7 Tips for a Happy Life

“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.” ~Dalai Lama

I have recently come face to face with mortality—not my own, my friend’s. At only 37,
Daniel left behind an army of people whose lives he had touched in some way, including my
own.

At 33 I have just qualified as a Psychotherapist and Hypnotherapist. At the time Daniel

passed away I was working as a Human Resources Manager, a profession I had originally
trained in and remained in for over 10 years.

A number of factors and events led me to make the leap and set up my own practice as a
Psychotherapist and Hypnotherapist, but the overriding reason was simply to follow my
dreams.

Many of my friends told me how inspiring I was to them, others told me I was brave, and
the rest gave me a look of awe that suggested I was crazy.

Words of well meaning advice were spoken.

“Why don’t you work part time while you get the business underway?”

“It’s going to take time for you to get regular clients you know; they won’t come overnight.”

“You can always go back to human resources if it doesn’t work.”

All of this came from my nearest and dearest friends and family! I didn’t listen to any of
them because I knew from the depths of my soul that this was the right thing to do, and I
knew their words were only echoes of their own fears about life and striking out—not my
own.

Every day we are faced with stories that remind us of our own mortality as human beings,
but when you lose someone you love with all your heart, it changes something deep within
you.

The everyday drama we allow into our lives falls away and suddenly seems insignificant.
We find ourselves reaching out and opening our heart to let others in. We start to notice the
simple pleasures.

We become acutely aware that we never really know when our time might be up, and we
make a pledge to let joy into our life.

That was the pledge I made.

I can’t bring back my darling friend, but I can honor him every day by ensuring that my
journey is filled with people and experiences that make my heart sing; by letting my
emotions and intuition guide me toward what feels good; by choosing freedom over fear;
and by remembering that I am the only thing that can stop me from making those choices.

What dreams, desires, feelings, or needs of your own have you pushed aside? And if you
followed your own dreams and bliss, how would your life change for the better?

You are the driver of your own life, and as you journey through, you have choices about
which paths to take. The people you pick up along the way can influence your life, but you
still remain in control.

These ideas may help you start creating more joy in your life:

1. Tell a new story.

What’s your current story, and how does it make you feel? If it doesn’t make you feel good
when you tell it, then stop telling it. Instead, tell a story that makes you feel inspired and
positive. Maybe you haven’t found your calling yet and feel as if every day is ground hog
day.

You can change that.

I stayed working in Human Resources for 10 years but I had always been interested in Life
Coaching. Up until two years ago I had done nothing about that interest until one day I
decided to make a change and looked into some local evening courses.

I found one starting a few weeks later and got the last place on it. A coincidence? I think
not! Spending a few hours a week learning something new, just for the pleasure of it, was
exhilarating.

I changed my story from “I just work in HR” to “At the moment I work in HR, but I’m doing
a course in Life Coaching and I’m not yet sure where that may lead me, but it sure is
exciting!”

What have you always wanted to do in life but have been too afraid to attempt? What
activities throughout your life have given you the greatest feeling of achievement? If you
could do anything what would you do and what would bring you a step closer to that?

2. Feel the thoughts that make you feel good.

Sometimes it can feel that our thoughts are thinking us and that we have no control over
them. How many of the 60,000 thoughts you have each day are anxious, critical, defensive,
or frustrated?
Most of our everyday thinking is driven from the unconscious mind, which is far greater
than the conscious mind. This is why it may feel an impossible task to rein your thoughts in.
But as with most things, a little practice can go a long way.

Reach for the thoughts that make you feel good and then practice holding on to them. If, for
example, you have had a bad day at work, don’t tell the story about it because that won’t
make you feel good!

Don’t ruminate on the conversations or events of the day because that will only serve to
make you tenser and may affect your ability to have a good night’s sleep. Instead let go of
the thoughts and think of something else that makes you feel good.

It may be something you have planned for the weekend. It may be a memory of time spent
with your partner. Or it could just be an inner knowing that you don’t have to think this
way, followed by good feelings about that.

The more you can get a hold on your thoughts, the greater control you will gain over your
emotions. After all, why would you choose to feel anything but joyful, elated, on top of the
world, clear-minded, creative, enthusiastic, or eager? What will it be like when you can feel
like that for most of your day?

