Are you living a life you enjoy?

My mother in law celebrates her 75th birthday this month.  Her words of wisdom to us, "at 75 years old the only thing that matters is family, everything else is superfluousness."  She has enjoyed her 75 years of family gatherings from when she was a child to the present day, traveling Europe, the Amazon, and all over the United States.  She has had a successful career.  She raised three awesome children (one of which is my husband), has witnessed the family grow by marriages and births and lost loved ones by death.  Why did I choose to write about her? Well, John Maxwell said "nothing is more encouraging and motivating than to be around an enthusiastic person."  He was discussing his father on one of his "Minutes with Maxwell “and stated his father was living till he died.  Live till you die.  He said "there are people who are living but they have already died....It's a choice.  Look at the positive of life, when you enjoy what you are doing people enjoy being around you."  I think she has enjoyed and continues to enjoy living.  She always said to us when she was traveling that if she died while on a trip for us not to worry or cry as she enjoyed her life and she was living it to the fullest.  Enjoy your life and choose to live!!!!!  

If you have questions or are struggling to enjoy life, please contact Amy Cole, M.S.,LPC, aka The Bucket Lady at LTCC.  

Happy, Happy, Happy

Did you know there is a science behind happiness?  There is!!!!!  Richard Davidson, neuroscientist of University of Wisconsin-Madison explains we can teach ourselves to be happy.  “We don’t really think of happiness as a skill, but everything we’ve learned about the brain suggests that it’s no different from learning to play the violin or learning to engage in a complex sport.  If you practice at it, you’ll get better at it.”  The basic premise is the more we think on, meditate on happiness, gratitude, feeling confident, being successful, being loved and lovable, the more we strengthen the neurons in our brain cells to fire, to fire more intensely, and for longer, they are going to wire together to create a bond of inner strength.  Sounds cheesy, but Richard Hanson a neuropsychologist(and author of Hardwiring Happiness, The New Brain of Science of Contentment,Calm and Confidence) states the “neurons that fire together, wire together.”

We on the other hand, are wired to look for the bad stuff.  The brain as described by Hanson is “like Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones.” 

So how can we re-wire our brains?  Take in the GOOD.  Every day we encounter moments that are positive. They may be insignificant but they can help change the hardwiring in our brains.  Appreciate the good moments, linger on them (this increases their intensity and duration in our brains), maximize the positive, laugh, find happiness in the small things.  Maintain a sense of wonder.  Remember when your kids were kids and how they viewed the world.  See the world thru their eyes. Practice Mindfulness, being still and taking in all the wonder around you.  The world has good in it.  We need to look for it.  And when you do, you will start re-wiring your brain to look for it and find happiness.

If you have questions about finding happiness, contact the “bucket lady” aka Amy Cole at Life Tree Counseling Center, Inc. or any of the other great therapists there and they will help you find happiness.