Positive Emotions to create hapiness

Make sure you give frequent affirmations to all the people you care about. Tell them what you like about them. Do not focus on the negatives. A major part of our lives is wasted in finding fault with people and finding shortcomings in them. This leads to nothing but bad relationships. Stop acting like the world’s police man. You should spend time in nurturing qualities you like about your loved ones.

As far as possible, look at all the relationships in your life in the framework of lifetime relationships by giving more affirmations. Don’t be a heat seeking missile which destroys the people around you.

You need to be aware that no one can keep you happy, only you can keep yourself happy. Everyone has a duty to keep themselves happy, which can complete your daily tasks such as taking care of your health, eating good food, reading good books and listening to music. If you are happy, your surroundings flower too with happiness. Use your five senses to make yourself happy and joyous. We usually find others telling us, ‘Marry the right man and he will make you happy’. But that’s a wrong concept. Only you can make yourself happy. Start with simple things like visiting a beauty salon, meeting a good friend, watching a happy movie, looking at the sunset….

Health for Happiness

Your body is a car given to you by God to go places, if you let it collapse in to a junk, then you have a problem. Most people look after their cars better than their own body. But don’t forget that just like your car, your body needs regular checkups too. Make sure all small aches and pains are taken care of. Do something to maintain your health, learn to breathe properly, exercise regularly, walking, yoga. It is important to follow a healthy schedule. Everyone should learn to meditate; it takes you to a quiet place in your mind. To build a healthy mind, it is necessary to learn to breathe properly, or some form of pranayama. Be connected to whatever is your conception of a higher power; be in touch with that everyday, it will always take care of you.

When you are tired, get some good sleep and rest. If you are feeling lonely, try to go out and meet friends who make you happy. If you are on a treadmill and tired, don’t go overboard. Take regular physical breaks through the day. Switch off for 15 minutes for 3-4 times in a day. Don’t let the body burn out. It is also very important to get at least 7-8 hrs of sleep, it can add years to your life.

As far as weight is concerned, don’t get obsessed with your weight. One should not have unrealistic expectations. At 50, you cannot expect to look like you did in your 20s. Do not get swayed by media and filmstars. Learn to accept and love yourself. Consult your doctor for your appropriate weight. Don’t starve yourself, eat a balanced diet which contains all the vitamins and minerals your body needs. We need to put high quality fuel into our body to let it function without breakdown. Avoid junk food which causes indigestion and other health related problems.

Overcoming Sadness with Happiness

“You cannot change your family, your work or the events of your life. You can't even change yourself too much". 'Happy' is a word derived from 'happ' meaning luck or chance. Most of us believe that happiness is a mysterious feeling that comes without reason, leaving as inexplicably as it arrived. Happiness is, in fact, living with a sense of fulfillment and peace. It is a belief in the fundamental goodness of people, in the value of compassion, a policy of kindness, and a sense of unity among all living beings. All beings seek happiness and act to avoid pain. Everyone is looking for something better. Happiness can be achieved by a proactive attitude to improving the happiness quotient. We can train the mind to be happy—it is an achievable goal. Most psychiatrists see people in distress and conclude that the most one can hope for is the transformation of despair into common unhappiness. The Indian tradition shows us that positive radiant in the happiness quotient concept happiness is our birthright. The panel discussion focused on the happiness quotient and illustrated how to achieve it. The Happiness Quotient (HQ) is a concept that rates approximately, the measure of happiness each person has achieved in his life. This programme sought to provides a blueprint to increase one's HQ. It started by describing the creation of a positive mindspace, one that nurtures the positive emotions that increases happiness. It also discussed the impact of negative fields and how to avoid them.

Affirmations for Dharmic Living

‘Be a loving participant in your life. Enjoy the now of it. Don’t be a dreamer or a spectator. A happy life is the result of diving deep and becoming engaged and involved.’

(Sit with eyes closed and affirm silently)

I live by my own ethical standards.

I do what I preach.

I help all and harm none.

Peace and goodwill surround me.

Buddha And Ananda—The Four Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle And Repair

Young and handsome Ananda become the leader of a monastery when Buddha left his physical body. The townsmen were skeptical. They felt he was too young and frivolous.

They went in a group and asked him what the old bed sheets were to be used for as the monastery had just been given new ones. Ananda said, ‘I had them cut into towels for the monks. ‘When those get worn out, what will you do?’ they asked.

‘I will fold them, stitch them and use them as doormats for monks coming in from the rain. Still they persisted. ‘What will you do when those too get worn out?’ ‘I will have them cut into strips to use in the kitchen to handle hot vessels.’

‘Why do you take so much trouble over old bed sheets?’ they asked. Ananda reflected for a while, then he said, ‘The life blood of some mother, some human being has been poured into making those sheets. That human effort should be treated with respect,’ he said. The townsmen left satisfied that Buddha had chosen well.

A Yellow Box

Breaking the boundaries and thinking outside the box can have interesting results.

Space is often treated like a closed box. The Japanese poets have always spoken of the skyscape and trees and landscape being part of the living space. Designs should celebrate the sky and trees that surround the space. Consider the concept of stress-free architecture. Old Indian village homes had a pot of water at the entrance to wash ones feet and face. How would it be to walk through water as you enter a house?

