IN NEED OF A HAPPINESS BOOST? TRY THESE 4 RITUALS

You get all kinds of happiness advice on the internet from people who don’t know what they’re talking about. Don’t trust them.

Actually, don’t trust me either. Trust neuroscientists. They study that grey blob in your skull all day and have learned a lot about how it can be monitored to reveal the mechanics of what happens when you choose between happiness and unhappiness.

UCLA neuroscience researcher Alex Korb has some insights that can support you if you decide to create an upward spiral of happiness in your life. Here’s what you and I can learn from the people who really do have some answers that make a difference:

1) When You Feel Down, Ask Two Questions

Sometimes it doesn’t feel like your mind wants you to be happy. Why? We don't choose to feel lousy for nothing – What's the payoff supposed to be for feeling this way, and then claiming “I can't help myself”?

Believe it or not, bad feelings, eg. guilt and shame, activate the primitive part of the brain’s reward centre – Me feeling guilty or ashamed proves that I'm a good person.

Despite their differences, pride, shame, and guilt all activate similar neural circuits, including the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, amygdala, insula, and the nucleus accumbens. Interestingly, pride is the most powerful of these emotions at triggering activity in these regions — except in the nucleus accumbens, where guilt and shame win out. This explains why it can be so appealing to heap guilt and shame on ourselves — they’re activating the brain’s reward centre.

We feel good feeling bad.

We very easily opt to feel unhappy because the prevailing thought we attach to goes something like My suffering is going to motivate someone to do something nice for me. When we think back to our early childhood it’s not hard to speculate where we got that thought. But why do we persevere with that habit into so-called adulthood? Well, some people get away with it: they keep it up until someone gives them what they want. 

Others keep trying it on because it’s a trait of all human minds to think “This used to work so if I keep this up it will eventually work again.”  For others still, it’s just habit -- the longer they've been ripping ourselves off in this way, the idea of getting off the suffering potty scares the hell into them.

In this condition where most people use “You’re making me unhappy” to manipulate change in other people, it can take considerable courage to be happy.

Yes, that's nuts, but who ever said the human mind was “sane”? Perhaps, for a very, very long time in more primitive ages, we learned to feel, for example, guilty in the hope of preventing ourselves from doing things that might get us kicked out of the tribal cave and possible death. It didn't work, but........ old habits die hard.

And we worry a lot too. Feeling scared and guilty in advance? Why? In the short term, worrying makes your brain send out “I feel a little better” messages, so at least you can tell yourself that worrying is sort of doing something about possible problems. Maybe if I worry hard enough, it won't happen.

In fact, worrying can help calm the limbic system by increasing activity in the medial prefrontal cortex and decreasing activity in the amygdala. That might seem counter-intuitive, but it just goes to show that if you’re feeling anxiety, doing something about it — even worrying — seems better than the utter powerlessness of doing nothing.

But guilt, shame and worry are horrible, unhealthy long-term solutions. They take their toll on body (chronic pain, cancers) and mind (chronic anxiety, depression). So what do neuroscientists say you could do to turn these toxic habits around ?

Ask yourself this question:

What am I grateful for?

Grateful? What do I have to be grateful about? Does what is really just a feeling (or lack of anti-feeling), affect my body and brain at the biological level? Yes, like all other feelings, it most certainly does. Feelings of quiet, genuine Gratitude in particular have awesome emotional healing power.

It's a Ruthless Rule of Reality that a change in any one part of an organism changes the whole of it. Shifting your attention away from dissatisfaction with something to gratitude for something else sets changes rippling around your whole being. If you keep that up, you could transform your life.

Like the antidepressant Wellbutrin, Gratitude boosts the neurotransmitter dopamine. And gratitude will give you those results without paying through the nose for doses of manufactured chemicals that make GlaxoSmithKline obscenely rich people. Gratitude is natural, effective and free. Feeling grateful activates the brain stem region that produces dopamine. Additionally, gratitude is catching. Gratitude toward others increases activity in social dopamine circuits, which makes social interactions more enjoyable…And the people who join you in Gratitude don't have to dose up on drugs either. No wonder GSK wants it kept quiet!

And if you've been on Prozac to boost the neurotransmitter, Serotonin, you can put your prescriptions and money away. Gratitude will do that, too. Just digging around a little to think of things you are grateful for leads you to focus on more expansive aspects of your life. This simple act increases serotonin production in the anterior cingulate cortex.

I know that sometimes life lands a really mean punch in the gut and it feels like there’s nothing to be grateful for. Guess what? Doesn’t matter. You don’t have to actually find anything right away..... It’s the searching that counts.

Via The Upward Spiral:

It’s not a finding of gratitude that matters most; it’s remembering to look for it, inwardly in the first place. As you develop the habit of noticing things that give you moments of delight, moments you immediately feel a burst of gratefulness for give yourself a moment to enjoy each little flush of yummy feeling. Let this new habit replace your old habits of either not noticing or “looking for the catch” in every new thing that jumps up in your path.

Remembering to be grateful is a form of emotional intelligence. One study found that it actually affected neuron density in both the ventromedial and lateral prefrontal cortex. These density changes suggest that as emotional intelligence increases, the neurons in these areas become more efficient. As higher emotional intelligence expands, it simply takes less effort to be grateful. Instead a sincere “thank you” arises between two or more people whose relationship lies comfortably on a base of horizontal evenness. Any sense of vertical hierarchy is dissolved, and judgments of good or bad, better or worse fall away.

Gratitude doesn’t just make your mind and heart happy. Because Gratitude is infectious, it can also set up a positive feedback loop in your relationships. Your social being gets a boost, too. So whatever it is that you're grateful for, express that gratitude to the people you care about. Who knows. They may catch onto the energy... and so it goes onward...

But what happens when bad feelings completely overtake you? When you’re really in the dumps and don’t even know how to deal with it? What has gone awry?

There’s an answer that's simple, but not easy. You're suffering because you've identified yourself (That's me!) with something that is not you. You've attached your sense of self and your wellbeing to something external – a thought, a feeling, an idea, a belief, an opinion, a principle, a value, an experience. All of these things are something you can have, just as I have a set of keys I carry around with me, but they are not Me. Nor are the thoughts and feelings that drop in, the ideas, beliefs, opinions, principles, and values we encounter. We can have them, and play with them, without suffering. But the minute we adopt any of them and claim This is Me, we lose our limitless Self and instead become the limiting idea. Instead of being free, we identify with someone else's constaining idea or a belief about something

As I see it, there's a very good “reason” why we're empowered to limit ourselves in this way.