3. Spring clean your belief system.

We are powerful creators of our own reality, but so many of us don’t realize our own true
potential. We are all equal; not one of us is more “special” than another.

The only difference is that there are some people who have learned to shine a beam on
what they really want in life and then have the belief to make that happen.

When you believe it, you feel it right through to your very core. Many people believe they
have to live with the cards they have been dealt, that life is tough, or if you want something
you have to fight for it.

Yet beliefs are only thoughts that we keep thinking. No belief is set in stone.

As humans we have a great capacity for sticking to false beliefs. We once believed that the
world was flat until someone convinced us otherwise. I have run two marathons in the past
two years. Yet if you asked me five years ago if I could run even a half marathon, I wouldn’t
have believed it.

What beliefs have you got that are holding you back? If you really challenge those beliefs
you will see them start to crumble, allowing you to build new, stronger, more positive
beliefs.

Ask yourself “Where has this belief come from?” “What does this belief cost me on a daily
basis?” “What would happen if I let go of this old belief?”
4. Get happy now!

So many times I hear people say “I’ll be happy when I lose some weight.” “I’ll be happy
when I retire.” “I’ll be happy when I get a boyfriend.” “I’ll be happy when I get a place of my
own.”

What about being happy now? Happiness is an emotion. If you reach for thoughts that
make you feel happy, you can be happy right now! When you focus your attention on
feeling happy now, the rest falls into place, and you find yourself attracting new things into
your life.

My tried and tested “happiness pill” is to think of the time I went travelling in South
America. I close my eyes and imagine I am back there with no more than a backpack, feeling
the sun warm against my skin, sitting outside a cafe sipping a cool drink as I soak up the
sights and sounds before my eyes. It never fails to raise a smile on my lips and a glow in my
heart.

5. Get into gratitude.

Be grateful for what you have in your life now. Take a few moments every day to really
savor what makes you happy and give thanks for it.

It could be waking up in a warm bed, enjoying a piece of cake in a cafe while watching the
world go by, walking with your dog in the fresh air, or simply being healthy.

When you create feelings of gratitude, you change the feeling in your heart. Just think what
effect having a heart bursting with gratitude can have on your mind and your body!

6. Create a bliss board.

Take a large sheet of cardboard and fill it with pictures, captions, or words that you want
your life to reflect. So many of us know what we don’t want, but are not clear what we do
want.

Pin it to a wall in your home so that every day you are reminded of what you want in life. I
found a wonderful caption in a magazine that read “educating body, mind, heart, and soul.”
Every morning I see it on my bliss board and it sets my day off with the right intention.

7. Take a leap of faith.

To move forward and allow new experiences, new energy, and new people into your life
you have to let go of whatever isn’t working for you.
It does take confidence and self-belief, but this is where banishing the old beliefs and
replacing your old negative thoughts with positive ones comes in. If practiced regularly,
this will create the self-worth and self-reliance needed to make that leap of faith.

Take a moment now to reflect on the above and on your life. Remind yourself of just how
wonderful this rich tapestry of life is, that there is a sea of opportunity ripe for the taking
out there, if only we would take it.

But above all, remember that no matter what is happening to any one of us, the only thing
that really matters at the end of it all is that our lives were filled with joy.

