Posts Tagged ‘Happiness’

The Art of Forgiving

Monday, May 10th, 2010

Time does not heal all wounds!

I have heard it said that “withholding forgiveness is like grabbing on to a red-hot coal with the intention of throwing it at someone.” Perhaps you have heard that “not forgiving is like swallowing a slow acting poison hoping it will harm someone else.” Let’s face it, forgiveness is not about the person who has hurt or offended you, it is all about you. Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself - a gift that has enormous benefits and keeps on giving.

In my next book, Don’t let the past ruin your day – How to go from Victim to Hero in Ninety Seconds! (due out next spring) I share how forgiveness is a pathway to happiness that helps you rise above being a victim to being the hero of your own life.  You see, forgiveness is a reflection of your self-worth and integrity and allows you to identify yourself, not by past events, injuries or offences, but by who you are, what you represent and how you feel about yourself. In fact, forgiveness is one of the ways you can start to re-build your self-worth.

Many times we approach forgiving as an outward event, something we ‘give’ to someone else. I believe that the first step to forgiving is to recognize your own value, your own self-worth and how much you deserve emotional freedom.  It is more like a ‘gift’ we give ourselves.

For example, let’s say that you have been wronged by some injustice. Would you drive to the county jail and lock yourself in a cell? Sounds absurd doesn’t it? Well, the truth is that when you have been wronged and don’t take steps to forgive you end up losing some your emotional freedom as if you are locked up in some kind of emotional jail cell. Set yourself free by learning how to forgive, practicing it and doing it regularly.

In most cases you are the one hurting the most and the person you are blaming has likely moved on and doesn’t feel as bad as you do.

You make the choice to stop hurting when you reach the point of wanting to take your life back and that you want to heal. When you finally reach that point forgiveness becomes a real possibility.

Let’s not kid ourselves by thinking that forgiveness is easy or that it is unnecessary or that we have already forgiven something that still bothers us and causes us pain. Deciding to forgive someone who has harmed you is a hard choice to make. There are some hurts, offenses, betrayals and abuse that seem too horrible to forgive.  Because we are human, because of our programming our natural response is to seek revenge and to get even and demand an apology or retribution.

We should also remember that the one person who deserves your forgiveness more than anyone else is you!

Forgiveness is both a daily practice and a journey but one that can release us from bitterness and hatred. Think of how much room you would have for happiness by unloading the burden of past offenses. Yes, forgiveness is a journey but we begin healing from the very first step.

When we forgive with real intent we break out of the emotional prison we have built up around us. You can break free; you can feel peace, happiness instead of bitterness and anger. Do it today!

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Cultivating Optimism, Emotional Addiction, Forgivenss, Happiness | No Comments »

Got Self-Esteem?

Friday, January 29th, 2010

Is self-esteem real? Does it exist or is it just an excuse to judge ourselves and others? While the answers to these questions may seem obvious, self-esteem is only as real as we make it. Self-esteem cannot be as easily measured as someone’s height, weight or strength. Self-esteem is a mental phenomenon with no standard or objective way of measuring. We are all left up to our own internal yardstick of what is high or low self-esteem.

Typically it is much easier to detect self-esteem in others than it is to measure or detect our own. The irony is that most of our interpersonal judgments are determined by our self-esteem. For instance we may admire someone who is successful in business, wealthy, has a nice car and wears nice clothes as someone who has high self-esteem. However, their success could be a way of compensating for low self-esteem.

As much as we are tempted to assess self-esteem by external conditions such as title, position, wealth, and even beauty, self-esteem is best determined by how we interact with and respond to situations, circumstances and other people. In general a person with high self-esteem will respond by being:

  • Understanding and supportive of others
  • willing to listen first
  • giving
  • eager to learn new things  
  • able to change beliefs and behaviors based on new knowledge.

(more…)

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized, self-esteem | 1 Comment »

Cultivating Optimism

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

This past week I went to prison. Not for a crime, but to conduct several sessions on Cultivating Optimism. You may think that prison is an unlikely place for a topic such as optimism but I learned the opposite – that optimism is crucial in such a negative environment. Many of us experience negativity and stress every day – optimism can make a real difference in your life!

How many of us feel as if we are in prison? My coaching clients often tell me they feel stuck in a job they don’t like, in a marriage that isn’t working, or they feel they need to walk on eggshells. Isn’t that like an emotional prison?  While they may not be incarcerated they are held captive by their own thinking and believe that their situation is making them unhappy. There have been many studies that substantiate the idea that only about 10% of our life satisfaction and happiness is derived from our circumstances. Your circumstances are not the source of your unhappiness.

You can learn to be optimistic. Optimism is a skill. Becoming optimistic simply requires some attention and self-discipline. In the “Cultivating Optimism” sessions I taught the inmates the 4 powerful steps to create optimism through exercises in gratitude, reframing adversity, creating positive self-image and learning to not overthink.

Gratitude, if approached with some seriousness can lift your mood and help you see that life isn’t all that bad. When we experience adversity, it is easy to blame others and become pessimistic. You can learn to turn adversity into opportunity in a way that creates positive emotions which is critical to being optimistic. Too often people label themselves as a pessimist or an optimist. This flows from your self-image. You can create a new self-image of optimism. Lastly, if you are someone who ruminates and overthinks, learning how to stop overthinking can create hope instead of negativity.

