-
The Future We Choose
This week I covered Climate Change in the university tutorials. I read one of the recommended texts in preparation and got a quite crippling anxiety attack. Not that I’m not aware of Climate Change. Indeed, I’ve been trying to do quite a bit to reduce my Carbon footprint by composting, grocery shopping in bulk-buy shops…
-
Dreams and Procrastination
So, I have a dream. Yes, I always wanted to write that Martin Luther King quote. That wasn’t my dream though. I’ve been developing a course called Introduction to Happiness Skills. My dream is to live from selling this course (and maybe others I’ll develop) and these are my reflections on procrastination. Dreams and procrastination…
-
Messiness of Life
One strong happiness maker is the feeling of control – having a say in your life. However, being able to embrace the messiness of life and the uncontrollable is another strong happiness maker. Yes, exactly this paradox describes the messiness of life well. In the following, I’m unpacking four statements to explain what I mean…
-
Time after Time
Last week, a friend and I were reflecting on time and I believe this is a great blog topic. Besides not having enough money, other people not really getting us and our health being challenging, lacking time seems to be one of the major reasons why we cannot be happy. Do you agree? Have you…
-
Are we supposed to be Zen?
I’ve been reflecting about the connection of the parasympathetic nervous system (responsible for rest, digest and relax, sympathetic nervous system is responsible for fight or flight) and happiness. After all, most of happiness seems to be connected with relaxation. Also, positive emotions (the various forms of happy – from calm, serene to interested, joyful and…
-
About Jumping and Danger
The kids are watching the movie Sahara while I’m writing this blog post about jumping and danger. (They have played extensively without screens and we were outside for a while, so let’s not discuss appropriate screen time today.) Sahara is an animated movie about snakes, not to be confused with the Matthew McConaughey and Penelope…
-
Reflection on Parenthood
It’s school holidays – the time when kids are not occupied with school but hang out at home (unless it’s travel time or they are booked in vacation care). Time for a reflection on parenthood! My kids are now 6 and 8 and I still cannot believe how fast time went. Just yesterday, I squeezed…
-
Find Happiness in Unlikely Situations
I met a friend for coffee. In our conversation, I mentioned that I’m now able to live on the dole (welfare payments). I casually mentioned how much that is. My friend said ‘oh, yeah, that’s not much’ and offered me toiletries she gets for free from a friend. Maybe she just made conversation but let’s…
-
Benefits of Pain
Pain is so ever-present that I would like to work on a definition first. Pain is a feeling showing that something is wrong, emotionally or physically. Can we agree on that? Can we also agree that this might be beneficial? I’ve been reflecting on pain and its benefits because of the different thresholds I’ve been…
-
Water Tank
I’m at the point where I suspect happiness has almost everything to do with relaxation. Some excitement is good but since the world causes usually lots of stress (or we do), it’s really about lots of breathing and calming the nervous system. With a calmer nervous system, it is easier to see opportunities (and act…
