by to see what happens.

As for me, even though I don't consider it a New Year's resolution, I intend to be more active with blog posts. It's so easy to think about writing but harder to actually sit down and do it. I figure I can ease my way into it by committing to one blog post a week, thus increasing my blogger productivity by 1000% without too much effort.

But what's my plan to make that one blog post per week a reality? I'll watch for things to blog about in my journal writing and in my life experiences. I'll remember that I don't have to write a book, just a blog post, a few paragraphs or maybe a little more will do the trick.

So here's my commitment: Every Friday I will get a new blog post up and then announce it to my list and my Facebook friends and fans.

And then I'll stand by to see what happens as I take action on this intention! An action plan should take the trickiness out of New Year's resolutions.

Please share your comments or ideas on this timely subject!

Instructions for Happiness in 2010

My dad died last January at the the age of 80 and I created this refrigerator magnet as an anniversary gift of sorts, honoring his transition.

All his life, my dad struggled with health issues and highly negative thought patterns. He contracted rheumatic fever in his early teens which weakened his heart. He worked hard as a laborer, specializing in concrete for buildings and highways, and by 1997, his poor heart had had enough and he had open heart surgery and 2 new artificial valves installed. In 2000, depression hit hard and he decided to throw in the towel on life.

Giving up living is easy but actually exiting is hard. He was very vocal about his desire to die and he complained incessantly for the next 8 years.

In April of 2008, Dad took a turn for the worse and went into the hospital. Mom asked me to come help because it looked like he was finally going to get his wish. I drove the 250 miles to their town and settled in for 7 of his 10 days in the hospital. I spent most of my time with him, stayed the night a few times to help the nurses --- turned out Dad was still plenty strong, too strong to let go AND he was a terrible patient, couldn't be made comfortable, complained all the time about everything. He drove the nurses crazy.

The morning after one of those long, bad nights, I snapped. I couldn't take it any more! I delivered a detailed lecture on quantum theory, Law of Attraction and the power of thoughts at 6am in a quiet hospital room in Eastern Oregon. Near the end of the lecture, I wrote these instructions on the dry erase board handily hanging on the wall at the end of his bed where he had to look at it day and night:

Feel Better --- Start NOW!

1) Stop Complaining
2) Count Your Blessings
3) Say Thank you

We went over the details of each step, how complaining had become a habit that he didn't notice anymore and how a lifetime of complaining had given him a life to complain about. We held up our fingers and started counting blessings and even in his condition there were many! He agreed to say thank you to every person who walked into his room because the only reason they were there was to help him in some way.

I left the instructions on the board for the rest of his stay. I can't say that he had an amazing turn-around in his health but his complaining dropped off considerably, he willingly participated in blessing-counting sessions and he said thank you so often to everyone, the hospital staff commented and were amazed. The nurses asked if they could write those steps on everyone's boards and we all laughed, knowing it wasn't possible.

He lived another 10 months after that and he practiced the steps even when it was hard. He said thank you more in that 10 months then he had in the 80 years before and I was very proud of him. His last words to me were "I love you, dear." What a treasure!

I've thought of that morning lecture many times since then and I'm often tempted to be sorry for it. After all, he was a sick old man in a hospital bed and he couldn't get away from me. However, that event changed both of our lives and I'm forever grateful for whatever power inspired the words and the energy that poured out of me that morning.

I've shared this story verbally many times and those who have taken up the practice have experienced benefits. It's pretty easy to count blessings and say thank you but stopping the complaining is really hard! It's become a part of our culture to complain, judge and criticize everything around us. The trick seems to be training ourselves to notice when we're doing it, to actually hear what we're saying and/or thinking.

Thank you for reading this story and sharing in the magic gift that came from my dad's last struggles. This story is my gift to him. And this magnet is our gift to you.

by Randy Sandknop

To get your magnet (up to 5), send me a private message ( http://www.facebook.com/randysandknop ) with your address and I'll mail it out. The stamp is on me! See the details in the Event section of the Practice Happiness! fan page, My Gift To YOU!

Get Inspired!

Benjamin Zander is my new favorite teacher! Give yourself the gift of 30 minutes to watch this fabulous video!

@ Yahoo! Video