To some degree we are all in a prison, held captive by our attitude and perception. Optimism is a skill that you can learn. Feeling grateful, overcoming adversity, improving your self-image and learning how to not overthink will help you break free from pessimism and unlock your potential to be optimistic. Optimists are healthier, have better jobs, handle stress and trauma better and live longer. Those benefits alone should be enough to motivate you to learn to cultivate optimism in your daily life. Looking on the bright side just became a whole lot easier.

Kirk

Tags: ,
Posted in Cultivating Optimism, Happiness | 7 Comments »

What makes you unhappy? Do you really know?

Monday, September 14th, 2009

Do you know what makes you happy? Do you know what makes you unhappy or what would be devastating in your life? Believe it or not, very few of us are good at emotional forecasting. In other words, even though we think we know what would make us happy and what would make us sad, it is usually not the case.

Let’s use this example. In a recent study, a group of more than 500 people were asked what would make them happy. Many of their responses included, “spending time with family.” The researchers gave each person in the study a PDA to record their level of happiness and satisfaction each hour of the day and to record what it was they were doing at the time. The results are not what you would expect. By a large margin people scored their happiness and satisfaction higher when they were at work and experienced less happiness and satisfaction when they were at home or with their family.

Another landmark study by Phillip Brickman compared the life satisfaction of lottery winners to quadriplegics. Both groups demonstrated the same level of happiness and satisfaction with the quadriplegics often saying they had a higher quality of life after being paralyzed.

Even though we think we know what will make us happy and what will not, we are actually not very good at predicting it. Why? Because we have an amazing emotional immune system. This immune system allows us to overcome obstacles and rise to the occasion. Additionally, we have been conditioned that external factors make us happy when in fact, happiness is an inside job. It is created from within.

Kirk

Tags: , ,
Posted in Happiness | 5 Comments »

How long is a minute?

Sunday, September 13th, 2009

Is a minute really only 60 seconds?  The scientific answer is yes. However, the real answer is: ‘it depends.’ A minute on the treadmill is longer than a minute watching an action movie. A minute of in the dentist’s chair with a drill is longer than a minute eating ice cream.

I know what you’re thinking, “it isn’t really longer, it just seems longer,” and you’re right. I remember a cartoon that said, “How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you’re on.” When we are doing something we like, time seems to fly by. When we are faced with doing something we dislike, then a minute seems to drag on and on and on.

Let’s use this to our advantage and unlock the secret of making time move faster when we don’t like what we are doing. Wouldn’t that make life so much easier? I think it would. I call this the Law of Distraction – when you allow yourself to be distracted so that the unpleasant things you have to do don’t seem so distasteful. Next time you are at the gym notice how many people are wearing headphones and listing to music. They are trying to distract themselves from the monotonous chore of exercising. The Law of Distraction works wonders and takes just a little practice. When I was in law school I would open a bag of M&M’s and treat myself to one piece of candy after every chapter. It was just a small incentive but enough to motivate me and distract me from how much homework I had to do. You have many opportunities to incent yourself or distract yourself with positive things to take your mind off of something unpleasant. The trick is to not just be distracted but to purposefully distract yourself with something positive. It may take some planning on your part but it will pay off in big dividends. You will have with more energy, a better disposition, and you will be more productive and more creative.

Whenever you are faced with something you don’t want to do or something you have to do though you dislike it – distract yourself with positive thinking. Listen to a favorite song, treat yourself to an ice cream upon completion o f the task, or simply pick a reason to do the task that is meaningful and significant to you. You can distract yourself with positive thinking as much as you can be distracted by other things.

The Law of Distraction will help you enjoy things that you typically dislike. It will help you be happier. How long is a minute? Well, it’s up to you!

Kirk


Tags: , ,
Posted in Happiness, Law of Distraction | No Comments »

Housework and happiness

Friday, September 11th, 2009

Who likes to do housework? I have met a few people that say they love to do housework mostly because it is a distraction from other things. But have you ever met anyone who is ‘happy’ when they do the household chores like laundry, vacuuming and washing windows? There are a few that can afford to pay someone to do those things but for the most part we all have to juggle our schedules and include housework on our already busy schedule.

The more you hate housework the harder it will be. You will find every excuse to not get it done. That could mean the laundry piles up to look like Mount Everest requiring a SWAT team to tackle it. Or the dishes start to grow strange things in the sink. Don’t worry, we have all been there.

What if you could change all that? I have not met anyone that can crinkle their nose like on Bewitched and make it go away, but what if you could change how you feel about it? If you could, it would make all the difference.

Try this out. STOP THINKING about it and just do it. Too often we assign emotion and feeling to things we don’t want to do. It may be too big of a step to like something you don’t like to do or don’t want to do so I suggest something a bit more realistic. Remove all emotion from the task. I know this sounds crazy, but become an emotional robot when you are doing the housework and try to do the task without any feeling at all good or bad. Try and not think about it too much and just do it.

After awhile of practicing being emotion-less about housework you will find that negativity will disappear. Often times, the absence of negative feelings is actually positive. By removing the emotions you will eventually have a more positive experience. This doesn’t just apply to housework, it can apply to anything you don’t want to do, but must do.

E. M.  Gray, in a famous essay, “The Common Denominator of Success,” written more than 50 years ago, says, “Successful people have a habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do.” He goes on to say that successful people don’t like doing them either but they subordinate the feeling of dislike to get the task done. You too can do this by first not feeling anything and then letting a more positive emotion grow inside of you.
Kirk


Tags: , ,
Posted in Happiness, Home | No Comments »