Acceptance
is one of the biggest elephants in the room when it comes to sustainable
happiness.
It
is a prized skill that has the psychological power of Niagara Falls and Mount
Everest combined.
This
skill will help make or break your upward spiral.
One
of the most challenging concepts in sustainable happiness is learning how to
respond to circumstances with happiness.
With
all the victimization, negative media, dramatic life events, it seems like
responding to situations with happiness is a Pollyanna way of dealing with the
negatives in life.
In
some circles of thought, acceptance is one of the biggest gateways to emotional
freedom and peace. Knowing what you can change and what you are unable to helps
guide empowerment in any given situation.
One
clear point: I am not encouraging you to be happy about bad things. I am
encouraging you to think about a method to respond to negative circumstances so
you can maintain a positive brain to handle situations in the best way.
I
am encouraging you to respond to situations with prized life skills, one of
which is acceptance.
This
resiliency skill is of medium difficulty as it is taught after empowerment and
positive mood yet before contentment and bliss.
Acceptance
is a bridge between your serenity and turmoil.
When
you can master the art of acceptance to the point of becoming a sustainable
happiness master, you can navigate the ocean of life with a clear rudder guiding
you in a wake of peace among the constant storms and tsunamis around every
corner.
Learn
my 5 Step Acceptance Model to be able to leap over life’s hurdles with clarity,
peace and gratitude.
Greet
life’s challenge with purpose, consciousness and methods to steer your upward
spiral in the right direction no matter what life throws at you each day.
Right now you
probably want more time, more space and more opportunity.
Right now you
may feel a shortness of breath because there is not enough time, not enough
space and not enough opportunity.
Right now you
may experience a multitude of thoughts in any given moment and change the view
of your eyesight rapidly without much conscious awareness.
If you are
feeling a lack of _____, you may feel a shortness of breath or like
opportunities are forgotten.
Present moment
awareness could help you.
If you are
feeling stressed, anxious, unhappy, scared, frustrated, sad, confused, or any
emotion outside of happiness, present moment awareness could help you.
Present moment
awareness seems like a foreign language to most let alone a clear understanding
of practical steps to merge beyond the experience of time.
Working ‘on the
clock’ is unnatural for our human spirit, it is a way of working that evolved
in the mechanistic informational age when humans were told to work like
machines.
Lack of time
drives some to suicide, heart attacks, stroke, divorce, depression, anxiety,
and more…
A recent
Harvard study showed on average most people think about something other than
what they are doing right now 47% of the time and this causes unhappiness.
What can you do
about? Where can you go? What can you read? What app can you download?
How can you
proactively learn how to live in the now?
Imagine being
free from time.
Imagine feeling
at ease and in your own flow all day everyday.
Imagine a
freedom without the stress of time.
Imagine always
meeting your friends, family and colleagues at the perfect moment.
Imagine parking
in the perfect spot all of the time.
Imagine a mind
absent of thought, calm like a tranquil pond.
Imagine
operating in the optimal flourishing state of life: flow.
Imagine the
words rush, hurry and ‘dead’line, are removed from your experience.
In 2006, I
actively pursued living in the moment, because of one of my mentors Dr. Bob
Nozik who has achieved sustainable happiness for 25 years. In his book, Happy for
Life: Here’s how to do it, he indicates the need for present moment
awareness. This made me reflect on our modern day gurus who promoted living in
the now, yet I never truly grasped what actually can happen when time expands
into the infinite.
I knew it was
important, yet unsure why, or how to do it, I set out on an unknown path to
train myself to stop thinking about the future or the past so I can be present.
I worked
diligently moment to moment to train my brain to live in the now. It took
6 months of active training yet I finally ‘arrived in the now’ and never looked
back.
Now, I
successfully have lived in the moment for 8 consecutive years.
The amount of
ease, flow and serendipity/synchronicity in my life has become ever present.
The absence of stress, anxiety, or discontent is blissful.
Living in this
moment has helped create peace in my heart, mind and soul.
This is a sink
or swim skill of sustainable happiness.
Learn my 5
steps to living in the moment to see your life change, your moments expand into
the infinite and let bliss burst in your heart <3
Untie Yourself from Time and Unleash your Upward
Spiral
Do you want to
contribute to this conversation?
Dr Aymee Coget Sustainable
Happiness Doctor Sustainablehappinessdoctor
at g mail dot com www.happinessmakeover.com
Authenticity : Owning and acting in accordance with
your true self.