For entertainment.

Suffering is a game invented by a free being in which we pretend we're not-free in some way, so that we can experience first-hand what it's like to be not-free, not-happy. When we've had enough of that experience, we can free ourselves by simply remembering that this was just a game and is NOT what we are. It's just a role we adopted to see what the world looks like from that space. A lot of people get stuck in the game, however, because they've been mesmerised by the dis-eases and they've forgotten it's a game, – the actor got lost in the character and his/her dramas, and thinks he/she is stuck.

It is your identifying yourself with this “something” (this is Me) that is unsettling you. (If I didn't think or feel this way, if I didn't have this belief, if I hadn't failed to live up to this value or principle – I'd be OK). But instead of separating your self from this external bugbear, instead of being the detached witnesser of the experience, you've jumped into the emotional and thoughtstorm rodeo and climbed onto the beast for the ride. In stead of being the witnesser of the experience. You've allowed yourself to become the experience. (This is what I am).

Which is fine. That's how life works. It's how we learn. But there comes a time to re-member ourselves, to re-member that this experience we're having is not what we are. “On one hand there's an experience I'm having, and on the other hand there's me.” It's time to separate, to disengage, and move on. Here's how.......

2) Label Negative Feelings

You feel awful? Okay, give that awfulness a name. Sad? Anxious? Angry? Bored? Confused? Ashamed?

Boom.

Does that sound ridiculously simple? Simple, yes;  ridiculous, no. Whenever we “label” or “judge” something, we're actually putting a bit of distance between our self and the thing we've just labelled. Your mind disagrees? Let it. That's what minds do. But it was your mind that first made the connection. Your mind didn't say “I have this knot of (sadness) just under my heart at the moment. It said – “This is Me. I am sad/right/wrong ...etc. etc.” – , and your mind has to be right about everything it considers itself to be. That's what our minds do. But fortunately, our minds also like labelling – we do it all the time. We label situations, feelings, thoughts and people as good/bad, right/wrong, desirable/undesirable. I'm inviting you to use the mind-habit of Labelling to a healthy end....

Via The Upward Spiral:

…in one fMRI study, appropriately titled “Putting Feelings into Words” participants viewed pictures of people with emotional facial expressions. Predictably, each participant’s amygdala activated to the emotions in the picture. But when they were asked to name the emotion, the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex became activated and reduced the emotional amygdala reactivity. In other words, consciously recognising the emotions and giving them a label reduced their impact somewhat.

This is very different from suppressing our emotions. Suppressing emotions doesn’t work; they will surface again and again in one unhealthy form or another.

Instead of squashing and hiding your feelings, labelling lets them be. You just give them a name. It's that simple. And if the emotion persists, let it be so and give it another name. Call it anger, resentment, frustration or Murgatroyd – it doesn't matter. Just acknowledge its existence, let it be and give it labels until, one day, you'll realise you haven't heard from the feeling for a while. Given space to simply be, emotions lose their wallop, become transparent, and open up your ability to see ways through an hitherto blind alley.

Via Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long:

We've found that people who tried to suppress a negative emotional experience failed to do so. While they thought they looked fine outwardly, inwardly their limbic system was just as aroused as without suppression, and in some cases, even more aroused. In response your body is manufacturing hormones that, with nowhere to go, become toxic. Trying not to feel something doesn’t work.

But labelling, on the other hand, makes a big difference, because it diverts your mind's attention, albeit briefly, from the emotion itself to the labelling task. The human mind can only focus on one thing at a time. By labelling we use that deficiency to direct attention away from experiencing the suffering to “thinking about” it. When we shift from directly experiencing to “thinking about” the experience, we put distance between the discomfort and our self. Emotional relief is usually felt immediately.

When we label, we turn a direct experience into a concept of that experience. To reduce unwanted arousal, use just a few words, as few as possible, to describe what you're feeling, and ideally use symbolic language, which means using indirect metaphors, metrics, and simplifications of your experience. Doing this activates your prefrontal cortex, which reduces the arousal in the limbic system. Here’s the bottom line: describe an emotion in just a word or two, and it helps ease the emotional swelling.

Ancient methods were way ahead of us on this one. Meditating and self-awareness practice have employed this technique for centuries. Labelling is a fundamental tool of mindfulness.

In fact, labelling affects the brain so powerfully it works with other people too. Labelling emotions is one of the primary tools used by FBI hostage negotiators.

OK, moving on......

Maybe you’re not feeling awful just at this moment but you probably have things going on in your life that you can't get a handle on, situations that are causing you some stress and stopping you from finding balance. Here’s a simple way to de-power them…

3) Make That Decision

Have you ever delayed making a decision because you felt uncomfortable, then when you finally made a commitment, your mind immediately felt some release, even coming to rest? That was no random occurrence.

Worry and anxiety are felt as a result of the mind holding two or more conflicting ideas, without any reconciliation,  across the same period of time. Brain science shows that making decisions reduces worry and anxiety — as well as clearing some space to help you resolve problematic tangles.

By its very nature, the process of making decisions automatically includes recognising contextual choices, creating intentions and setting goals — all three are part of the same neural circuitry and engage the prefrontal cortex in a positive way, reducing the neural chaos of worry and anxiety .in less sophisticated areas of the brain. Making decisions also helps overcome striatum activity, which usually pulls you toward negative impulses and routines. Finally, making decisions, especially decisions to do something different to the usual, automatically changes your perception of the world — calming the primitive limbic system and helping other possible solutions to your problems to reveal themselves .

But deciding can be hard, I agree. It can feel like taking a leap off the high board without knowing whether there's water in the pool. Deciding involves the prospect of making some kind of change (and our habitual minds hate change). Secondly, deciding can involve our minds cranking out strident alarm warnings, accompanied by feelings of unease, against making a potentially “wrong” decision. In this case it’s worth taking into account the possibility that there's no such thing as a wrong decision, unless you believe in the concept, in which case there is, but only in your mind. If you can find space for the possibility that if we can strip away subjective tags of “good” or “bad”, “right” or “wrong”, and keep the deciding process more objective, deciding could be a lot less traumatic. Keep in mind the truism – Any decision will be more beneficial than no decision at all.

