Here are 10 tips to help you start your day with happiness:

1. Wake up 20 minutes earlier than usual. This will give you some free time in the morning, and reduce rush and stress.

2. After waking up, sit on your bed, and repeat in your mind several times the following sentences, “Today is a wonderful day. Today is a great day. There is a lot of happiness today”.

3. Begin your day with the expectation of a great and wonderful day. For at least a little while, don’t focus on your problems. Just forget your problems, and enjoy the feeling of having a wonderful day, even if you cannot see how this can happen. Most people let their circumstances dictate to them what to think, feel and expect. You can reverse this process. Choose your own thoughts and feelings, irrespective of what is happening in your life. Eventually, if you persevere, your life will change accordingly.

4. Find a few minutes in the morning to stretch and exercise your body.

5. Smile more often, even for no apparent reason. Smiling will make you feel better.

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Read the rest of 10 Tips To Start Your Day With Happiness (201 words)

© Remez Sasson for Remez Sasson Blog on Self Improvement and Spiritual Growth, 2011. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Happiness, tips, tips to start your day

While cleaning my bookshelf the other day, I found a book, 14,000 things to be happy about. It looked brand new, but the date inside was from years ago. This book sat beside my collection of self-help books, which in contrast were dog-eared, highlighted and clearly used. Holding the happiness book, I wondered why I hadn’t used it. Then I realized I always thought happiness was something fleeting and incapable of improving my life.

Recently, my beliefs have changed as a result of what I’ve learned. I’ve discovered that being happy, contented, and positive are skills, which can be learned with practice and determination. Therefore, I made the decision to start my own journey to learn happiness and have been happily rewarded. Here are a couple of things that I’ve learned on my journey as well activities that have helped teach me more about happiness:

Recognize the hidden happy moments in a day.

When something wonderful happens to us, we usually know we’re happy. It’s the common, everyday moments of happiness that often elude us. One way to change this is by becoming deliberately aware of when we’re feeling happy during the day. I found an activity that helped me, and it might also help you. It’s very simple: Get a notebook or a tape recorder and keep track of any happy moments you notice during your day. By writing them down or recording them, you become aware of these moments that might otherwise have passed by unnoticed.

One such moment occurred for me when I was very late for an appointment and frustrated at getting every red light. As I sat fuming at the latest stop, I noticed a little boy in the school bus next me making silly faces at people. Watching him made me feel happy. I wrote this moment down in my notebook. It became one of many. Now, I look forward to finding happy moments in my day. I even challenge myself to see how many I can find. How many happy moments are you missing in your day? Try noticing them and see if you find your day is better for it.

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Read the rest of Learning Happiness: Everyday Activities to Increase Your Happiness (561 words)

© Remez Sasson for Remez Sasson Blog on Self Improvement and Spiritual Growth, 2011. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Happiness, learning happiness

Why a little selfishness is good for you – and for everyone else!
 
Have you invested any time on your own wellbeing lately?
 
Well, while I guess some will be able to say yes to that question, many others will be shaking their heads in disbelief. There always seems so much to do: work, partners, family and friends, and jobs around the home – all clamour for your attention, time and energy. And when it comes to deciding between yourself and others it’s no contest.
  
Negative generosity
Negative generosity? Can there really be such a thing? Well, while it’s brilliant to have a generous nature, only being able to say yes to requests for help, time or work is anything but. One consequence of only being able to say yes is a feeling of not being in control. Another is that we find it almost impossible to engineer time out for ourselves – and when we do something inevitably crops up that seems ‘more important’. If we continue this way, then over time we become stressed, anxious, worn out and eventually resentful to those around us.
 
Yes, strange as it may seem, generosity of this kind can actually damage relationships! And as the receivers seem to just take it all for granted the over-generous giver becomes more and more tetchy in their giving.
 
Saying No
When people in this frame of mind do finally say no, it’s usually done in a temper, and often blurted out at the ones who least deserve it.
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Read the rest of Finding ‘Me Time’ (362 words)

© Remez Sasson for Remez Sasson Blog on Self Improvement and Spiritual Growth, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: me time, saying no, time, wellbeing

Make a list of things you enjoy doing. This can be any simple activity, which you love doing, and that can be done in your daily life. Put in the list at least ten items, and then do something from this list every day. From time to time, as you discover more things that you like doing, add them to this list.

Some examples could be:

• Taking a walk
• Conversing with a friend that you like
• Preparing a special dish
• Eating a special meal
• Reading a book
• Taking a short nap at noon
• Going to the movies
• Meditation
• Going to a lecture about a subject that you like
• Eating out
• Shopping
• Painting
• Playing with your kids
• Walking on the beach
• Swimming

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Read the rest of Take Time To Do Things You Enjoy Doing (138 words)

© Remez Sasson for Remez Sasson Blog on Self Improvement and Spiritual Growth, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: things you enjoy doing, time

Pleasure is a state, in which you feel good and enjoy what you are doing. Usually, it does not last long, as the attention moves to other subjects, and because life is such that you have always other things to do, like work, cleaning the house, driving somewhere, interacting with other people, etc.

When you eat some delicious food you derive pleasure from it, but the pleasure doesn’t last for long, since you cannot go on eating indefinitely, you finish eating the food on your plate and the sensation of pleasure wears off after a while. You may enjoy watching a movie, but the movie lasts for a certain amount of minutes. When you read a book that you enjoy reading, ultimately, you reach the last page.

As you see, all pleasure is time limited.

Pleasure is usually awakened by external stimuli, and is largely physical, involving the five senses, like the smell of good food or its taste, a pleasant breeze, or of the sight and physical contact of a certain person. You can also derive pleasure from reading a book or daydreaming.

Pleasure is emotional in nature, while happiness is a state beyond the emotions and even beyond the mind. In pleasure the emotions and feelings are active. While in a state of happiness there is calmness and peace.

Though happiness is similar to pleasure in some respects, yet it is different.

Happiness does not depend on external stimuli, since it comes from within, though quite often, it seems as if the source is external.

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Read the rest of Pleasure and Happiness (363 words)

© Remez Sasson for Remez Sasson Blog on Self Improvement and Spiritual Growth, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Happiness, Inner Peace, pleasure