Authenticity is a buzz word in today’s leading edge
circles.
When I gave a speech in Mountain View, CA on the
topic, the room was jam packed wall to wall and people were standing.
Our culture craves authenticity.
The reason you crave authenticity is because there
is so much in-authenticity in our daily lives.
And in yourself.
Most people are still seeking the answer to life’s
big question:
Who am I?
You fight this question all day every day.
Problems leading to in-authenticity and discontent
include:
1) Listening to others beyond yourself
2) Being to busy to make time to self reflect.
3) Being out of touch with the voice inside.
4) Encountering 48 barriers to authenticity
You are told who we are and who you ought to be by
our job, family, culture, religion, and education.
You have lost touch with the seed of your own soul’s
voice because you focus on the external world so much and pleasing those around
you.
As you are externally driven in your achievements,
your driving, your eating, your job, and with your family, this leaves little
room for self exploration.
Self reflection and introspection are imperative to
your heart’s deepest levels of contentment.
Beyond the focus of whatever is going on outside of
yourself, you have an absent mindedness where 47% of the time you are thinking
of something that isn’t really going on.
If you are listening to others over yourself, if you
are never allotting time for your own self reflection, you probably are also
out of touch with your own inner voice.
There is a difference from the truth in our mind
versus the truth in your heart. The truth in your mind is convoluted with your
subconscious belief system and your conscious struggle in achievement and
pursuit of inner peace.
This voice in your heart is where your secret to
contentment lies.
Your mind is to smart and will justify things are
the way they are or how they should be.
Your heart simply knows your soul’s truth.
When asked the right questions within the right
process, contentment is possible as a real sustainable result.
When you have contentment in your heart, you feel a
bold fulfillment in your heart’s center that is ever present, opposite of an
empty feeling inside, separate from your emotional state.
Peace of mind is possible at this point, making the
mind a tranquil pond.
Beyond asking the right questions and following the
right process, you have to allow empowerment, positive mood and resiliency to
be your focus before you are truly able to reach the depths of your
contentment.
The depths and breath of the complexity of
authenticity are beyond most peoples understanding of the topic.
Seems simple, right? Just be yourself.
Who knew there were 48 barriers you would
potentially have to get though to be totally authentic.
Knowing the answer to Who Am, I then being able to
achieve relational transparency is the next step.
Authenticity is owning and acting in accordance with
your true self.
Owning your true self takes time. Acting as your
true self also takes time.
Not only does it take time, it takes persistence,
diligence, acceptance and confidence to overcome any of 48 barriers to
authenticity.
I had a 3 month leadership experience in graduate
school where I ‘tested’ my authentic leadership and discovered I encountered 30
of the 48 barriers that can steer us toward inauthenticity.
After so much attention and the belief I was being
authentic, it was a hard awakening to see the stark difference between what I
am saying and what I am thinking and feeling inside.
This led me to a gigantic leap in my self awareness,
personal authenticity and gave me true insight on how I was relating with the
people I was leading.
The path of authenticity is a spectrum. It is situational.
It is developmental and ever evolving.
As the development of contentment takes time and
effort, once achieved, it is like surfing the best wave life has to offer.
As we all are on the path of self actualization, we
need to allow our authenticity to unfold naturally, with conscious awareness,
acceptance and confidence. You must spend time with yourself asking the deeper
questions and being true to yourself ir-regardless of the barriers we
constantly face to develop our truest and deepest heart’s contentment.
Contentment as a form of sustainable happiness.
Authenticity as a construct of Contentment.
21 steps to reach eudaimonia or sustainable
contentment.
I am offering a Proactive and Practical Path to Contentment.
This is an illumination of step four of the five
steps of sustainable happiness.
Would you like to contribute to this conversation?