2nd Talk
6 Life Lessons on Embracing Change and Impermanence

“Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely.” ~Karen Kaiser Clark

Life can be a persistent teacher.
When we fail to learn life’s lessons the first time around, life has a way of repeating them to
foster understanding.
Over the last few years, my life was shaken up by dramatic circumstances. I resisted the
impermanence of these events in my life and struggled with embracing change. When
I resisted the lessons that change brought, a roller coaster of changes continued to
materialize.
When I was seventeen years old, my immigrant parents’ small import-export business
failed.  From a comfortable life in Northern California, they uprooted themselves and my
two younger brothers and moved back to Asia.
The move was sudden and unexpected, catching us all by surprise. I was in my last months
of high school, so I remained in California with a family friend to finish my degree.
I spent the summer abroad with my family, and then relocated to Southern California to
start college upon my return. Alone in a new environment, I found myself without many
friends or family members close by.
Life was moving much faster than I was able to handle, and I was shell-shocked by my
family’s sudden move, my new surroundings, and college. Their relocation and college
brought dramatic changes, along with fear, loneliness, and anxiety.
I felt overwhelmed by my new university campus and its vastness; alone, even though I sat
in classes of 300 students; and challenged by the responsibilities of independence and
adulthood.
Everything I had known had changed in a very short period of time. I tried to cope the best
I could, but I resisted the changes by isolating myself even more from my new university
and surroundings. It was the first and only time in my life I had contemplated suicide.
Several years after college, having achieved my career goals in the legal field, I started a
legal services business. I helped immigrants, refugees, and people escaping persecution
who’d come to the U.S. to navigate the hurdles to residency and citizenship.
I invested money, time, and my being into my law office. Not only was I preoccupied with
the dire legal situations of my clients, but I also confronted the ups and downs of running a
business.
Starting and running a new company is not easy, and mine was losing more money every
month. While I found the nearly three-year venture immensely gratifying because of the
lives I was able to help, it was time for me to move on.
It was a difficult decision, because I thought I’d found my career path. My life became
engulfed with changes once again as I tried to close the doors to my office, close my clients’
cases, pay off my debt, and seek employment.
In between university and my business venture, I married a beautiful, gifted girl in India
after an international romance. We were married for ten years and endured many of life’s
personal and professional ups and downs together. Despite our problems, we both
struggled to keep our marriage together.
When the tears dried, the counseling sessions did more harm than good, and our
communication ended, we separated and then divorced last year. The ending of our
marriage felt like the shattering of an exquisite glass vase into a million pieces.
I met the closure of our marriage first with strong resistance and then with profound
sadness and loss. How could something that I valued so much and believed to be forever,
cease to exist?
As much as I fought back and resisted each of these events in my life, I’ve since learned to
embrace the impermanency of my life and the changes that come my way.  
Here are 6 lessons life has taught me on embracing change:
1. Reduce expectations.
In each of my life’s circumstances, I had high expectations for my family, my business, and
my marriage. I had expected each to remain constant and to last forever. But I’ve learned
that nothing lasts forever. Nothing.
You can have reasonable expectations of how you’d like something to turn out, but you
can’t marry yourself to that result. Reducing or having no expectations about a relationship,
a business, or a situation can help you accept whatever may come from it.
When you set reasonable expectations, and don’t expect or demand a particular outcome,
you’re better able to manage any changes that do come your way. Unreasonable
expectations of life, however, will likely be met with loss, disappointment, and pain.
2. Acknowledge change.
For the longest time, I refused to believe that change was in the realm of possibility in a
situation. I’ve since learned that change can happen quickly and at any point.
Be aware that change can happen in your life. This means understanding that things can
and will be different from how they are now. Acknowledging change is allowing it to
happen when it unfolds instead of approaching change from a place of denial and
resistance.
3. Accept change.
I desperately tried to prevent and stop change from happening in my business and
marriage by trying to forge ahead even in futile situations.
Instead of resisting, allow change to unfold and try to understand what’s transforming and
why.
Circumstances will not turn out the way you want them to, and it’s perfectly all right.
Embracing the situation can help you deal with the change effectively, make the necessary
shifts in your life to embrace the change, and help you move forward after the event.
4. Learn from the experience.
If you accept and embrace change, you will start looking for and finding lessons in it.
When dramatic changes were happening in my life, I refused to acknowledge them at first,
so change left me distraught and without meaning. Once I reflected back and finally
accepted the changes, the lessons I started absorbing were profound.
Change becomes your greatest teacher, but only if you give yourself permission to learn
from it.
5. Recognize you’re growing stronger.
When you accept, embrace, and learn from change, you inevitably grow stronger. The
ability to continuously accept change allows you to become as solid as a rock in the midst of
violent storms all around you—even if you feel afraid.
6. Embrace the wisdom.
The more I permitted change and impermanence in my life, the more I grew as a person.
Embracing change has brought newfound strength into my life and surprisingly, more
inner peace.
When you proactively embrace change and learn to accept it as a part of life, you are filled
with more calmness, peace, and courage. When life fails to shake you up with its twists and
turns, you realize that changes can’t break you.
You’ve reached a level of understanding in life that some might even call wisdom.
While by no means have I reached that place called wisdom, I’m working through my
aversions to change. I now openly welcome and embrace it.
When we can accept change, learn from it, and become all the better for experiencing it,
change is no longer our enemy. It becomes our teacher.