So what kind of decisions should you make? Neuroscience has an answer…

If you absolutely can't be definitive, make a “good enough” decision. Don’t sweat making the absolute 100% best decision. The fact is that, depending on the list of expectations and rules in our individual and unique codebooks, such a thing as a decision that ticks all of our “shoulds” probably does not exist. Take some solace in the knowing that just making a decision will create enough space and ease enough tension for you to deal creatively with consequences. We all know from our experiences that being a perfectionist can be stressful, for both the perpetrator and those nearby. And brain studies back this up.

Trying to be perfect is a vain attempt to feel in control. But perfectionism saddles the sufferer with the opposite results, overwhelming your brain with complications and emotions that make you feel out of control. And if you're one of those people who've decided way back in childhood that Control is the only way to survive living life, you're in for a very bumpy and dissatisfying ride. It's my experience that Control has never been The Issue. Living an appealing life, I've found, is a bit less like adhering to a book of instructions and a bit more like surfing; you cannot control the wave, but by engaging with it moment-to-moment on its terms, you can learn to master it

Via The Upward Spiral:

Striving for the perfect, instead of “best possible in my present circumstances”, brings too much emotional ventromedial prefrontal activity into the decision-making process. In contrast, backing away a little and recognising that “good enough” may just be good enough for now activates more dorsolateral prefrontal areas, which helps you feel more capable.....…

As I look around me in nature, it seems that God herself is content to let things run and “see how it turns out”. That's how and why she invented Evolution. I have found that when I try out something different “just to see how it turns out”, there's no such thing as “failure”. Notions of Success and Failure (and notions are all that they are) are replaced by Interesting Results and Surprising Consequences. Those are much more fun.

So, given the Ruthless Rule of Reality that total control is an illusion, amassing awareness, gathering an appreciation of what-is, and making a decision allows your mind to feel a measure mastery, rather like the surfer experiences when he successfully rides a wave.. A feeling of mastery, no matter how small, reduces stress and boosts quiet confidence, unlike attempts to control which leave you wondering who or what is going to be “out to get me” next. This is precisely why, when life delivers one or more of its knock-backs, choosing what-is to be exactly as it is can be positively therapeutic and a real way to actually enjoy the roughest of rides, or find your way out of any impasse.

But here’s what’s really fascinating: Deciding also boosts –

• An awareness of you taking over your authorship in the situation (that's true Authority)
• Pleasure and Satisfaction.

Via The Upward Spiral:

Actively choosing caused changes in attention circuits and in how the participants felt about the action, and it increased rewarding dopamine activity.

Want proof? No problem. Let’s talk about cocaine.

In recent lab tests two rats were to be given mild injections of cocaine. Rat A had to pull a lever first before it got its shot. Rat B didn’t have to do anything. Any difference? Yup: Blood tests revealed that Rat A got a bigger boost of dopamine. Getting something for nothing is not as satisfying as you'd hoped. Which may be one explanation as to why people on a social drip for prolonged periods aren't happy chappies.

So what’s the lesson here? Next time you buy cocaine… whoops, wrong lesson. My point is, when you make a decision on a goal and then achieve it, you feel better than when good stuff just happens by chance.

And this answers the eternal mystery of why dragging your butt to the gym can be so hard but is ultimately more satisfying if it's voluntary. If you go because you feel you're being compelled to or you “should”, well, it’s not really a voluntary, unanimous decision. The Topdog part of your mind has once again bullied the Underdog side, and there's latent reluctance and resentment going on under the bonnet. Consequently, your brain doesn’t get the pleasure boost. It just feels stress. And that’s no way to build a good exercise habit. Your underdog mind simply says “Serves you right – you didn't ask me first. I'll get you for this – one day”

Via The Upward Spiral:

Interestingly, if we are forced to exercise, we don’t get the same benefits, because without deliberate choosing, the exercise itself becomes a source of stress.

So make more decisions. Neuroscience researcher Alex Korb sums it up nicely:

We don’t just choose the things we like; we also like the things we choose.

Okay, you’re being grateful, labelling unhealthy emotions and making more decisions. Great. But this is feeling kinda lonely for a happiness prescription. Let’s get some other people in here.

What’s something you can do with others that neuroscience says is a path to hyper-happiness? And something that’s stupidly simple so you don’t get lazy and skip it? Brain docs have an answer for you…

4) Touch People

No, not inappropriately or indiscriminately; that might be counter-productive and even get you into a lot of trouble.

But we all need to feel our connection with, and acceptance from others. When we don’t, it’s painful. And I don’t mean just “awkward” or “disappointing.” I mean it can be actually physically, emotionally and spiritually painful.

Neuroscientists did a study where people played a ball-tossing video game. The other players tossed the ball to you and you tossed it back to them. Actually, there were no other players; that was all done by the computer program, but the testers didn't divulge that. The subjects were told the characters were controlled by real people. So what happened when the “other players” stopped playing nice and didn’t share the ball?

Subjects’ brains responded the same way as if they experienced physical pain. Rejection doesn’t just hurt like a broken toy; your mind feels it like a broken leg.

Via The Upward Spiral:

In fact, as demonstrated in an fMRI experiment, social exclusion activates the same circuitry as physical pain… at one point they stopped sharing, only throwing back and forth to each other, ignoring the participant. This small change was enough to elicit feelings of social exclusion, and it activated the anterior cingulate and insula, just like physical pain would.

Relationships are very important to your mind's ability to access happiness. And supportive words can do wonders. But if you want to turbo-boost your connections......

Touch people.

One of the primary ways to release oxytocin is through touching. Obviously, it’s not always appropriate to touch most people, but small, agenda-less contacts like touching a forearm, like handshakes and pats on the back are usually okay. For people you’re close with, hone your awareness of appropriate opportunities to underline the strength of mutual trust with touch.

Touching is incredibly powerful. We just don’t give it enough credit. When given without hidden expectations, touching makes you more approachable and more persuasive. Touching expresses trust, increases team performance, improves your flirting… heck, it even boosts academic skills.

Touching someone you connect with actually reduces pain. In fact, when studies were done on married couples, the stronger the marriage, the more powerful the effect.

