:: The Center of Happiness ::

An important ingredient of happiness is cultivating and honoring our intuition. Dr. Judith Orloff is an expert in the field of intuition. Visit the following site to experience her work and view some video clips that offer valuable insights about the link between intuition and happiness.

http://www.youtube.com/judithorloffmd

Sometimes in order to find our way to happiness and to visualize new possibilities, we must clarify, let go of, and/or dare to redefine the old path.

Often we can get stuck in the loop of our old mis-beliefs not knowing how to break free, or not even realizing we are trapped.

Here’s to the journey of happiness, consciousness, and new possibilities..
What is simple is not always easy.

Byron Katie offers four simple questions that are easy and insightful if we surrender to them. I feel compelled to share with you a valuable resource, The Work..

I love the thought of Thanksgiving!!!

Gratitude is such a key to happiness.

I am very grateful for my readers, those who are committed every day to expanding joy in their life and learning how to live at The center of Happiness.

I had to share this with you!!!! Pay it Forward.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9z2ELaBVJY

May we all join hands doing the gratitude dance!

Rhonda

Rhonda’s comments:
OK, sports fans. This one’s for you! Steve Goodier always makes wonderful contributions to wisdom and happiness through is articles and stories.

Also I post this in honor of my son-in-law, who is a devoted Bronco’s fan.

So… enjoy.

Rhonda

THE POWER OF LAUGHTER

Did you follow the 1987 football season when the Denver Broncos
played the Cleveland Browns for the AFC title?

Less than two minutes remained in the game and Cleveland was ahead by
a touchdown. The Broncos had just fumbled the ball out of bounds on
their own 1/2-yard line. Hostile Cleve land fans were already throwing
dog biscuits onto the field and celebrating a sure Cleveland win.

While the announcer was discussing who Cleveland would play in the
Super Bowl and Den ver fans were nursing bruised egos, the Bron cos
huddled in their own end zone. Quarterback, John Elway, was known for
miraculous wins, but this situation was almost impossible.

All-pro left tackle, Keith Bishop, looked around the huddle at his
teammates, took a deep breath and said, “Hey, now we got them right
where we want them!” Tense silence was broken by laughter. One player
laughed so hard he fell down! Somehow the joke lent perspective to an
absurd situation and a sense of calm confidence replaced anxiety.

What followed has been dubbed in the an nals of football lore as The
Drive. In less than two minutes, John Elway and the Broncos drove the
length of the field and tied the game with just sec onds left. They won in
overtime and went on to the 1988 Su per Bowl (which, judged by the
Broncos’ poor showing, was itself a kind of joke…).

An amazing shift occurred in the huddle that day. Laughter prepared
them to bring their best to a demanding situation as nervous,
negative energy was swept away in the absurdity of the moment.

Laughter has a way of creating positive change in any tense and
stressful circumstance. But, as Mark Twain said, laughter is the
greatest weapon that we humans possess and it’s the one we use the
least. Daily, we have countless oppor tunities to use the power of
laughter to make a positive difference.

– Steve Goodier
http://www.lifesupportsystem.com

Welcome to the Center of Happiness. I hope you come here often. Become a part of an ongoing conversation about happiness. Life is an interesting journey, and here we can hold hands.

On a daily basis (except when it’s not) you will find reflections and tidbits about happiness here and have the opportunity to share your own.

And, by all means, invite your friends. Happiness is more contagious and fun when you travel together. After all…

“I think the most revolutionary act a person can commit today is to be publicly happy.”

~~ Patch Adams, M.D., author of House Calls

Wow! I couldn’t agree more. Start the (r)evolution now!!!

Have you ever been caught up in a grumpy mood and found yourself overhearing someone else is a moment of joy, only to criticize their happiness? “What do they have to be so happy about!!!?”, you might grumble. Deep down inside you want to be happy, too. You long to be set free from the prison created by your own negative thinking.

It is so easy to get bogged down in the flurry of demands, stinky thoughts, and the challenging potholes that life is certain to provide. Grrrrrr. You expect it to be different! Discontent comes not from the circumstances, but from living in the hallucination that ‘what is’ is supposed to be different.

Learning to love what is and choosing to be happy now is all it takes. Although simple, but not always easy, it is still important to devote yourself to expanding your joy, even if step-by-step and moment-by-moment.

So, for today, for now, for this moment, choose happiness.
Repeat.

