Skip to main content

A recipe for creating lasting happiness Part 1

Magicians rarely like to explain their tricks but because I'm not a professional magician I can let you in on a little secret magic for your brain.  Actually, it's a pretty big trick. First, however, I must give full credit to Rick Hanson, my veritable master teacher, whose international bestselling book, Hardwiring Happiness: the new science of contentment, calm and confidence, has inspired me this post.   All of what I'm about to say comes from the magic of the pages in this book. 

I am not a neuroscientist and doctor like him, but I don't need to be to understand what he's saying.  He explains it in very simple layman's terms which I have likened to a magician telling us how the trick works.  The trick we are talking about here is how to experience consistent lasting happiness over a life-time.  So calling it a "trick" is not exactly right.  It's more of a method for creating lasting happiness and other inner strengths such as the ones mentioned above in the title and many more like determination, kindness, compassion.  Basically, it's about doing something different with our attention and mind than what we normally do, which isn't such a good thing it turns out. 

In this blog post, I will not go into detail about the process of going about changing one's ways to acquire this magical gift.  I will save that for later in the next series of posts I plan to write on this topic.  Suffice it to say, that the work it takes to find this elusive happiness we all seek, is not has hard as it sounds.  I for one can attest to that because I have already tried one technique he teaches and it worked. 

For now I will just end by saying that I had to wonder why it took so long for science to figure this one out.  No matter though, I love this book.  And I am going to reveal a very interesting fact about this book which blew my mind away.  It also gave me great relief to know it.  Okay, so here it is: we are programmed to look for the negative in our environment.  When I read that,The good news is that we can override this innate feature of our brain by doing something extremely simple but which has profound implications for ourselves and our human species. 

In my next post I will continue to share more of what I have learned from this magical book and how to make happiness and other strengths a part of who you are and how you experience the world. 

Eddie Grassi
Relationships Coach
lifecoachingaid.com
#hardwirehappinesstoday
eddiegrassi10@gmail.com

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Resistance to Taking in the Good

Eddie Grassi, Point Lobos CA August July 29, 2018 Do you remember the last time you refused something really good? While it may sound counterintuitive, people do it all the time. We resist the opportunity to take in the good.  Even though it is all around us, like low hanging fruit, we may have our reasons not to accept it.  The invitation to let in the good isn't always a given.  For instance,  you feel you do not deserve to be happy or that you are not worthy to receive its benefits.  Or maybe you have doubts about happiness because of past experiences in which the idea of being happy did not work out so well.     Another idea you may hold is that this stuff about happiness just doesn't work; it's a sham.   You may think to yourself, "no way, not trying this junk.  It's a waste of time."  There's also the thought that you already are happy so there's no need for more.   All of these possibilities can make you feel resistant.  And guess w

The Key to Sustaining Positive Change

You want to feel more gratitude in life?  What about motivation?  What about calmness? Then try this: have an experience where you feel gratitude.  Just have one.   Here are some examples: to stimulate a feeling of gratitude in response: notice you are alive and breathing.  Listen to your breath.  See what's in front of you. Be grateful for being alive. Notice when you can move.  Be grateful you can move. Notice when somebody smiles at you.  Be grateful somebody smiled at you. The list goes on.  The event or experience need not be big and grandiose like winning a million dollars to get on the train of positivity.   We don't need million dollar moments to be grateful.  If this proves difficult for you to do, that's okay, have patience with yourself and be grateful that you are trying.  It's not supposed to be easy like, well, like when we feel anxious or angry.   That's not you?  Well, for many of us, including myself, those two feelings have had lots o

Get Where You Want to Go with Self-Confidence

Eddie Grassi, Life Coach eddiegrassilifecoaching.com Having self-confidence is on a lot of people's wishlist this year.  That's probably because self-confidence is necessary to be successful at what you do.  What's great is that just a little self-confidence in anything can evolve into mountains of the stuff, which can be applied to many things.  It's one of those must have traits that enable us to perform at our full-potential when we meet challenges in our relationships and career.  If you could buy a bottle of self-confidence from Target, you would probably give it a try.  You could then drink some of it and then ta-dah, you have self-confidence.  The only trouble is its expiration date.   This means that this precious trait will not last forever in your system.  While this could never happen, in reality our attitude towards self-confidence isn't much different.  We tend to think of it as something that does not come naturally.  If it does at all, it is s