Via The Upward Spiral:

In addition, holding hands with someone can help comfort you and your brain through painful situations. One fMRI study scanned married women as they were warned that they were about to get a small electric shock. While anticipating the painful shocks, the brain showed a predictable pattern of response in pain and worrying circuits, with activation in the insula, anterior cingulate, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. During a separate scan, the women either held their husbands’ hands or the hand of the experimenter. When a subject held her husband’s hand, the threat of shock had a smaller effect. The brain showed reduced activation in both the anterior cingulate cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex— that is, less activity in the pain and worrying circuits. In addition, the stronger the marriage, the lower the discomfort-related insula activity.

So hug someone today. And do not accept little, quick hugs or those self-conscious ”pretend” embraces when one party, or both, lean in from arm’s length and keep slapping the other on the back. No, no, no. Tell them your neuroscientist recommended long hugs during which the participants give themselves permission to feel the closeness without wondering what the neighbours might think.

A hug, especially a long one, releases a neurotransmitter and hormone oxytocin, which reduces the reactivity of the amygdala.

Research shows getting five hugs a day for four weeks increases happiness big-time.

Don’t have anyone to hug right now? No? (I’m sorry to hear that. I would give you a hug right now if I could.) But there’s a Plan “B” remedy: neuroscience says you could go get a massage.

Controlled test results are fairly clear that massage boosts your serotonin by as much as 30 percent. Massage also decreases stress hormones and raises dopamine levels, which helps you create new, more healthy habits… Massage reduces pain because the oxytocin system activates painkilling endorphins. Massage also improves sleep and reduces fatigue by increasing serotonin and dopamine and decreasing the stress hormone cortisol.

So spend time with other people and give some hugs.

Sorry, texting is definitely not enough. Someone tested it. When you put people in a stressful situation and then let them visit loved ones or talk to them on the phone, they felt better. But when they just texted, their bodies responded the same as if they had no support at all.

Via The Upward Spiral:

…the text-message group had cortisol and oxytocin levels similar to the no-contact group.

Author’s note: I totally approve of texting if you do it to make an appointment for a hug.

Sum Up

Here’s what brain research says will make you happy:

• Ask “What am I grateful for?” No answers? Doesn’t matter. Just searching helps. Keep practising.
• Label those negative emotions. Give each one a name. Separate who you are from what baggage you have on board. When you get that you are not your luggage, your mind isn't so bothered by it. Your brain, body and other organs get off the hook.
• Decide. If there's an either-or situation, settle for a “good enough for now” instead of “best decision ever made on Earth.”
• Hugs, hugs, hugs. Don’t text — touch.

So what’s the dead simple way to start that upward spiral of happiness?

Just send someone a thank you email. If you feel awkward about it, you can send them this post to tell them why. It starts the flow of energy rippling outwards from you. In a world well stacked with people who are walking black holes of need, you'll soon attract all kinds of manifestations of Happiness, starting an upward spiral of happiness in your life. UCLA neuroscience researcher Alex Korb explains:

Everything is interconnected. Gratitude improves sleep. Sleep reduces pain. Reduced pain improves your mood. Improved mood reduces anxiety, which improves focus and planning. Focus and planning help with decision making. Decision making further reduces anxiety and improves enjoyment. Enjoyment gives you more to be grateful for, which keeps that loop of the upward spiral going. Enjoyment also makes it more likely you’ll exercise and be social, which, in turn, will make you happier.

Thank you for reading this.

WE WERE REALLY GOOD FRIENDS....UNTIL.......

We were really good friends.

It doesn’t matter how we first met. What’s important is that over time we seemed to hit it off well. We had differences, of course, coming as we did from different backgrounds, and very different life histories, but it didn’t matter. We got along, our families got along, we shared a few interests – it was a comfortable, even, social friendship that made no real demands on either of us.

Then, out of the blue, he did something that both surprised and hurt me. When I confronted him about it, however, he couldn’t seem to understand why I was so upset.

Then I made a mistake.

Instead of appreciating I had only a limited snapshot of him, and stepping back for a wider view, instead of looking more deeply into the reality of him, I assumed my existing version of him was correct, and began deducting marks from my score of him. I was putting him in “the wrong”. Without realising it, I hoisted our friendship from a horizontal plane to vertical. Relative to me, I made him “Lesser than”.

Then my inner judge popped up and began doing what it was well trained for… finding more instances where he didn’t come up to scratch. 

My scratch.

My second mistake…..

Assuming that among his life tasks, he was required to live up to my expectations of him. Now the rift between us was his fault.

In my eyes.

Now he doesn’t even seem to care about my extreme disappointment in him. He refuses to admit that he’s done wrong by me. I feel betrayed by him. 

Uncaring bastard.

Questions:

Which of us do you think would be freer and happier at this moment?

Why?

Who needs to change?

STUCK? HERE'S HOW TO GET TRACTION

GETTING UNSTUCK

“Imagine what it would be like to live in a world where you are more concerned about what you have to offer than what you have to hide.” ~Unknown

As “What-Ifs” go, this one is a power-keg! It invites us to imagine a world very different from the one most of we Westerners live in. The current state of the world is better described by the poster I once spied in the office of a political advisor – “protect, defend, and resist”. I could hardly agree less. I far prefer this quote from Irving Wallace’s “The Seventh Secret”, which suggests, “Connect, Understand and Accept…”

Why is this Secret so important, at least to me? Well for one thing, it's the way the universe without humans is stitched together, haven't you noticed? No? Perhaps you might get out more – into nature.

Connect, Understand and Accept becomes even more relevant at those times when you feel you're stuck in some kind of rut that's limiting your freedom to play around in the playground. That has been me at several times in my earlier life – paddling like hell and getting nowhere. And at such times, a quiet inner inspection usually reveals that, somewhere in there, I’ve been protecting or defending the very thing that’s keeping me stuck, and resisting the call to change. The instant that I’ve let go of the “protect, defend and resist” habit, the atmosphere relaxes, space and daylight start seeping through and life gets sweeter.

Do you feel stuck? Or is it possible you're stuck and you don't know it – you just have this feeling that there has to be more to life than what you've been experiencing lately?

A TEST FOR STUCKNESS

American psychologist, Dr. Phil McGraw has come up with some neat questions that may help you clarify if you're stuck or not. Would you like to know? Well have a look at each of these and give yourself a rating out of 10, where 0 = Never, and 10 = A helluva lot.

