Imagine that you are an actor who is being paid big bucks to appear very happy. Your happiness performance must be convincing in every way. After all, your performance will be shown on television and be beamed all over the world.
Perform the exercise for a full 30 seconds. Use a watch if you have to. You can do […]

The brain is a sophisticated machine.  
During your lifetime, your brain has been automatizing all types of thought patterns. Perhaps your mind has automatized 1,000 or even 10,000 distinct thought patterns. The sheer number of thought patterns must be huge, but of course, we are only concerned with the subset of thought patterns that cause suffering. Nevertheless, even this number […]

The very moment that you make a long-term, committed decision to be happy, a long journey of ever-increasing awareness begins.
Because all emotional pain (as opposed to physical pain) is voluntary and self-inflicted, we all have an amazing opportunity to rise above our unhappiness. 
Becoming aware of, and acting against your tendencies to create emotional pain is a life-long endeavor.    
In general, people around you […]

Some of the more persistent day-to-day emotional pain that we bring upon ourselves comes from negative judgments about our own behavior. We have regrets about what we should or shouldn’t have done. With hindsight, we can apparently see what behavior might have been best, or at least better. 
Regret can cause great emotional pain. The indicators are, 

Obsessions about a past event, and the resulting inattentive behavior (e.g., poor driving)
Private rehearsals of more preferred behavior
Self-blame and […]

Welcome to the May 6, 2007 edition of happiness carnival.

Cardin Lilly Routh presents Allow More Source, Get More of What You Want posted at OptmistLab.com.

ananga presents The Power of One: Mono Tasking posted at Ananga Sivyer’s Living by Design Blog.

Thijs presents Wanted: creative, innovative, ambitious, A+ student… Happiness and jobhunting posted at […]