February 25th, 2008
Happiness At Midlife
If you don’t think of yourself as a happy person, then why not take this time of midlife to make a change around that?
I saw a brief clip of a television interview with the author who wrote the newest book on happiness. The author, Sonya Lyubomirsky calls her research based book, The How of Happiness. She is a researcher and made some really great points in the interview. She said that up to 40% of our happiness is within our control, via different ways to be, think and act!
Some of it is genetically predetermined or determined by our circumstances, but this can be overcome. Yippy!
One thing that amazed me is that it can be visible to the onlooker whether an elderly person had more smiles or more frowns throughout his or her life! This is obvious by the tiny etched wrinkles that they have that denotes a lot of smiling or a lot of frowning. That was interesting. I plan to work towards having my wrinkles etched in the form of smile wrinkles! That is my intention!
One of her biggest ways to increase your happiness is creating thorough awareness of the idea of gratitude. This can be done by counting our blessings, thanking others, and not taking what we have for granted!
Over and over we hear of the use of gratitude as being one of the best ways to increase our happiness. That best technique that I learned to work with my gratitude is the gratitude journal. This is especially helpful during times of stress! The thing to do is to keep a journal or notebook by your bed, and prior to falling asleep, make a note of 3 to 5 things that you are grateful for.
Some days this can be simple. During really big challenges you may have to think up the most basic things, such as breathing! This will put you on the path to being a happier person. I am sure I have discussed gratitude before in this blog, but once again I am inspired by the research of this author and I will place my attention on the tips she gives to change what we can change around our own happiness.
I also see this work as building my resilience by finding better ways to think and make choices. I am making the choice to work within what I am able to control, and to take responsibility for my thoughts and behaviors.
What better time to enhance our happiness than in our midlife?
To your success,
Lorraine
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