Here goes:

• Do you spend a high percentage of your time each day (more than 3 hours) on a couch or in a chair with your attention lost to what's on some kind of screen?
• When you're at home, do you find yourself wearing the same house-dress, T-shirt and baggy pants, shorts or pyjamas that have become some kind of “indoor uniform” for you?
• Do you stand staring into the refrigerator, looking for something that wasn't there when you last looked a few minutes ago?
• Do you feel like you're a cheap-seats spectator to other people's lives?
• Do you live vicariously through characters on TV, and discuss with others what happens on “reality” shows as if they actually are real?
• Do you actually count and recount the items in your shopping trolley before you decide whether to dive into the Express Checkout Lane?
• Is your job or your kids all you ever talk about for more than 3 minutes at a stretch?
• On the rare occasions you do go out “for fun”, do you spend more than 3 minutes debating with yourself where to go?
• When you do eat out, are they at places where you have to look up, or look down to read the menu?
• Do you have sex quarterly and within a time frame that lets you get on with something else?
• Do you fantasise about things you never actually do?
• Are you suspicious of the genuineness of people who look really happy? Is there a lurking thought that “they're faking it”?
• Do you have a lesser standard of conduct when you are alone than when you are in the company of others?
• Is the most exciting thing that has ever happened in your life something that has already happened?
• In that twilight zone while you are awakening, is there a moment of dread at the start of another day before you tuck it away out of sight?
• Do you ever feel alone, even while other people are around?
• Do you ever feel “bored with....”?
• Do your appearance and standards of grooming and personal hygiene appear to be on the decline?
• Is your main goal in life mainly focussed on how to get through the coming week or month?
• Do you say “No” to a high percentage of questions, regardless of what the question is?
• In order for you to meet someone new, do they have to throw themselves under your bus, or pull up a chair between you and something you're lost in?

How are you doing now? Got a clearer picture?

To get ourselves unstuck from thought, feeling and habit patterns that prevent us from spreading our wings and soaring to a life we were born to live, we must also remember that our world is changing rapidly. Although there have always been dangers and threats, they appear to be coming at us faster, and seem noticeably heightened with the advent of the information age and its instant forms of digital communication. Our sense of safety is also impacted by real major life transitions we all experience: job security, financial challenges, illnesses, loss of a loved one, aging, moving home, etc. We also allow our equanimity to be undermined by the unchallenged efforts of well-resourced businesses and political organisations who do their effective best to raise our anxiety levels “for our own good” with fake threats about everything from the kind of deodorant we use to terrorists under the tarpaulin.

In the face of this, I think it is no wonder we find ourselves a little breathless, bewildered and sometimes averse to change. We reach a point where we silently protest “Please just back off for a minute – gimme a break!!” Very understandable. (I sincerely wish we could grant the same understanding to those poor wretches we’ve trapped on Manus, Christmas and Nauru).

If we want to get unstuck, live lives of quality and dignity, accomplish our dreams, celebrate our talents, and pass on our gifts and wisdom to others, we would be wise to take The Secret to heart: Let go of protecting, defending and resisting. Just notice when you're doing it, take a deeper breath, and just stop. Do nothing until it subsides. Let nothing be there for as long as you can. Then consciously and deliberately Accept something in this moment. It doesn't matter what it is..... the way the room is, a feeling you've got – anything simple will do. Just accept it as it is. Then Explore something – such as getting a cup of coffee or going to the toilet.... just be deliberately present and available for the whole of it. Engage with it. Do this as often as you remember to, until these moments of aliveness become proactive habits.

Transformation requires clear intention, courage and persistence, but the very act of purposely taking on such a challenge empowers you to transform where you may feel stuck. I use the word “transform” very deliberately. This isn’t about change. Change is when a caterpillar turns into a bigger, fatter caterpillar; transformation is when it turns into a butterfly. In your case, the actual circumstances of your life may not immediately change. What will change is that your feelings of being stuck begin to become transparent and dissolve. You become aware that you have freedom to choose something different. Do it. Maybe go for a slow walk around the block before you make that cup of coffee, and pay attention to how your body/mind feels 5 minutes after you get back. If you do, even the coffee will taste different this time, I guarantee it.

The good news is that external circumstances and emotional climate do not have to change in order for you to get unstuck. Your Circumstances and Being Stuck are not connected anywhere other than in your mind and that connection is imaginary. Other people are confronted with the same circumstances as you and, rather than get stuck, some of them seem to be able to rise above the situation and use it for a launching pad to something bigger and brighter. Those who opt to stay stuck get together and either join in a group whinge about how they’ve been “wronged”, or compete with each other to play “I've Been Wronged More Than You?”

So what's the difference between committed victims and those who say “Nup Not for me.”  Former victims who embrace The Change find their lives transforming when they stop seeing their circumstances as “the problem”, and begin looking at them instead as opportunities in disguise for them to completely change direction.

In my one-upon-a-time need to be one of the herd, I used to be a devout victim, until I made a conscious choice to take another road and become one of the “others” I've just cited. I did some research and found out how they made the switch. Then I did it…. again and again and again until Life got the message – “Barrie has changed his mind”. That's when reality flipped over and I discovered that, where there is a perceived threat, there can be a new sense of openness and curiosity, empathy, accord and, dare I say, reassurance and gratitude! Where there used to be distrust, there can now be greater receptivity, balance and the ability to stay in the present more often.

All you have to do to change your experiences of life is to change is your mind. That can be hard to do in company, though, because a lot of “other people” get twitchy when you change your mind, have you noticed? And some of them will really put the screws on you to “conform”. They need you to  obey their "Do Not Disturb" rules.

Change is worth the price of courage, though. This new mind-change approach will give you a new sense of freedom, new levels of energy and passion and a greater understanding of the role your temperament, your personality, your identities, your attitudes and your beliefs play in determining the quality of your life.

It will also give you the insights and power to rewrite your past without changing the facts, re-constitute your present as the time and opportunity to break with your conditioning, and re-envision your future as a panorama of consequences -- some foreseen and some pleasant surprises -- of your transforming.

In the end, it all comes down to what and how you choose your options. Each of us can choose to be reactive and at the mercy of a world that appears threatening, or we can choose to be open to life and its remarkable possibilities. We can plod on being defensive and protective, or we can live with a new spring in our step and spirit, eyes that truly see, ears that really hear, and a heart that can feel a growing wonder and celebrate the magnificent mystery that is life unfolding.

