Project Happiness Articles — peace

When I’d encounter myself in high-stress situations, I would engage in the following 5-minute exercise, which is extremely efficient if you feel a lot of nervousness and you need to be quickly calmed down (i.e: when looking for a job, before an interview, before a presentation, before asking for a raise). You can do it wherever and whenever you want.

If happiness is available to us at any moment through the power of our minds, why does it sometimes seem so hard to do? When our thoughts run amok, how do we choose better ones? We’ve all had those experiences (moments, hours, even days!) when finding a happier thought seemed nearly impossible. When endless loops of worry, frustration, overwhelm, etc. not only challenged our ability to find our happy place, they caused us to forget we even had the choice.

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.

Sleep is a crucial part of the day and decides how the next day will play out for us. Too much sleep and we might miss out on important tasks. Not getting enough sleep will result in lack of energy throughout the day. With all the changes in lifestyle over the past decade, stress is always looming over the head and frequently prevents us from getting a good night of sleep. Here are some things to keep in mind when setting up your regular place to sleep.

As a licensed naturopathic physician with twenty years of integrative medical practice under my belt, I have seen over and over again that when people are trying to make change—whether this is a diet change, a lifestyle change, or an attitude change—their limitations, habits, and tendencies can get in the way of their best intentions.

I am a woman who has started over many times and a certain joy accompanies the task of unpacking, at rediscovering a teapot, a vase, pieces of my self I temporarily forgot in the span of mere days, of choosing where these belongings should be placed within the walls of the new home where I prepare to start my life yet again. But as I begin to unpack I’m struck with realization: these aren’t my boxes.

For someone who has spent a lot of time fighting for a more positive, fulfilled life and committing to never give up on attaining mental freedom, surrendering wouldn’t have come up as a word I ever particularly resonated with. It didn’t ooze the strength and tenacity that I wanted to exude; my mind equated it with weakness and would stubbornly avoid that idea of it.

When you’re feeling down and out, or generally just low, do you ever feel pressured to pull yourself out of it as soon as possible? To constantly appear happy? But what if we accept that not being okay, is very much part of being okay; how might this impact our personal journey?

And so it begins—the willingness to subsume our own will because of the uniquely uncomfortable feeling that comes from saying no. This phenomenon is by no means confined to youth. All of us, at some point or another, have found ourselves coming up with excuses of our own. 

At first, this title makes us feel like we’re entering a dark room. But I promise this darkness won’t stay for long, and by the end of the article, as our mind understands and gets comfortable with this truth of life, we will see bursts of light.