Often times
when I correlate mathematics and the science of happiness, the response is
disbelief and confusion. I can see a
flash of ‘does not compute’ behind the listeners’ eyes. Most understand
happiness as an elusive emotion that is surface level; it comes and goes when
good things happen in life. Some would call
it woo woo or insignificant. On the flip side,
some people kill themselves because they have given up hope of ever feeling
good: happy. Most
subconsciously guide their lives seeking to attain feeling good; happy most of
the time. Pursuit of
happiness? Everyone has
their ideas and concepts behind happiness and its relevance in our human
experience. I agree with
Aristotle, who noted ‘Happiness is the Goal of all Goals.” You want ____
because it makes you happy. Other than
purchasing fun objects, going on extravagant vacations and planning for
happiness in the future when you have achieved ABC ; what is your strategy for
obtaining a life like Shangi-La? This popular
strategy of pursing happiness on the outside, is a FAILED strategy since the
World Health Organization espouses 1 in 4 people have depression or some sort
of mental illness. AND,
shockingly, only 17% of Americans are flourishing. Within this
externally - driven strategy of pursuing happiness through people, places and
things; discontent, emptiness, unhappiness, anxiety, and stress are likely
within 3 months. After 3 months,
hedonic adaptation kicks in and your ego wants bigger better more. This transient
happiness will come and go putting you on the hedonic treadmill; always wanting
the next big thing. This type of
happiness is called hedonic happiness and is only one of the three types of
happiness: hedonic, (emotion) eudaimonic (inner contentment), and chaironic
(bliss). Most of the
people who have sought the help of a happiness expert have achieved their goals
in love, money, family or career and still have yet to find the secrets of
sustaining a frequent positive mood, being resilient in challenging times, a
clear path to contentment or a clue on how to achieve states of bliss or joy. They have yet
to discover how to ‘feel good’ in the midst of life’s challenging times when
following the stereotypical ‘pursuit of happiness’ strategy as they admit it
failed miserably. I would like to
offer an internally -driven strategy based on recent advances in the last ten
years from the science of happiness. Think about it
like this, once you learn math, you know it and use it everyday. Once you learn
happiness science, you can know and use it everyday. If you are
ready to indeed take charge of your own happiness and no longer wait around for
goal achievement, the right person, the right place, the right career, or the
right amount of money; I’d like to offer you a few facts on the possibility
that ‘feeling better’ and developing inner peace is possible ir-regardless of
your circumstances. I am only
mentioning a few key studies in the blog, there are many others within this new
science. One of the
founding papers in Positive Psychology was based on the magical mathematical
formula of 3:1. Positive to negative emotional experiences. This ratio
represents the facilitation of an upward spiral (feeling good). Using the 5
steps of sustainable happiness within a daily practice offers you a positive
emotional experience with a ratio of 15:1. Happiness science
has been able to suggest multiple types of positive interventions that do in
fact increase your happiness from the inside. Most people
have experienced a downward spiral in life or know someone who has. Just the simple
fact we have this formula alone is Amazing! beyond belief. Another
research paper from Harvard, shows a three degrees of separation for the
dynamic spread of happiness. This means your happiness does in fact
contribute to the lives around you and we can track it. Think about it,
what is the % of joy you currently experience in life? That is how
much joy you are bringing to the relationships you care about most. Speaking of %,
another Harvard study showed people are mind-wandering 47% of the time. Our
population is missing out on half of our waking lives! Our culture has
indoctrinated a lack of present moment awareness as the norm. In fact,
our brain is biologically wired to leave the moment making living in the now a
prized skill most find an impossible dream. There are
numbers all over happiness science. Since there are
measurements, interventions, results, and tracking, how can you implement
happiness science to benefit your life? Here are some
measurements for achieving basic and advanced levels of sustainable happiness. BASICS Empowerment:
There are a series of activities that when completed there is an increase over
perceived control of your emotional stated. The first step
alone is a miracle, a hurdle and a very big challenge for most people.
