by Lynn Soots | March, 2016 | Education, Health, Positive Psychology, self-development
Meet the Happiness Ninja The Happiness Ninja fights of sadness by slashing way unhappiness, kicking away the blues and karate chopping tears. I am The Happiness Ninja. I dress in a ninja costume and hit the streets conducting Random Acts of Kindness and advocating against the stigma of mental illness. Being suicidal myself for 12 long years I feel very passionate about advocating that “it ain’t weak to speak”. As The Happiness Ninja I have done many random acts of kindness both on the streets and at public events. This includes handing out free fortune cookies with inspirations messages inside of them instead of fortunes as well as macaroons with edible messages printed on them. I have given out hugs, bottles of water, chocolates, jelly beans and a variety of other consumable goods. I have even walked down the street and popped gifts into letter boxes and on people’s door steps randomly. The Courage to Share, Educate and Connect Some people think I must be crazy and others think I am super courageous to be wearing such a crazy outfit. I am doing this because I feel so passionately that Positive Psychology is the answer to reducing mental illness and suicide rates. The symbolism behind doing the random acts of kindness is because anyone who follows “the science of happiness” knows that RAK’S are the latest craze. When we conduct acts of kindness to others our body releases warm and fuzzy feelings inside and we feel fulfilled and good about ourselves. The other person also feels good too, so this is a win-win situation! On a mission I have...
by Lynn Soots | March, 2016 | Culture, Education, Positive Psychology, Relationships, self-development
I was seeing my friend after many weeks. She’d been away in Kashmir, visiting a Hindu shrine. I knew she’d had a bad experience and I feared it had something to do with the ongoing Hindi-Muslim riots in the region. Little did I guess… A Journey to remember She said that she too had worried about the riots prior to the pilgrimage. But once there, what struck her immediately was the fact that all the porters were Muslim men, who transported the Hindu pilgrims on pony backs or carried them on “palkis”, or palanquins, up the long and arduous trek. She looked everywhere for signs of religious animosity that was reported daily, but found none. She rationalized it by considering the monetary benefits for the porters and stayed on guard for subtle signs of hostility. What happened on the return trek would change her views forever. As they made the dangerous ride back, she and her group got caught in a terrible landslide. The entire ground before them split apart and she desperately watched half her group, including her parents, suddenly disappear from sight. She and a few others were left alone, save for the porters who carried them, injured and distraught. Beautiful surprises along the way These men were their saviors from that moment on. They tended to their cuts and bruises, dried their wet clothes in the frigid cold, cooked them meals from their own meager supplies, and sat guard at night so the distressed pilgrims could get a few hours of sleep. But what touched them the most were the words of comfort these men provided...
by Lesley Lyle | March, 2016 | self-development
Last year, I posted the following on Facebook as one of my Happy Monday People posts. ‘I’m just killing time…..’ How many times have you heard and used this expression? I think it should be banned from our vocabulary. Those 10 minutes impatiently waiting in line for something, could be the last 10 minutes somebody has on this planet. They could be very old and have lived a long and fulfilling life. They may have only just come into the world and are here for such a brief time. Whichever scenario, you can guarantee that their families will want those last 10 minutes to last for eternity. Time is a precious commodity that we can never get back! Make it count because every second really does count! Happy Monday People! Never has this rung more true for me and my family than now. A teenager in our family has just been diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma. It’s a complete shock for us all. He is about to start chemotherapy and the journey to victory over this disease. The Law of Attraction is going to play a massive part of his recovery. Using the right words and encouraging him to remain positive can only but help him. Thankfully, the statistics run highly in his favour and we are 100% optimistic about his recovery. However, time is precious and for some the prognosis is not so good. I can’t begin to imagine how these people might feel to hear the expression of killing time being used in their presence. Paulo Coelho said ‘Do something instead of killing time, because time is killing...
by Lesley Lyle | March, 2016 | Education
Simple? Changing the lens, is it really that simple? The idea came to me when I was watching Shawn Anchor’s TED talk, ‘The happy secret to better work’ when he discussed his time at Harvard and how he truly believed that all the students who attended Harvard would feel the same as he did. An immense sense of gratitude to study at such a prestigious institution, seeing the opportunity as a real privilege. Instead he found that after just two weeks the students lost that feeling of pride they originally felt and soon focussed on the competition, the workload, the hassles, the complaints and their sense of gratitude diminished. A boarding school in New England talked to Shawn about their wellness week where they were having a talks throughout the week on subjects such as depression, bullying, drug use and eating disorders. This wasn’t a wellness week, it was a sickness week. A sense of pride Many students who attend my school feel this initial sense of pride that they have the opportunity to study at the first school in the UK to specialise in science and health care for 14-19 year olds. The school aims to bridge the gap between education and business and works closely with employers to create the next generation of health care practitioners, scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs. Yet I too see the same negative thinking approach from our students soon after they arrive. We should not assume our external world is a predictor for our happiness yet so many of us do. When I get that job, when I buy that car, when that...
by Lesley Lyle | March, 2016 | Brain chemicals
Altruism feels good, but a deeper knowledge of the good feeling reveals a core of selfishness. There’s nothing wrong with selfish pleasure in good deeds, but like all pleasures, we’re drawn to seek more of it. You can become so dependent on the good feeling you get from altruism that you “help” others in ways that don’t help. Here’s a closer look at this impulse. Dopamine The joy of approaching a reward is caused by dopamine, but as soon as you get the reward, the dopamine stops. You need to do more to get more, which is how nature motivates a critter to keep meeting its needs. Once your basic needs are met, your brain looks for other ways to stimulate the good feeling of dopamine. One way to do that is to meet the needs of others. This sounds altruistic, but it can easily slide into codependence. You strive for rewards in the name of others who often fail to share your sense of urgency. And you keep doing it despite that indifference because the dopamine wires you to repeat behaviors that triggered it before. Oxytocin Your brain releases the nice safe feeling of oxytocin when you enjoy the safety of social support. A gazelle enjoys oxytocin when surrounded by its herd, but its oxytocin falls if it trots off toward greener pasture. That feels like a survival threat to gazelles and to humans, which is why we keep looking for reassurance that our social support will always be there. Altruism is one way to reassure yourself of social acceptance. But you keep needing more reassurance, the...