In every now moment you become open to possibility, rather than reliant on defence against threats. Are those threats real? Yes, they are. But mostly only in your mind. An imagined threat is just as real to the sufferer as an actual threat; emotional memory does not discriminate.

What matters now, though, is how you respond to what's “real” for you. It may help to know that most of your fears are imagined rather than actual. But that knowledge alone isn't going to fix them. Your fears – none of them, were ever reasoned into in the first place, so logical reasoning is not going to cleanse you of them. I've tried that over and over – it never, ever worked for more than 30 seconds. The way out is through emotionally. Drop every temptation to label a feeling because labelling a thing distances you from the thing. Be with your actual feelings as fully as you can, for as long as it takes until they leave you be.

Change is one of life’s true constants. But transitions like changing jobs, moving homes, losing loved ones, and getting divorced can be hideously trying, confusing, and very, very scary. Even when change is positive, it’s usually not possible to experience it without an up-front impulse to recoil and withdraw, and at least a little bit of trepidation when you choose to notice that, and engage with it anyway.

Because of fear, the first step is possibly the most difficult – to open yourself kindly and willingly, in the face of panic at becoming vulnerable, to the present you have brought yourself to. Later steps will still be accompanied by varying degrees of trepidation and uncertainty, but as you get more practised at embracing fear and going ahead anyway, you’ll get better at it and, hopefully, reach a place similar to mine where a twinge of raw anxiety is a signal to me that “that's where I need to go.” It's an indicator sign that has never misled me. Instead of defending and protecting, you can live with your eyes and ears fully open. It’s amazing what just a slight shift in perspective can do…like falling in love, it can make all the difference in the world. 

In fact venturing out of your shell IS falling in love. With Life.

Three final things that I've noticed -- 

• Life never misses an opportunity to offer us new chances and fresh starts.
• Life’s timing is spot-on. We are never thrown a challenge that is so great that we can't keep our balance even when we feel like we are on the shakiest ground. Life knows when we're ready, often some time before we do. Sometimes I've been right through a crisis before I realised “Wow, I was ready for that!”
• If we develop a new habit of purposefully accepting life's invitations to rumble – if we embrace challenges and changes as they are delivered to us, reconnecting with ourselves to become more capable, enlightened and empowered, it is not only possible, or even probable, but actually certain we can finally sign off on something important that we came for.

NO-COST GIVING THAT WILL GET YOU EERYTHING

GIFTS THAT EMPOWER THE RECEIVER

AND DON'T COST YOU ANYTHING.

For just a moment now, think about people you truly respect.

Who are they? When did you encounter them? In what context?

Think about people you truly admire. Think about people you love to be around. How many of them are filthy rich? How many of them are highly accomplished? How many of them are household names across the country? Yet you love to be around them--and you would love to be more like them. Why? If it isn't primarily their financial wealth, dazzling achievements or fame that draws you to them, what do they have in common that, for you at least, sets them apart from everyone else?

Let me guess – in your experience they're givers, not takers? They give of themselves, generously, selflessly, and without needing something in return? The expectation of spending time with them does not prompt you to hide your silverware, close your computer, lock up your daughters or put on your “best face”? Your past experiences with them have left you feeling better about yourself and somehow of more value? Rather than draining your energy and creating a sense of “you owe me”, the presence of these people adds something of intangible but real value to your life? You're glad and grateful that you know them?

People you deeply respect give because their happiness--and their success--comes from your happiness and your success.

Here's what they give:

1. The Gifts of Attention, Acknowledgement and Encouragement. 

Even relatively poor performers, do something well, something that comes from the heart. For that, each person deserves specific and genuine recognition, support, endorsement and appreciation. It's easy for most of us to recognise great employees; after all, they do great things. (Of course it's very possible that consistent and appropriate acknowledgement is one of the reasons they're doing great.) it takes a higher degree of insight to recognise latent talent in someone who has not yet been mentored.

The people who make the most favourable impacts on me are those few who have noticed qualities in me and merits in what I've done and the way I do it that no-one else has picked up on, or that even I hadn't been aware of. I had several such a tutors at drama school (NIDA). I get a really warm realisation that such a person has really been paying attention and found genuine merit in what I have on offer. I'd walk barefoot over stony ground for that kind of appreciation. So would you. Unfortunately it's a rare experience because so few people do it

Relatively few of us bother to find genuine reasons to praise the person who simply meets standards. But those who do, know that a few words of recognition--especially when that recognition is publicly given--could just be the nudge that inspires an average performer to work at ways of surpassing themselves.

Remarkably, people who Give can often see potential for excellence in another person before that person sees it in him/herself. I think they're able to do that because they're wired in to Possibility. They live their lives in an open context that picks up subtler signals. The recognition they sow may just provide a spark that motivates another to reach into his/her full potential. There's something catchy about a culture that celebrates even small break-throughs.

2. They give the Gift of Receiving, or Requesting Help. 

I had an experience a couple of weeks ago when a local candidate in the upcoming State Government election knocked on my door and asked if there were any issues I wanted to talk to her about. I was surprised and pleased that she was taking the trouble to get out amongst her constituents. My gratitude was short-lived. Every time I started a sentence, a key word triggered her “Ah, I know what he's talking about now” response, and she started over-talking me. Time and time again. After about 6 minutes and five unsuccessful attempts to finish one particular sentence, I thanked her for her time, and bade her goodbye.

Because we all are able to think many times faster than we can speak, most of us fall into the trap of listening to another for just as long as it takes to work out what we think they're about to say, and we then spend our time working out what we're going to say next, just as soon as the other pauses for breath. But this woman didn't even wait that long – she just started talking right over the top of me. And she had no idea from the body language I purposely gave her that she wasn't cutting through. She just had to keep talking. But then, before politics, she used to be a lawyer.

Pretending to listen won't do it. Just watch someone like Simon Birmingham on a panel show; there's something vaguely creepily patronising about the way he looks at a speaker. It's all for show.

When you genuinely ask for help, however, several things happen. You implicitly show you respect the person whose insights and assistance you're seeking. You show that you respect that person's experience, skill, intuition and/or wisdom. And you show you trust that other person, since by asking for help you make yourself vulnerable. But then generous people know that true strength lies inside the one place most people won't venture --- vulnerability. Yes, strength, might and vulnerability work in ways opposite to what's accepted as “common knowledge” It's why the lives of tyrants have always ended badly – but bullies never seem to learn.

