Survey on Happiness

A recent happiness survey shows that hairdressers have the highest levels of happiness at work! The reason? They are in direct touch withtheir customers. Chris Humphries, Director General of City and Guilds U.K., says: Nowadays, job satisfaction and happiness is about fulfilling your potential, tapping into your own creativity and feeling that you canmake a difference. Many are exchanging their desk-bound jobs for vocations that enable them to be hands-on, use their brains and be in-change of their own destiny. In a Guardian article by Laura Smith, two out of five hairdressers described themselves as extremely happy. She gives two reasons: 1. Creativity 2. Contact with customers

Meditation To Overcome Stress

One way to break the pattern of stressful living and strive for personal wellness is to change the responses to tough situations. There is, of course, no way to make the situations less tough. Meditation and pranayama provide a way of reducing the automatic and violent reactions to stress. You can actually control autonomous systems like heartbeat and pulse rate, which were thought to be outside the individual’s control. Knowing and practising meditation can provide you with a silent space where you can retreat into peace: slow breathing, steady heartbeat, low pulse. This space is always available within a person who has learnt to meditate. While you cannot change your job, family or your life-situation, you can certainly learn to breathe more peacefully, thus reversing the process of excitation and avoiding the emotional hijack. It is not possible to learn meditation by thinking about it, any more than it is possible to learn swimming by talking about it. If you have to swim, you have to get into the water. Learning meditation and understanding your breathing patterns through pranayama are the best investment you ever make. In India, there is no excuse not to learn these things. Stress need not be the reaction to the pace of your life. You can learn peaceful responses that protect your body.

Physical Wellness

Health is the foundation for a feeling of well being and joy. It is very difficult to be full of enthusiasm if you are not in a state of positive health. The absence of disease is no indication of this state of perfect health. It is only a hygiene factor for improving your Happiness Quotient. Just as you would not tolerate a minor malfunctioning in your car, so too, you and your doctor should be vigilant for the slightest disturbance in your state of health. Minor problems, aches and pains should be dealt with immediately, rather than be endured with gritted teeth. Listen to your body. If you are tried, rest. If you are hungry, eat. If you are lonely, communicate, ask for a hug. If you are angry, deal with your anger constructively, resolve it. The body is our vehicle for the journey of our soul in this world. You may be an immortal soul who happens to own a body, but the body-vehicle has to be maintained in good condition, so that we may achieve the goals for which we were created.

Elevate everyday experiences to the level of sacredness!

When work is done with love, it fills the body and mind with bliss and transforms any place into a sacred space. As Khalil Gibran writes in The Prophet, “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.” What is required to fill your blood with the chemicals of bliss is an attitude transplant. Soar on your positive attitude. Decide to approach all events, all people, and all things with affection, reverence and ‘Sraddha.’ This reverence is due to all, because of the divine spark that dwells in everyone whether he is a legend or a failure. Sometimes it is obvious. It is the silent flame of consciousness that reaches out to you from a flowering creeper or a healthy pet. Sometimes this life force has lost its vitality and is dimmed by dirt, lethargy and lack of care. Clean the glass of your Life’s lamp. Make the light shine through. It is essential to look into our emotional, mental and psychological environment, as our thoughts and emotions directly contribute to our wellbeing or otherwise. Meditation can clean up the field and contribute enormously to an individual’s psychological and physiological wellbeing.

Action Plan to Enhance Positives

• Write a love letter to your parents • Buy tickets to a music concert and give away some of it. • Treat yourself to a full moon dinner with loved ones. • Take your dog to the beach. • Plant a tree and take care of it (a tree is an oxygen factory). • Give away seeds. The monsoons are awaiting to make them grow • Feed the birds. Do God’s work

Celebrate the Positives

Celebrate the positive in all interactions. Rest assured that God did not create you for the sole purpose of correcting others or making them unhappy. When we say namaste, we say ‘I bow to the Divine in you’. ‘Vasudeva Kutumbakam’ say, our holy book – the whole world is your family. Imagine the rich network of love you could create, where your children can be nurtured if you believed and practiced this. The most inexpensive ticket to happiness is helping others and making others happy. So spread happiness like Amul butter on bread. It will stick to your fingers. Create a happiness committee in your street, which meets every month to create a happy street. Every month as you decide to install comfort touch, celebrate Diwali or have a painting competition for kids, neighbours become friends.

The First Radiant Action For Physical Wellness

Health is a state of physical, mental and social well-being, not merely an absence of diseases or infirmity. Really speaking, health is not a state but a continuous adjustment to the changing demands of life and the environment. Positive health implies perfect functioning of body and mind in a given society. All the ancients believed that no attempt should be made to cure the body without treating the soul. To be healthy is to have the ability, despite an occasional bout of illness, to live with full use of your faculties and to be vigorous, alert and happy to be alive, even in old age. This concept of operational health has been termed ‘wellness’. It is a sense of all-round well-being.