The Japanese who have a culture of discipline where one rarely disagrees with an elder, keep punching bags in their offices to combat increasing levels of daily stress and long working hours, I would recommend a stress-busting corner in every working and living space. A place to absorb the earth’s energy by walking barefoot on a safe, springy patch of grass. A central space in skyscrapers, where trees can grow and birds can sing and sunshine can pour into the hearts of concrete jungles. I still remember the circular shape of a hospital in Mangalore, with its gardens and flowing water in the middle. ‘No one can get well, if they cannot see the sky, smell the flowers and hear the flowing water,’ said its chairman.

The Belur Halebid sculptures were originally lit up with sunlight falling on strategically placed mirrors. The mirrors are gone, but, light still falls on these works of sublime art. Mirrors can be used to bring gardens into the space. Homes should celebrate light and air. Sunlight can pour into homes and sleep curled up like a warm puppy on the carpet.

Living spaces should have plenty of touchable, soft, stress-reducing objects and textures.

Monster of Anger

The monsters of anger, greed and jealousy, shroud the gardens of the mind, poisoning the blood and turning it into a desolate wasteland of disease. Today, so much of our lives are spent in the office. The corporate jungle takes an unimaginable toll on the heart. Nature’s ultimate survival mechanism of fight or flight becomes a chronic response. This is because of the endless deadlines, the deadly competitiveness and the need for a constant state of high alert. One crisis leads to another. The body is constantly awash with the fight and flight response, resulting from a threat to survival.

Such a response is like using an atom bomb to kill an ant —totally inappropriate. But awareness is absent and the body responds as though to annihilation, moment to moment. Due to the modern urge to change jobs rapidly, many executives find themselves in threatening environments surrounded by potential enemies. They have had no time to develop friends or trusted supports. Every day they walk into the modern equivalent of a jungle infested with wild animals and danger. Family support systems are far away. Nuclear families build up explosive pressure due to a revolution of rising expectations, fuelled by the media.

Avoid Loneliness

Reisman speaks of the ‘lonely crowd’. Loneliness, a sense of exclusion, is a poison that can cause illness as easily as a virus or bacteria. Loneliness is the most lethal of all modern diseases. For example, newly widowed women have a higher rate of breast cancer than wives or single women.

The break-up of community feelings, urbanisation, highly competitive workplaces, have increased the possibility of toxic workplaces.

Learning the Relaxation Response through meditation, yoga nidra, prayer or even deep breathing will help you identify the state of your body when you are relaxed, and the acceleration of the system when you are in the clutches of the Big Five emotions kama, krodha, madha, lobha and matsarya (lust, anger, possessiveness, greed and jealousy). Mindfulness will help you unclench and relax the muscles, slow down the racing heartbeat. You can start by consciously breathing slowly and calmly.

Doing a good deed or helping others seems to have an enhanced immune response. Watching a film about Mother Theresa is also known to enhance positive emotions. Welcome and embrace active positive emotions. They are the success of life, the secret of health, the foundation of energy. This may be the reason for the success of movements like Rotary and Lions, organisation that practice service as a way of life.

Enjoy Your Work

Many of us spend most of our time at work. If we do not enjoy our work, if we feel overwhelmed by it, it will surely damage us. The constant pressure of negative emotions causes inescapable damage to our arteries and other delicate tissues. It also slows down the body’s capacity to repair this damage.

To work at something you love, to be ‘self-actualized’ in Maslow’s terms, is to protect yourself against dying young. As Khalil Gibran wrote, ‘What is it to work with love?... It is to weave the cloth from the strings of your heart, as though your beloved were to wear it.’

Politics can make your blood boil with suppressed rage and unexpressed anxiety. ‘Fast tracking,’ being a corporate star, will extract the inevitable price of damage to arteries if you are not ‘mindful’, if you are not aware of the impact of everything you do on your system.

Affirmations for Family Bonding

(Sit with eyes closed and silently affirm)

 I have a safe and happy home.

 I enjoy unconditional love.

 The food I eat and the water I drink here nourish me.

 God blesses us and keeps our children safe.

 This home is a sanctuary and a refuge.

 All conflicts can be solved.

Women in New Era

Relearn and re-install the ultimate software of the human heart, that their mothers embodied. The matchless ‘navarasa’ of emotional intelligence explored by Bharata’s two-thousand-year-old Natya Shastra, predates Daniel Goleman by several centuries. The New Woman of the past decade has often forsaken her heritage of loving, caring and affirmation for the tough hard bitten so called ‘male boss model.’ Both men and women managers need to put the human being at the centre of all business processes. Substance is winning the battle that style has waged on corporate battle-fields.

Be kind to yourself. Love yourself. Woman managers need to appreciate that it takes heroic energy to rock the cradle and rock the corporate world. First pin a badge for bravery on yourself for attempting it. Then, promise you will not even begin to tread the path that leads to the joyless land of being a super-woman or super-mom. Enlist your men and families as willing accomplices in the challenging task of reconstructing a corporate workplace that lovingly accommodates the needs of humans, for families, for music, poetry and time for just standing and watching the world go by!