April 9, 2014 by Sara Weston

Happiness Tip: Reduce your time on the Internet!

Please, I urge you to fact check this tip for yourself!!! – Sara

The Internet is a tremendous depressant. After spending fifteen or twenty minutes reading the web, you feel less energized, less hopeful and worst of all, less motivated, regardless of the content you’re reading! Fact check this for yourself. When you are feeling good one morning, write down your state of mind and what you feel like doing for the day, then surf the Internet for twenty minutes. Next, look at your state of mind. How do you feel—do you feel differently than you did twenty minutes ago? Most people find that surfing the Internet takes their edge away. The remedy is to be quick and efficient when doing online banking or shopping transactions and to reduce the amount of time spent reading and watching mindless “entertainment.” You can even download information from the Internet and read it offline. I promise you will feel better if you follow this tip!

Excerpted from the book How to Be Happy NOW…Even if Things Aren’t Going Your Way, available on Amazon, Amazon UK and Amazon DE. © 2013 – 2014 Sara Weston. A FREE excerpt of the book is available here.

March 17, 2014 by Sara Weston

Don’t knock others who are successful. The only person you should be competitive with is yourself.

Joshua Tree There is enough success for everyone, so there is no need to knock someone else’s success. You can use other people’s accomplishments to inspire you, but being competitive with others isn’t helpful because it shifts your state of mind to a more primitive one based on fear and territoriality, which isn’t a happy place to live inside your mind. Besides, being competitive with others doesn’t help you win anyway. In fact, you’ll be more “in the zone” and perform better when you just focus on your own work without the distraction of monitoring your competition.

January 24, 2014 by Sara Weston

Small Happiness Tip: Respond to Personal Emails/Texts On Your Own Timetable

2 Messages

Respond to personal emails and texts on your own timetable. Don’t be manipulated into answering someone right away when you’re not in the mood because it’s a social convention. Most of the emails and texts we receive are not critical and responses to them can wait. (I’m not suggesting you ignore critical messages!) Just because it is easy to be connected, doesn’t mean we should be. We all feel more serene and less pulled in multiple directions when we’re not constantly monitoring our phones and email.

January 18, 2014 by Sara Weston

Your Experience of Life Is Determined By Your State of Mind

Tips-Illus-Movies2 How you experience your day-to-day life is based on your state of mind. This concept is illustrated perfectly in the movie Groundhog Day, where the protagonist Phil (played by Bill Murray) experiences the exact same day over and over again. In this day where he encounters the same people and events repeatedly, the only thing that changes in the day is his state of mind. He experiences the exact same day in many different ways, from cynical to amazed to suicidal to supremely content, with the changes arising only from his mind state and consequent actions.

In the beginning when he realizes that he is stuck living the same day over and over again (a metaphor for reincarnation and being stuck on the wheel of life, death and rebirth), he is exhilarated at the perceived lack of consequences for his actions. He pursues his desires, stealing money from the armored car, tricking women into dating him, and most especially, manipulating Rita (played by Andie MacDowell) into liking him. But when he becomes bored with the money and dates and is rejected by Rita, his state of mind turns suicidal and he futilely kills himself over and over again, always waking up again in the same day.

1993, GROUNDHOG DAY When he finally decides to stop being self-destructive and indulgent, he begins to use his day to improve himself and help others, and in the process becomes content. Rita is then naturally attracted to his more authentic self and, without even having to try, he finally gets the girl (becomes enlightened) and wakes up in a new day (exits off the wheel of life, death and rebirth). So like Phil, you too have the opportunity to choose the outcome of your day and thus your life, by choosing your state of mind.

January 8, 2014 by Sara Weston

Core Practice: Practice Mindfulness

Mindfulness is the process of watching what is passing through your mind and stopping the thoughts that are draining or unhealthy. Most things only need to be thought through once. The rest of the thinking, the mulling over and obsessing, is not only draining, it actually makes it harder to objectively see what is best. When you keep your mind quiet and don’t play your worries, schemes and dreams over and over again, you create space for inner knowledge to bubble up and be heard.

Mindfulness isn’t limited to stopping negative or repetitive thoughts, it also includes not holding conversations in your mind with people you know. A lot of people talk to other people in their minds, explaining their beliefs and defending their positions. Not only is this a waste of energy, again it prevents your mind from being still. When your mind is still you can more clearly see the pointers in the universe. The universe gives us all kinds of information, but you have to be still to see it. When your mind is going round and round defending your ego, you miss these pointers, not to mention the relaxation and brightness that comes from being still.

The good news is that after practicing mindfulness for a while it becomes automatic, so as negative or repetitive thoughts and inner conversations arise, you naturally stop them and redirect your mind to higher, calmer thoughts or no thoughts at all.

November 20, 2013 by Sara Weston

Happiness Tip: Remove emotionally heavy items from your house.

