Raising Happiness

What has your stuff done for you lately?

2012-03-22T19:55:00.001+11:00

What are we so attached to our stuff?

We spend a lifetime collecting it: filling first our toy-box, then our room, our computer, our car, and eventually our homes with it. When our homes begin overflowing, we fill the garage and if we run out of room there, we pay the storage industry to stock more of it.

Sometimes we toss it. Or we sort it. There's a whole other industry set up now to help you declutter and organise your stuff. Occasionally we recycle it. But mostly, once we've tossed and decluttered our stuff, we go and get more. New stuff.

And it gets worse. We collect stuff in our minds. Painful thoughts about the past. Worries about the future. Concerns about the debt we've accumulated from buying all of our stuff.

Why?

We love our stuff; yet it cannot love us.
We protect our stuff; yet it offers us no protection in return.
We make sacrifices for our stuff - our money, our time, our energy, our emotional health, even our relationships with others; has your stuff ever sacrificed anything for you?
We collect our stuff; yet the more we have, the less we appreciate it.

We think our stuff makes us happy. Or valuable. Or good enough. Or attractive. Maybe successful.

It's bullshit.

When was the last time a piece of your stuff made you happy? For how long did the feeling last? Was it the stuff that gave you the feeling or the thoughts you had at that moment? I'm betting it was the thoughts. Your car can't make you happy. Neither can your handbag. They're inanimate objects. You make them mean something by what you tell yourself in your head. Or put another way, your thoughts about your car make you happy.

Recently I was sent a link to a TED talk given by Adam Baker. Haven't heard of him? Do yourself a huge favour and listen to his mind-opening story here. One night, Adam and his wife took a moment to stop, and step outside of the socially-conditioned discourse that they had previously accepted without question: the one that says go to school, study, go to college, get in debt, buy a dwelling, get in more debt, and fill it with stuff. They began to really look at the story: What effect was it having on them? They had followed it without question until now but did they even want it?

Turns out they didn't.

So they got a new story, began taking new actions, and radically changed their lives.

How about you? What has your stuff done for you lately?

Stop what you're doing, and start paying attention

2012-03-12T15:03:00.005+11:00

A friend of mine (also a psychologist) dropped by my place last week to grab something I'd borrowed from her a while back. As she got out of the car, simultaneously waving at me, ending a chat with someone on her mobile phone, recalling what errands were next on her list and trying to put up her umbrella, she joked that she was mindful of her brain being scattered in a dozen different directions. Sound familiar?

Psychologists talk about mindfulness a lot... it's been proven to be a highly effective practice in reducing stress, managing anxiety, dealing with chronic pain and a host of other things. For those of you who have never heard the term much less have the foggiest what it means, I'll explain: simply put, mindfulness is about focusing your attention in the present moment. You may argue that your attention is focused right now on the words you're reading. That's awesome, but to really be mindful, the challenge is to try and become aware of not just the words you're seeing on the screen, but of the thoughts generated in your mind, the sensations going on in your body, the sounds around you, the emotions you feel... Basically every rich piece of information that is available to you from outside of you in your environment, and within your own mind and body.

Real awareness can be a lot harder to accomplish than it might seem. Living in today's fast paced world, with distractions aplenty, our brains have become used to constantly switching attention from one thing to another. We eat dinner in front of the TV. We type emails, tweet, make dinner and supervise homework all while on the phone. We play Angry Birds while patting our toddlers to sleep (yes, guilty).

Some people would argue that this is productive, efficient even. Indeed, many individuals wear their ability to multi-task as a badge of honour (yes ladies, I'm speaking directly to you!) In fact, neuroscientists have demonstrated that when we try to do several tasks at once, we're really just switching our attention back and forth from one thing to another (usually compromising productivity and performance along the way).

But mindfulness brings us much more than better performance. It helps us to tune in. To be present. To really notice life (see it, taste it, smell it, feel it) rather than pass it by with the speed of a bullet-train. With that experiencing comes the awareness that every thought, feeling, sensation, and circumstance in life changes as frequently as the weather, without us needing to do anything about it other than be with it and accept it.

That's right, I said not needing to do anything. The practice of mindfulness is exquisitely simple. All you have to do is be aware of all that's going on, from moment to moment, and just be with it. Not trying to get anywhere, or achieve anything.

'But what's the point in that?' my clients often ask.

The point is that we spend massive amounts of energy worrying about things that happened last week, planning days and weeks that haven't arrived yet, and balancing twenty or so tasks in our heads even though we can physically only do one thing at a time.

The point is also that many of us are not very comfortable with sitting with stuff we don't like (myself included). If faced with a problem or uncomfortable feeling, thought or situation, rather than just sit with that discomfort we rush to fix it, avoid it, change it, get distracted, procrastinate, analyse, exercise, eat, drink, shop, email, tweet, etc. Very often the activity we bury ourselves in does nothing to really change the problem we first had. If we had done nothing, and let ourselves tolerate the discomfort and accept it, we often find something changes anyway. Our feelings subside, our discomfort decreases, or the problem ceases to be such an issue. Typically, just accepting that something is bothering us results in the angst drifting away.

