Involve in Happiness Creating Activities

• Singing together.

• Thanking your gurus.

• Being loving and giving affirmations to parents and elders.

• Forgiving those who harmed you in your life—let go.

• Calling forth the highest from others.

• Thinking of God, the source of all abundance.

• Celebrating Abundance. Praising God.

Celebrate Everyday

The poorest among mankind celebrate and give thanksgiving to the gift of life and the bounty of Nature. All over the world, harvest is a time for rejoicing. In early January, the whole village celebrates Pongal in Tamil Nadu. The four-day long festivities are like an island of joy in the midst of life’s stormy business. All old things are burnt in a huge bonfire. New clothes are worn. Overflowing joy and good fortune are celebrated by the Pongal pot of plenty which boils over with rice and jaggery that will be eaten at the celebration. The house is newly painted and decorated. A whole day is devoted to tending to cows. Their horns are painted and bodies decorated, and they are given rest and good food. The last day is devoted to going out and seeing friends and relatives, watching movies and generally celebrating life. The saying is that when the ‘Thai’ month (that starts in mid-January every year) is born, a way will be found to solve all problems.

Celebrations lift you out of the trough of despondency. They fill you with the energy to make a new beginning with the help of God and the family. Why can’t we make every day an occasion to rejoice? It is up to each family to celebrate and enjoy life on a regular basis. A special movie on television can be celebrated with hot popcorn, dinners on Saturday nights can be an opportunity to dress up. We can make affirmations for the family a way of life

Need of Family Network

Today, however, the family, as the ‘shock absorber of society, to which the bruised and battered individual returns after doing battle with the world,’ in the words of Alvin Toffler in his landmark work Future Shock, is going through a transitional phase. The breakdown of the joint family has led to a  loosening of extended family relationships. The powerful mother-in-law of the joint family is emerging as the subdued caretaker of children, helping the educated daughter-in-law augment the double income of all upwardly mobile young couples. The large, amorphous, supportive joint family that supported a wide variety of people and bestowed unconditional love for the crippled, the old and the helpless, has been reduced to the nuclear family where everyone is in sharp focus. Much like the modern  corporation, there is no place to hide, no place for passengers, and everyone has to pull their own weight. It is our mission to restore to it its traditional role as a place of rest and healing, albeit in a new paradigm. There should be one person in the family who can cushion the blows of the outside world. Someone who is not too busy to listen, give support, and manage the daily tasks of living. This could even be a paid caregiver or cook. Networking with parents, in-laws, neighbours, domestic help and friends is the key for working mothers.

Tips to be healthy

•    Take care of your health. You cannot deliver a prize-winning performance with a broken-down body.

• Force the world to look at issues like: What kind of world are we leaving for our children? Where have leisure, poetry and caring been banished? Why has the door been shut on the smiles and joy of our children? Why do we have no time for our friends or small acts of kindness? Why are deadlines so terrible that they extract death as the price? None of us would mind dying for great causes, but to diefor a power-point presentation, seems slightly frivolous.

• Do not get stereotyped into how others see your role: as a mother or an all forgiving rescuer in the workplace. Encourage men to discover their so-called feminine qualities of sensitivity and caring. Do not

stereotype men!

• Affirm women who are role models instead of trying to find chinks in their armour. Network with them. There is a queen-bee complex, which causes successful women managers to surround themselves

with male managers and discourage the entry of women. Identify this and speak up when required.

• There are points in a woman’s life-cycle when her intensive physical presence is needed. There are high priority interactions which cannot be delegated. Build a support system with family, household staff, neighbours and friends to help you enjoy these times. Men too have been deprived of active participation in these peak experiences in the past. Make your company recognise and

respond to these realities.

• Hitch your wagon to the pursuit of daily and consistent learning. Be Saraswati. Bring your heritage of creating wholeness from leftovers, and wealth from waste. Be Lakshmi. Call forth the courage to speak, write and act for what is true and good for all. Be Shakti. Be all woman. Be all human. Celebrate the fact that you a woman.

Tips to Assess family welfare

Here are some questions which helps you to understand your family welfare.

1. Is your family important to you?

2. Do you spend quality time with members of your family?

3. Would you like to increase the amount of quality time you spend with your family?

4. Does your family include those outside the nuclear family?

5. Is your family linked together through the internet, letters or phone calls?

6. Is respect from your family important to you?

7. Do you show appreciation for things your family has done for you?

8. Do you seek to make your family life different from what it is today?

9. Do you do things to bring about a happier marriage and family life?

10. Do you seek out books and classes that would help you to be a successful parent?

11. Do alcohol and tobacco play a part in your life? Is it a problem?

12. Do you speak up too much or too little in your family?

13. Is there too much fighting in your family?

14. Do you have a bad temper?

15. Does your family do fun things together?

16. Are you considerate in handling of misunderstandings between family members?

17. Do you come from a broken or divorced family?

18. Given the present situation, is there anything you could do to strengthen family ties?

19. Could you possibly use outside help such as counsellors and friends, to assist you in attaining a solid family now or in the future?

a. Good: More than 10 Yeses

b. Adequate: More than 6 Yeses

c. Poor: Less than 5 Yeses

Good out of Bad

Our life provides us with a chance to achieve the highest in ourselves, by using pain as stepping-stones to enlightenment. No one can avoid bad times, but we can ensure that we look at this time as a time for growth and learning. When the mind-numbing pain that immediately follows loss has subsided, we can take proactive steps to provide emergency attention to heal our body, mind and spirit. Pour music into soul. Touch people whom we love. Explore new places. Reach into great books and study alternate futures. Pamper yourself and ask your loved ones for hugs. Meditate. Be silent. Plug into the universe. Let go. Let God catch you. Our sankalpa or intention must be pure. Be clear about the goal. Be non-judgemental. Love and seek to understand with tenderness. Learn and immerse yourself in knowledge. Learn all we can about our chosen field from books, internet, from people, competitors. Remain focused. Never give up. Never, ever!

Happiness Mantras to Improve our Wellness

v  The world is like a buffet counter at a five-star hotel. Let’s not grab everything on our plates. Let us be choosy, so that we may avoid spiritual indigestion and physical exhaustion.

v  Let us replace stress with positive emotions that engender joy. Let us increase our HQ.

v  ‘I felt like a waterfall,’ said Diane Roffe-Stainrotter, gold-medallist skier in the 1994 Winter Olympics. The joy of a job perfectly executed, fills the body with the chemicals of bliss.

v  Professor Mihalyi Csikzent speaks about a state called the flow, which athletes, musicians, surgeons—in fact everyone—experiences when they are at their best. It is the experience of doing your job with  total immersion in it. So absorbed are you, that there is no place for anxiety or niggling worries.

v  Finding a job you love is one of the ways you can immunise yourself against heart problems.

v  A good marriage is a protective shield against heart attacks.