Objects can have people and memories associated with them, and if these associations are sad, depressing, angry or make you feel bad for any reason, then get rid of those things. When you have items in your house that have heavy associations with them, a part of your mind feels the heaviness every time you look at them and it drags you down. Getting rid of these items is one of the quickest and easiest ways to feel better on a day-to-day basis.

Some examples of emotionally heavy items to get rid of, such as jewelry or gifts from old lovers or the bed you shared with an ex, are pretty intuitive and most people get rid of these naturally. Less obvious are items that have associations with people you love, but don’t make you feel good. For example, one woman I know always felt uncomfortable in her living room, so avoided it. She described the room as having fairly standard living room furniture and about twenty to thirty family photos on the mantel and piano. After some questioning, I realized the photos made her nostalgic and sad about the passage of time. Though she is quite close with her children who are now adults, and doesn’t want to go back to the times captured in the pictures even if she could, the photos made her sad. I suggested she box up the photos and put them in a closet as an experiment to see if it would make the room feel better. She put the photos away and was amazed at how much lighter and more enjoyable the room felt. You know there is no rule that says you have to have pictures of your kids or relatives or any other thing in your house. If something makes you feel weird, for whatever reason, then get rid of it. There are social conventions about what the house of a good friend, mom, partner, etc. looks like, but these are just imposed ideas that you don’t have to follow. If something makes you feel heavy, get rid of it!

If you feel too attached to an item that you think you should get rid of, put it in a box in an out of the way place and see what it’s like to live without it. Most people find they don’t miss the object at all and end up getting rid of it.

October 17, 2013 by Sara Weston

Mindfulness Tip: Follow the 7-second rule

7 sec stopwatch-pola You have about 7 – 10 seconds before a thought gets stuck in your mind. When a negative or unhealthy thought arises, redirect your mind immediately before the thought gets stuck in a tape loop in your mind.

If you’re having a difficult time redirecting your thoughts, you can immerse your mind in a magazine, newspaper or book; you can listen to audio books or podcasts, or work on a project or hobby that completely absorbs you—whatever it takes to substitute the negative or stressful thought with something higher. (Music alone is usually not effective as an aide in mindfulness because your mind can still easily wander while listening to music.) For those who have a spiritual teacher they love, the most powerful and effective way to still the mind is to move your mind to an image of him or her.

Using this technique of switching your mind away from a negative or stressful thought before it takes hold isn’t meant to imply that you shouldn’t address the issue that is causing the troublesome thought. Instead the technique is useful when there is no action that can be taken at the time and the best thing to do is push the thought out of your mind. For example, if you are unemployed and looking for a job, you should of course do everything you can to find a job. However, once you’ve done all you can for the day, it doesn’t help your search to worry about it at night since worrying drains your energy. So as worry starts to seep in, employ the 7-second rule to keep it at bay. Another example is, suppose you and your partner broke up after many years together and when you think of him or her, it makes you feel really sad. In this case, employ this technique when you notice the thought of your ex creeping into your mind, so you can prevent the thought of him or her from getting stuck in your mind.

September 27, 2013 by Sara Weston

Happiness Tip: If it makes you sad, turn if OFF.

NottingHill-pola

If watching a romantic comedy makes you pine for the perfect relationship and you didn’t feel this painful longing before watching, then don’t watch that kind of movie. If a song makes you miss an old lover or makes you sad in some way, then don’t listen to it. It’s so simple. There’s no rule written anywhere that you have to feel sad or suffer over the past. If a song, movie, book, TV show, etc. makes you feel unhappy, turn it off. Although it’s true that some people love their pain and love to indulge in sadness, you don’t have to.

September 2, 2013 by Sara Weston

Have Integrity

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Lying, cheating or stealing for personal gain may give you a short-term feeling of happiness, but over the long run these actions will make you very unhappy. While these actions may not always hurt others, they will always hurt you. When you act without integrity, you end up spending an enormous amount of energy denying the actions were wrong—either by constantly pushing them out of your mind or by thinking things like, “They can afford it,” “She won’t really notice,” or “They deserve it.” The problem is when an action doesn’t have integrity, it will continually rise to the surface and niggle at you and prevent you from having a happy, peaceful mind.

Excerpted from the new book How to Be Happy NOW…Even if Things Aren’t Going Your Way available on Amazon, Amazon UK and Amazon DE © 2013 Sara Weston. An excerpt of the book is available on the FREE stuff page.

August 14, 2013 by Sara Weston

The Bliss of a Vacation from the Internet

Recently I was on vacation, and with the exception of a few email checks, I also took a vacation from the Internet. Though I have done this many times before, I was still amazed at the blissfulness of the mind without the energetic push and pull of the Internet. The mind is so much more quiet and unconcerned with the goings-on of the world when released from the tyranny of the Internet :–). I highly recommend you give yourself a vacation from the Internet the next time you go on vacation.

How to Be Happy NOW

…even if things aren't going your way

Tips that make life easier