So, although I've hopefully convinced you of the proven benefits of mindfulness, in truth, mindfulness is not really about getting anything. It's about letting go of things. And in the letting go, there is acceptance, joy, and real freedom.

A slow weekend

2012-03-05T16:18:00.003+11:00

I found myself yearning to slow down this past weekend. Last week was crazy busy: a blur of appointments, unexpected visitors, work deadlines, a sick toddler and tearful goodbyes as The Wrecker departed for one of his long stints away in Japan.

Is it any wonder that once the waves of chaos receded, I pulled out some cookbooks and began to bake. I felt the stresses of the week and my mental to-do list fade away as I got lost in the kneading of dough, the slicing of apples, and the smells of cake and baguettes drifting through the house.

What is it about food, not just the eating of it, but the chopping, mixing, and cooking, that has such a meditative effect on us? The psychologist in me has a few theories: it's the ultimate way of caring for the body and (given our lifelong conditioning) the soul; it requires some level of focus, which by default means we're mindful, rather than thinking about the to-do list, or yesterday's bills; it slows us down; enables us to be creative, productive, methodical. For me, the real reward comes from choosing to do something that takes me out of my head for a while and into my body and my senses. Even better, it's an activity that isn't a have to. It's not like I was rushing to finish the evening meal (although I could have easily sat down to a plate of cake for dinner!) And I shared it, allowing others to enjoy what I had made. What better way to channel a week of stress into something really positive, with the people I love?

Who Am I? Really?

2012-02-15T10:15:00.000+11:00

I have a confession to make.

Ever since Miss Pink entered my world two years ago, I have grappled with my identity. Who am I? Mummy Debbie? Career Debbie? Wife Debbie? Gym Debbie? (actually that last one's a bit of a ~~joke~~ fantasy.. Gym Debbie never really gets much of a look-in. Walking-Outdoors Debbie is more my style).

Has this happened to you? A significant life event has left you reeling from the changes it brings, and you try to grasp the scattered pieces of your life, of your self, and put them back into some sort of order?
Don't get me wrong: Miss Pink's arrival into the world was one of the best things to ever have happened in my life. But it certainly blew all of my carefully arranged plans and expectations into the stratosphere. Sitting together on the rocking chair gazing at the sunset? I think not. Who has time to sit down during cactus hour whilst trying to bath and dress an irate two year old intent on playing 'name that tune.. NOW MUMMY!'

For a long while I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure out what roles I should play and in what precise combination. Should I be a stay at home Mum? Should I work? Should I put Miss Pink in childcare? Should I enrol in further study? Contemplate a career change? Eat organic? I was under some kind of delusion that if I somehow found the right 'fit' of all of these parts of me, I'd reach a point of peace and happiness. Perhaps I was trying to regain a sense of control where it really didn't exist.

I blame the self-help industry. The promises of north stars, essential selves, skinny bitches, finding your strengths, bodies for life, taming your toddlers (or teens/husbands), financial freedom..... while it's really healthy to consider one's wellbeing and take action to improve it, the risk is that we can be lured into a trap where we think that the grass really will be greener if we lose that baby weight, or find a job we feel more satisfied with, or if we finish that house renovation, or become a master chef. Even worse, when we try to make changes in our lives but we don't feel any better, we blame ourselves and feel even more futile.

The fantastic truth is, those changes in themselves do not have the power to make us happy. Losing 10kg means absolutely nothing until you attach some kind of meaning to it in your mind. (If, for example, you're in the grips of a chronic illness struggling to keep weight on, losing 10kg could spell disaster. On the other hand, if you are overweight, and you've been eating healthfully and moving your body each day, those lost 10kg can feel like a major triumph). So the 10kg, in truth, is totally neutral. We make it mean something (good or bad) with the view we take in our own mind.

To be fair, it can take time, lots of patience and persistence to change the mindsets that we so easily take for granted as being 'the truth'. There is so much conditioning to overcome, so much automatic thinking. But it can certainly be done (and in my view, it's definitely worth the effort). Who wants to hold onto a way of thinking that causes pain?

What does that mean for me in my 'which role' dilemma? I've stopped thinking about roles, and balancing acts, and end-points in general. I've begun to change how I look at my life: preferring to see it as a collection of days and seasons, an overlapping of the various 'hats' I wear which really, are all extensions of me, rather than individual chunks in my life. I've also spent time really thinking about what I need to do, what I have to do, and what I want to do. It's been a fun list to declutter and pare down (especially the have to's).

Now, if you'll excuse me, I absolutely need to go and make a coffee. And I really want to eat some chocolate. In my mind, that stuff is pure gold.