Project Happiness Articles

Acknowledge and Fight the Stigma – A recent NPR interview with Author and Professor Dr. Anthony Rostain discusses the burgeoning mental health epidemic on college campuses. A record number of students are feeling anxious and find it difficult to get help even though they know it is available. In some cases, students might even be adamantly against it. Why? Well, the reasons vary but one stands out – denial or procrastination. Only 1 in 4 students get the counseling.  

What does the word happiness mean to you? Though we all want the same thing, happiness, love, to live a meaningful life, to rise to our potential, there is no set formula – the path is different for each one of us. But one thing is sure: happiness is at the core. Our natural state is one of joy; we are here to feel alive. When we vibrate from a place of joy, we are attuned to who we really are. This allows life to open up to us, and allows us to meet that energy in ways we might not have previously imagined.

There's a lot to consider when we're passionate people feeling strongly about ten different things at once - motivation, resources, priorities, time management, etc. I know for me, I find it challenging to balance what's most important, what is calling me loudest and give it sufficient attention, without worrying about what's going to the wayside in the meantime. So lately, I've been thinking seriously about what exactly it is that I want to do. What is it that I want to be working on right now to be where I want to be.

Connection is my shorthand for the incomparable bliss of knowing and embracing your values and true self, authentically moving through the world nurturing positive connections with other people and the world around you. The idea of connecting (to your own self, to other people, and to any other aspect of our lives) is something with intuitive appeal for us. Life is really all about relationships – how we relate to ourselves, to others, to the world, to our work, etc. What would happen if we focused on strengthening all of those relationships, instead of trying to be “happy”?

We all can learn to embrace the power of our emotions, and instead of being hijacked by them, use them as an inner GPS to create the life we love. It is 100% possible and more intuitive than you think. Know that everything you need is inside of you – this is a reminder of how to get back to your true nature, back to your calm, strong and very best self.

Anger is a signal that something is not right - maybe a boundary has been violated, maybe you feel you are being prevented from getting something you really want; perhaps you have been hurt so much that you cannot take it anymore, maybe you feel appalled or helpless about some circumstances or situation right now.

Though there are various systems of organizing emotions – ranging from five individual “families” of emotions (enjoyment, anger, fear, disgust, and sadness), to seven, to ten emotions, all the way to the latest research by Dr. Dacher Keltner and Alan Cohen pointing to smooth gradients of twenty-seven emotions. Brené Brown’s research has highlighted thirty emotions. For the purpose of this book, in order to take a deep dive on selected emotions, I have narrowed it down to the ten. Each one is more fascinating than the last. 

Many of us do not learn enough tools when growing up to manage stress. Unless we take the initiative to learn alternative coping strategies, we respond to stress with the same patterns we have learned as children. Ten years ago as a pre-med college student, I was so stressed out that I wanted to drop out of college. I believed that I had to be perfect in order to be successful. I feared failure. I knew I needed to make a radical shift, so I started to see a mind-body therapist and adopt a meditation and yoga practice. These practices provided me with some starting tools to retrain my brain to handle stressors with resilience. 

A little over a year ago, I was shocked with the most painful news of my life. I was sitting on a train from San Diego en route to LA, and my father called from the Philippines to tell me that my mother had passed away. An electric shock sensation crawled down my spine and I started to wail on a train full of strangers. I was an ocean away, so far from my family that my mind could not register the painful reality. My mother had no debilitating or life-threatening conditions to the knowledge of myself and my family.

A typical classroom is not necessarily conducive to talking about personal topics. In fact, it's just the opposite - it's set up for learning, not "venting." Project Happiness Curriculum and Handbook ask students to open up and to become vulnerable so that personal growth can occur.  In order for students to feel comfortable, facilitators must explicitly establish a safe space when working our program.