Dear Treasured Traveling Companions,

I have always wanted to be one of those people who could who could think up really cool names for things, like a hair salon named “Curl Up and Dye”.

I stumbled across a wonderful organization/website with an equally wonderful name, Soles4Souls.org, and even better, they offer an amazingly easy way to give.

They have a simple mission: to impact as many lives as possible with the gift of shoes. We are partnering with charities and governments around the world to provide a basic (yet indispensable) gift that most of us take for granted. Whether shoeless kids in Guatemala, or people shoeless because everything they owned burned in the recent Southern California fires, there are souls who need soles.

You can help them in many ways: donating your own shoes, donating cash for freight, hosting a shoe drive, or even donating your time as a volunteer.

Cool, huh!

If you can’t spare the cash, you may be able to spare a pair of shoes.
On the road to happiness it is a little easier to maneuver if you have them.

And, you get to experience that warm feeling from having done something meaningful. They call that happiness.

In Joy,
Rhonda

Contrary to what most of us have learned, we must take care of ourselves first in order to authentically care for others. We just cannot give from an empty cup, or drive a car without gas. Even though we may have good intentions, when we force ourselves to take on more than we can gracefully handle, in out attempt to make a difference and teach about prosperity and possibility, we are instead modeling poverty and lack.

So it’s an important question to ask. Are you feeling overwhelmed? What exactly is the ‘whelm’ we are always trying to get over?

Overwhelm is defined as being overcome in thought or feeling, being decisively defeated, or rendered powerless. So how do we become overwhelmed by joy, rather than stress? My suggestion, even though you may not like it…

Give up multi-tasking. Well, maybe not completely, but at least when you find yourself frantic and reacting, rather than responding to life’s potholes. Trying harder only leads to disaster. Rather than go ‘cold-turkey’ at least make your multi-tasking more conscious. Don’t settle for just meandering through life on autopilot or attempting to force life along. It may work for a while, or at least appear to, but eventually you’ll have a six-car pile up! Trust me, you don’t want to miss the joys of the moment, and when you run too fast focused on all that’s not working, you miss out on the simple joys and miracles of NOW. When we move too fast and do too much, we aren’t really experiencing anything along the way.
(more…)

Can you imagine happiness? Can you imagine a Circle of Peace?

I was interviewed by Tina Carey on KGEM-TV in Monrovia, CA, recorded for an upcoming broadcast. It gave me the opportunity to explore with Tina and her viewers ideas about happiness, and the power of the Circle model of leadership as a way of providing and fostering key ingredients of happiness, connection and acknowledgment.

With the afterthoughts of that conversation bubbling in me, I visited my computer this morning to attend to emails overdue. In my inbox I found that dear friend had sent me the invitation to visit: http://www.imaginepeace.com/towerabout.html. I was touched by this clip, and felt compelled to share it with you, because to me it demonstrates the power connecting with a common intention of peace and happiness.

(more…)

Rhonda’s reflections:

Okay, okay. I know I’m supposed to promote myself on my blog about ons, filters and habits and how each of those aspects of the coaching process impact the results they are ngs and cars but no people.

T: Had it been raining?

P: Not sure - I guess it might have been.

T: So there were puddles?

P: I guess there could have been puddles.

T: And, I’m just guessing here, might there have been fish in
those puddles?

P: Wow - I suppose there might have been…

T: (triumphant) Ah ha! Just as I suspected - fish in the
dreams!

While most of our own biases are not so obvious and don’t seem so silly (at least to us), the point is that if you’re listening for something specific, you’ll tend to find it. Listen for
hesitation in the voice of your partner and boom, you’ve “caught” him lying to you. Listen for warning signs of trouble in your relationship and before you know it, they’ll be
everywhere.

The problem isn’t so much to do with what you’re listening for, but what you’ll miss by listening for it. Whether it’s the affection in your partner’s voice, the look of love in her eyes or the sadness in your child’s heart when they’re telling you about their day, if you’re looking too hard for something else, you’re liable to miss what’s actually there.

As Abraham Maslow once said, “To the man who only has a hammer in the toolkit, every problem looks like a nail.” But when you expand your listening pallet, you will be able to hear more and more.

2. Listening to the voice inside your head vs. Listening to the other person

Have you ever had your best “go ahead - I’m listening” face on while inside your head you’re saying to yourself something like “oh my god I can’t believe they’re telling me this for the nine millionth time will they ever learn what day is it today is it Tuesday I wonder if there’ll be something good on television
tonight…”?