Accepting responsibility for your own happiness is the absolute first step. Positive Mood:
There is a daily routine plan based in proven effective ways of increasing
happiness. Methods used
have shown to help change brain chemistry to aid in the treatment of
depression, anxiety, add/adhd, bi-polar, and even schizophrenia. I use the
following measurement system to track results: Where is your
happiness on a scale of 1-10 ? This
measurement is measured by two ways of thinking: from the perspective of the
mind and the heart. 10 is the happiest you can imagine. *Granted a lot
of people have no idea how happy they are and how happy they could be or how
their level 5 happiness relates to someone elses level of happiness. Many
times post happiness science implementation people realize how unhappy they
really were. Grade your
performance of each of the three daily routines A-F. This is subjective and
based in self report yet when given anything less than A level effort the
student is put on a strict recovery plan to ensure top quality participation. What is your
positive : negative thought ratio? What % of time
are you living in the moment? There are exact
methods to increase both of these numbers in a relatively quick amount of time
within days and weeks. 100 times a day
use my 5 steps of living in the moment, once every 5 minutes for an 8 hour time
period. Current smart
phone users look at their smart phone 150x a day about once every six minutes,
so this direction is in alignment with average behavior. Resiliency:
Practice each of the resiliency tools 5 times a day: measure time frame on how
long it takes to ‘bounce back’ from adversity. ADVANCED Contentment:
Measurements and process are based in research theorizing meaning,
authenticity, purpose and strengths. There is a 21 step process clearly laid
out developed from the 11 categories of self awareness. Consider it a
yellow brick road to contentment yet the first three steps need to be mastered
in order to ready for the deepest levels of contentment. Bliss: States
of bliss can be achieved within 2 minutes or less if you follow direct
guidance. Mastery of the
four previous steps is necessary for the highest states of bliss. Mathematics has
clear steps and clear answers. I have fused
together multiple methods within happiness science based on the principles of
self leadership to provide a real life practical formula on achieving
sustainable happiness. Imagine seeing
on a global level the living in the moment % and the positive thinking
ratio? Imagine seeing
on a hospital level how happiness science enhances a patients healing process. Imagine
tracking acts of kindness around the world. Imagine seeing
with your own eyes the movement of people using happiness science daily to
enhance their lives and those around them. Imagine the
dynamic spread of happiness set with intention, strategy, and results. Implementing a
clear pathway to sustainable happiness, is the answer to suicide
prevention. It offers a practical method to change lives from depression,
anxiety, and stress to empowerment, positivity, resiliency, contentment and
bliss. I know this
method can save lives, enhance organizational functioning, quicken healing
processes, save marriages, help families and change the world. I know the
global well being index can be increased systematically, effectively, and
quickly with the right technology built to unveil the individual happiness process
we hold so dear to something open public and discussed on a global level. What is
measured can be increased. Would you like
to be part of this conversation? Dr Aymee Coget Sustainable
Happiness Doctor Sfhappinessdoctor
at gmail dot com www.happinessmakeover.com
Inquisition kicks in when sustainable happiness is the topic of
discussion.
It seems impossible and even UN- human to sustain a positive emotional
state in the face of devastating circumstances of life.
Is sustainable happiness un natural to the human state of being?
If someone I love dies, I will cry.
If my heart is touched by devastation, I will cry.
When I am ready I can choose happiness.
This empowers me over my emotional state of being.
After almost 20 years of in depth study of sustainable happiness, I
can tell you with full confidence, it is possible and it is natural and it is
human!
Most humans have their emotional state tied like an anchor to the
ever-changing reality landscape around them.
If this is the case, when bad things happen, our cognitive and
emotional states head straight toward the downward spiral.
If not the downward spiral, the emotional roller coaster.
Things are good; happiness.
Things are bad; unhappiness.
Seems natural and human until I offer you a strategy where you can no
longer be a leaf in the wind or an anchor tied to the circumstances of your
life.
This strategy is one based in positive psychology and leadership
principles.
This strategy is not to be used to ignore or repress any human
emotional experience.
It is used to help navigate the ever-changing landscape in your mind
as daily life always offers challenges.
When the strategy of these five steps of sustainable happiness are
engaged on a daily basis, there is a consistent recalibration to the moment, to
positivity, to empowerment to deeper meaning and purpose and to faith in the
unknown.
Imagine being empowered over your own emotional state, instead of the
world being empowered over you.
Imagine being able to create a positive mood within yourself no matter
what is happening around you.
Imagine having resiliency that is seamless no matter what the
challenge.
Imagine having contentment and fulfillment in your heart separate from
the emotional experience in your brain.
Imagine feeling safe and secure when faced with the unknown.
Imagine enjoying sorrow, grief, and sadness. Embracing them as you
have power of them instead of them having power of you.
Employing sustainable happiness principles in your daily life can stop
the downward spiral and the emotional roller coaster of life.
It only takes a 3:1 ratio of positive to negative emotional
experiences to create your upward spiral and this strategy can offer you a 15:1
ratio if done accurately.
Which do you want?
Downward Spiral
Emotional Roller Coaster
Upward Spiral
The choice is easy. The choice is yours. The power of your sustainable happiness can
be in your hands.
Positive emotion is different than positive mood.
Positive mood is different than resiliency.
Resiliency is different than contentment.
Contentment is different than bliss.
All of which are under the umbrella of the term – happiness.
So yes sustainable happiness is a possible and it is human.
It is human to be able to control your own emotional state and I offer
this 5 step guide as a tool to be used to help create your upward spiral for life once
and for all.
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