While it's relatively easy to ask for general help, it's harder to ask for help when the assistance wanted is personal. Both parties have to risk vulnerability.

Remarkably generous people frequently ask for help, in part because they're aware that they don't know everything, and partly because they realise the person who provides that help receives a lot in return in terms of self-respect, self-esteem, self-worth and feeling they now have a stake in someone and something worth the while. Such people engender trust in others. When you generously ask for assistance, you offer others the opportunity to receive one of the greatest gifts of all: knowing that, at least for a moment today, they made a difference in your life.

Let others make a difference in your life, then watch the blessings begin to flow.

3. They give the Gift of Forbearance. 

For some people, we're willing to give our all. Why? Because we know they care about us, they believe in us, we believe in them, and we don't want to let them down. Patience says “no” to contraction. Patient forbearance opens space. Showing patience is an extraordinary way to let people know we truly care about them. Showing patience and expressing genuine confidence and trust in another's ability to work through own challenges is an extraordinary way to let people know we truly believe in them.

Showing patience is a remarkable gift—because by putting someone else's agenda a little ahead of your own, ultimately, it shows how much you care. It shows once again that you're prepared to make space in your life for that person to achieve success.

4. They give the Gift of Privacy. 

We are all, at our deepest core, inseparably connected, and what ever we do affects everyone and everything, so to a greater or lesser degree, everyone shares. Non-invasive sharing forms an essential part of a healthy emotional, psychological, social, spiritual and even intellectual life. With the explosion of social media, most people “share”, “like” and “tweet”. For better and for worse, lives have increasingly become open books. Gradually, we've come to feel we have a right to know more about others than we ever did.

But our right to intrude, particularly in the lives and affairs of public figures, is balanced by their rights to privacy. And there are times when my “right to know” is akin to having the “right of way” on a public road – it may exist in theory, it may even exist in legislation, but if the other person doesn't give me the right of way, I don't get it. There's a prang.

Well, often we don't have a right to pry---simple as that. Often, in order for the social areas of our lives to function healthily, we and others also have a balancing right to privacy. Part of developing relationship skills and growing into a mature social adult involves learning to separate our own life responsibilities from other people's life responsibilities – “Whose task is this? Social evolution invites us to mind our own business, learn not intrude on other people's responsibilities and never allow another person to intrude on your responsibilities. Politicians are masters of crossing this last line – “Elect me and I'll do it for you”. The greatest casualty of allowing this to happen is your freedom. Alexander the Great, the man who cut the legendary Gordian Knot declared that destiny is something that is brought about by clearing away one's own stuff with one's own sword, and empowering others to clear their own stuff with whatever weapons they have.

How do you decide where the responsibilities lie and where the boundaries are? Ask yourself “Who will reap the ultimate benefit of this activity?” The ultimate benefactor is the one whose task it is.

It comes down again to Respect: self respect in claiming personal space, and respect for others in giving it. Often the best gifts we can give another are the gift of responsibility and the gift of privacy, of not asking, not prying; not intruding--yet being available if and when another person does want or need to share their private stuff with you.

Separating life responsibilities in areas like career, family, relationships and social life does wonders for everyone's personal authority, autonomy and freedom.

Giving-oriented people not only respect another person's privacy, they help them guard it--because they realise it's not always necessary to know every detail about another in order to give care to him/her. Paradoxically, genuinely generous people are very good at minding their own business and communicating their own boundaries. I treat people who pry without permission with the utmost suspicion. And sometimes a stern warning lecture on Boundaries.

5. They give the Gift of Opportunity. 

Every task, every job, every challenge has the potential to lead to greater things. That's the very essence of the game. Every participant in the game has the potential, both professionally and personally, to accomplish greater things (note my deliberate uses of the comparative form). We have the ability always do better today than we did yesterday. Always. We humans invented concepts like “next” and “before”, “tomorrow” and “yesterday” so that we can measure how we're progressing with our current opportunities.

Remarkably giving leaders are a bit like actively creative parents. They take the time to develop colleagues, not just for the role they're currently doing, but also for a role they someday hope to land, even if that job is with another company. Remarkably giving people take the time to help another person to find what they want to achieve in life, and give them provocation and practice in seizing opportunities by throwing challenges in their way.

When I worked at Lifeline, I felt honoured to be in the company of many people who were cultivating their ability to feel with another person's pain and help them work through that pain. A few, a special few, have the ability to sense another person's dreams and help them work towards those dreams--and to help open doors that might otherwise have remained closed. The whole thrust of Lifeline's counselling process is to accompany each caller to a space where they can see a desirable opportunity that is within their immediate reach.

6. They give the Gift of Sincerity. 

By “sincerity”, I mean a state of being that is free of any duplicity, pretence or deceit. An action that is fully integral and free of dissimulation, overt or covert, is called “sincere”.

Two of the opposites of Sincerity are Political Correctness and Lip Service. Lip service is easy to pay; anyone can do it, and all of us do at one time or another. Acquired professionalism often masks lip-servers. But the fact that they get paid for doing it makes no difference whatsoever to the hollowness of their masking. 

Much more rare are the people who can be highly professional yet also openly human. These are the people who are actually talented at their chosen profession. Instead of using their position as a hide or refuge, these people use their profile in the community to actively evolve, themselves and everything around them. (Being professional or being an amateur is no indicator of whether or not anyone is actually suited for what they're doing. I've met many more amateurs doing more good in the community than so-called leaders who get paid – sometimes obscene sums – for what they purport to do.)

Giving people are willing to show, and sometimes unable to hide, sincere excitement when things go well. They intentionally and naturally show sincere appreciation for hard work and extra effort. They're willing to reveal sincere disappointment in themselves when they fail those who look to them, and openly set about cleaning up when they mess up. They're leading by example – it's OK to mess up; it's not kosher to leave the clean-up to someone else. Then they openly celebrate what went right, and what everybody learned from the whole process. They openly feel with their fellow man. To them, everyone, including those they don't like, is a comrade. They openly concern themselves in anything from which they will reap a direct outcome. In short, they're palpably human. Remarkably giving people combine a brisk blend professionalism with a healthy dose of humanity--and more importantly allowing other people to do the same makes them irresistible go-to people.