As you may have noticed, when we get caught up in our internal dialogue, we not only lose track of what the other person is saying to us, we often lose the plot altogether. Yet most of us habitually go inside our heads while “listening” in order to formulate our response to what is being said. This is roughly akin to looking for your keys inside the house instead of out in the street because the lighting’s better in your house. If the
keys are outside, you won’t find them on the inside no matter how well illuminated things may seem.

3. Listening hard vs. Listening easy

“Purpose tremor” is a phrase which describes the slight shake most people notice in their hands when they first try to thread a needle or remove the shin bone in a game of “Operation”. Simply put, our muscles work better when we’re not trying so hard to make them work better.

What’s sometimes less obvious is that the same thing is true with our listening:

*It’s easier to hear what’s really going on with other people when we’re not trying so hard to listen to them.

When you listen to another person speaking the way you might listen to pleasant background music (the kind they play on “easy listening” stations), things will often jump out at you which turn out to be the keys to unlocking whatever is going on for that person.

And when you learn to listen to yourself in the same way, it becomes easier and easier to separate out your own mental chatter from the still small voice of wisdom within.

——————–
Today’s Experiment:
——————–

1. Choose a few non-crucial conversations to experiment with this week and notice what you can notice about your own habitual listening filters. Are you listening for problems or opportunities? Holes in their argument or openings for resolution? What they’re saying with their words or what they’re communicating with their feelings?

2. Just for this week, play with turning down the volume on the voice inside your head when you’re listening to someone else speak. Notice how much more you hear, and whether or not this actually does make the other person feel “heard”.

3. Practice “easy listening” this week - listening the way a tape recorder or film camera might do it. No effort involved - just allow the words to come in pass right through with nothing on your mind and no agenda for what you do or don’t want to hear.

Bonus Experiment:
Practice “easy listening” to your own internal dialogue this
week and discover what you can discover.

(c) 2007 Michael Neill/All Rights Reserved

Dear Treasured Traveling Companions,

I am writing this from Southern California
with ash still raining from the sky as a result
of the devastating fires that surround me in
Long Beach as I visit my three grandsons. To
the north is Malibu, to the south is Orange
County and San Diego, and to the east are the
fires in Lake Arrowhead and the forests of San
Bernardino County. The creepy orange glow
of the sun struggles to be seen through the
already too smoggy LA basin. How can there be
happiness knowing tragedy haunts so many.
And yet, if we are willing to see, positive things
can emerge even amidst such heartache and
challenge. From the ashes rises the Phoenix.

Just a couple of days ago before the fires had
made any progress toward containment I had
the opportunity to attend the afternoon session
of the Women’s Conference 2007, a day devoted
to honoring women hosted by Maria Shriver.
Here women gathered for a day of empowerment,
inspiration, acknowledgment. The meaning of the
day expanded as together we imagined ways to
provide relief for affected families. Together we
reflected on them, loosing their homes, jobs, and
life as they had known it, and attempted to vision
resilience for new beginnings. What we focus on
expands, and so we visioned peace and courage
for these families, and the safety of those risking
their lives to fight the fires.

It was amazing to hear the powerful presentations
of women such as Maria Shriver, Jamie Lee Curtis,
Linda Ellerbee, Nora Effron, and Nobel Peace Prize
recipient and activist Jody Williams. Distributed
were the Minerva Awards. The Maria Shriver Minerva
Award features Minerva, the Roman Goddess of
war and wisdom.

According to mythology, with her helmet on,
Minerva is a tireless warrior; without it she is the
goddess of peace. Today, women are warriors in
their everyday lives who nurture, protect and
fight for the people and causes they hold dear.
In her endeavors, Minerva embodies the qualities
of courage, wisdom and strength.

It was equally as powerful learn more about the
recipients of this award as it was to overhear the
conversations of ordinary women while standing in
line awaiting to be inspired. In a way, it was as touching
to hear these informal circles of women sharing from
their heart and imagining outside the box the ways
that they might be of service to those who were
experiencing loss in the surrounding communities.
Through contributions of time, energy, and money
and informal commitments made, a day devoted to
honoring women altered it’s focus to include offering
relief to the fire victims. Happiness honed by heartache
teaches us that we are all one and connected in some
way.

This conference is an event I will now plan to attend
each year, and many women there had already made it
an annual ritual pilgrimage. To hear/see clips of this
year’s conference, and years past, visit:
http://www.californiagovernorsconference.org/.