6. They give the Gift of Tough Love. 

They have a very clear vision of the differences between “support” and “agreement”.

I'm not perfect. You're not perfect. Some of us really want to be better than we are, and are prepared to do something about that. But we all fall into unhealthy habits, fall into patterns of unmindful thinking, feeling and doing that contract upon vitality, We develop blind spots, and that's why we all need constructive feedback and provocation from outside.

We all need advice, guidance, and sometimes a swift kick in the pants or a good slap awake. It's just too easy to make one-off comments. It's relatively easy to provide watery, politically corrected feedback during structured periodic evaluations, but they are rarely transformative in any way. It's a lot tougher, and requires the courage to be disliked, to sit someone down and say in firm kindness, "I know you're capable of a lot more, and here's how. It's your choice, but if you're up for the challenge, I'll follow through with you until you get it." Such people give the gift of Possible Growth – the basis of life. In this respect, untalented leaders actually spread confusion, doldrums, jealousy, resentment and the eventual death of whatever it is they're supposed to be responsible for. And they're very quick to blame anyone or anything else for their failures.

Think about a time when a remarkably giving person told you what you least wanted to hear and yet most needed to hear in that moment. Think about a time when a remarkable person challenged you to require more of yourself. You've never forgotten what they said, nor the way that they said it, have you? It changed your life. Don't you think it's time you paid that forward? Or are you happy to let an investment someone once made in you die for lack of nurturing.

If you can't remember such a person or moment, you might like to look around for different people to run with.

The gauntlet I throw down to you is to go change someone's life, starting with your own. Teach your inner critic how to do his/her work kindly, firmly and with empathy for the thoughts, attitudes and experiences that led you to the learning experiences you're now facing. First be your own best parent, your own mentor. When you prove you can empower yourself, then be available to sharing what you've learned – when you're asked.

8. They give the Gift of Respect (here's that word again!) 

The 80/20 Principle means that most employees aren't outstanding - yet. Some are far from it. Maybe they aren't as smart. Maybe they don't work as hard. Maybe they aren't as skilled. Maybe they make bigger mistakes. (Some employees ultimately deserve to be let go, an action that may prove to be the turning point they've been waiting for.)

Let's assume for the moment that every person on earth has the right, and the ability, to live up to their unique potential. I learned this from working with “handicapped” people, and was astounded at how happy most of them were! Fulfilling our best possible self is an essential ingredient of contented Happiness. Giving leaders hold themselves and others accountable to that ever-expanding standard of full potential self.

Now every individual bears the sole responsibility for the way they play the life cards they were dealt with, and it's no-one else's right to interfere. Really. This falls into the realm of “mind your own business”. But giving leaders train themselves to sit down with their colleagues and ask “Do you want to do better?” If the answer is “Yes” – game on. If it's a “No”, walk away, without recrimination. For lots of people, the time is “Not yet”.

Regardless of their level of performance, all employees deserve to be treated with respect. Sarcasm, eye rolling, bullying and biting comments all chip away at at least two person's self-respect – theirs and yours. Yes, yours. You had no idea about that? Yes, well empowered and empowering people are acutely aware of the two-way flow of Consequence. And now you know. And in case you didn't recognise it, that was a potentially empowering poke in the ribs – from me.

Remarkably giving people allow others to maintain a sense of dignity even in the worst of circumstances. They're only able to do that because they have first developed a keen sense of self-respect. They know that nobody has ever been able to give away what they don't have. To give Respect, you must firstly have it. Without deep, genuine self-knowing, your displays of respect to others are shallow and phoney sycophancy – lip service.

I have had to fire people (and it's never easy), but I've never felt the need to demean or humiliate them while I'm doing it, and I sincerely hope I haven't.

9. They give the Gift of Freedom. 

For managers and supervisors there are often guidelines and rules of best practice and procedures to be adhered to, so most manager follow and enforce rules and procedures that will foster efficiency and productivity and, consequently, satisfaction.

But that's not enough. For most of us, engagement and satisfaction are largely based on autonomy and inter-dependence. You care the most about something when it's "yours", you feel you have moral and emotional ownership of the quality of effort you put in and the results you generate. You care the most when you feel you have the responsibility, flexibility, the blessing and authority to do the best you can.

Remarkably giving people create strong, well-delineated standards and guidelines but then go further and give employees the resources, autonomy and independence to work the way they work best within those guidelines. They allow employees to turn "I have to" into "I want to," which transforms what was just work into an act of creation; what was just a job into a personal project – something much more meaningful: an outward expression of each person's unique creativity, skills, talents, and experiences. Any workplace thus endowed by any one of its participants becomes a place that everyone in the group looks forward to getting involved in each day.

Yesterday, I went in to have my hearing aids cleaned at a shop in the Adelaide CBD. When I got there the shop was closed “For Lunch”. When I returned later, for the second time in a few months, I still couldn't get service because the lady who does that work was away sick – again. I know her; she's a lovely, healthy lady and very good at what she does, but her boss can best be described as a manipulative, smart-arsed bitch. I'm not surprised that her staff take “sickies”.

10. They give the Gift of Purpose, Commitment and Follow-Through. 

Fulfillment is often found in becoming a part of something bigger than yourself. People with a pulse love to feel that special sense of teamwork and togetherness and dynamism that turns a task into a quest, with a group of individuals who, under the guidance of a skilled coach, coalesce into a real team that is more than just the sum of its parts; a comm-unity that can achieve more than any one person can accomplish on his or her own

A few people (though obviously not as many as we'd like there to be) can write meaningful Culture and Mission statements. But far fewer still can create a mission that makes a real impact. Even tougher is finding someone who can show other people how what they do affects their customers, their business, their community ...and themselves. Mediocre managers take it for granted either that their charges somehow just “know”, or don't even think about it at all.

Remarkably giving people give the gift of caring--and the gift of knowing why caring beyond self is so important.

You, too, can be a benefactor. You don't have to be Bill Gates to make a real difference in this world. You have deep within you each and every one of these gifts. You don't have to manufacture them – they're within you – trust me on this. Find the faintest whispers of them, and start giving them to yourself. Then when you feel confident enough, practice sharing them with others quietly, in small ways at first. You will notice an immediate lift in your feeling of wellbeing. And let the process of becoming a Giver swell within you.

And the beauty of it is – giving of your self won't cost you a cent.