Happiness Talk Blog

Spirituality

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Happiness and Dreams Come True When You Use a Vision Board

Vision Boards are collages also known as Dream Boards, Treasure Maps and Goal Sheets. They are tools that display pictures and affirmations of the goals and things you want or desire in life. They help you focus your energy on your specific goals and attract that same energy back to you. They require you to use your senses thinking about your goals, seeing the pictures which engage your subconscious mind to “go after” them, and remind you of actions to take to accomplish the goals.

Whether you want a new career, a healthy investment account, a vacation in Italy, a new Mercedes SL550, a trim and fit body weighing 130 pounds, a better relationship, or peace of mind, your vision board can help initiate the results.

Using a Vision Board requires you to take action!

1.  Dream and Decide Your Goals.
Dream, visualize, imagine, and think about your goals. What do you want your life to look like 1 year from now, or 5 or 10? Your vision board can be about one area of life or all. It can represent one goal or many. Decide what you want in one or several domains of life:

• Health

• Career or work

• Love relationship or marriage

• Family

• Friends

• Interests, hobbies, fun

• Spiritual life

• Learning and personal growth

• Financial

• Service

2.  Collect Pictures and Words.
After you have made decisions about the time period and goals, cut out pictures from magazines that represent the specific goals you want to accomplish. You can also find sites on line that will help you create a virtual vision board.

Be very careful to put the exact messages of what you want - the exact pictures that represent your goals. If you want a red car, do not put a picture of a blue car or paste over a blue car. I had a client who got the blue car! Just include a picture of the exact make, model and color of your desired car. If you want to have a certain amount of money, be sure to represent it in the full amount. Show a picture of a bank account or perhaps put real money on your board. Look for the kind of house you want, with the right kind of yard for you. Include a picture of the book you plan to write; show a picture of your happy family having summer vacation fun. Be sure to include a picture or photo of yourself in the collage. 

Be sure your desires fit with your values. Spend time thinking about this before you spontaneously add pictures. Represent your spiritual self in the Treasure Map so you are recognizing your desire to have and be what is in your best interest and the best interest of all others.

You also want to cut out words, phrases or make affirmations - positive statements about your dreams and goals. Include things like, I am a global speaker teaching the secrets of how to flourish in life, be happy and fulfilled. Perhaps simple words representing powerful concepts are for you: Empowered, Millionaire, Earning a seven-figure income, Love and peace at home, Olympic Gold, Ph.D. (after your name), Winner, The Best, Successful children, No more hunger, etc.
Paste your pictures and words on poster paper, construction paper, display boards, presentation boards or something you might put inside a frame. If you are doing a themed vision board - on your wedding, promotion, or losing weight - you might use a smaller size. If you are showing your goals for 5 years, you will want a substantial size to display your major goals. Some people have been very creative and did decoupage on a chest, table or trunk to show their dreams and goals.

3.  Display Your Vision Board and Use It Daily.
Put your vision board in a prominent place to see it every day. Some people like to put it in the bathroom to look at while getting ready in the beginning of their day. Others on the kitchen table to look at while having coffee. Others hang it in the family room. Still others take it to the office and some make it the wallpaper on their computer and phone.

• Look at it for about 5 minutes at least twice a day.

• Think about the scenes and results.

• See yourself in the results.

• Feel the emotions of your results. Feel yourself with the top down in your new convertible. Feel the joy of writing a check to your favorite charity. Feel the excitement getting on the cruise ship.

• Experience the results of your goals and stay positive.

4.  Share Your Dreams and Goals with Others.
Get social support by sharing your dreams and goals with family, friends, and colleagues. Let them see your vision board and talk about it with them. You might even help them do one of their own. If you really want to go for it in a BIG way, create a mastermind group to help all of you accomplish your goals. I’ve been in one for 9 years and we’ve manifested books, major consulting contracts, public speaking gigs, lots of money, grandchildren, vacations, second homes, relationships, retirement, meaning, and much success. By sharing your goals you will get direct and indirect support from those around you.

Caution: DO NOT let people try to talk you out of it or tell you it’s too big a dream. If they are toxic people, don’t bother to share with them. But do talk with all the others in your life who want you to be the best you can be.

5. Take Daily Actions to Bring Your Vision Board to Life.
Use your vision board to remind you of what you want. Be sure you have actions in each day that are steps towards making the pictures manifest in your life. Write steps in your daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly, To Do Lists. When I wanted to add a different service to my business, I simply put it on new business cards and in two weeks I received 4 requests, all leading to paid gigs - and NONE of the people had even seen my new business cards. But the big eye in the sky did…

Declare your intentions, tell others about them, take action, and watch them manifest.

6. Celebrate Your Successes.
Savor your progress and small successes. Savor in advance, during the process and after the accomplishment. 

Celebrate the accomplishments of your goals. Some people need to celebrate the process and not the completion. Invite some friends and reward yourself with the celebration and well-deserved regard. 

You can use the vision board right along with your 5 Year Plan. (If you don’t have one, turn the pictures into outcome goals, benchmark steps backwards and write your next steps.) Today, begin to make your dreams a reality.

Copyright 1987, 2002, 2010, 2011 D’Arcy Vanderpool
WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEBSITE? You are welcomed to share this article. When you do, please include this entire blurb with it: “Are you a talented entrepreneur who is ready to flourish and take yourself and your business to a new level? If you would like to learn how happiness can produce better results in your personal and professional life, you have come to the right place. It’s time to leave a good life and business and, instead, create a personal life and business services that will allow more happiness and fulfillment in positivity, time, wealth and the lifestyle you deserve. I invite you to visit my website at http://www.DrHappiness.com where you will find resources and enrollment for our current coaching, trainings and retreats.”

Posted by D'Arcy Vanderpool on 04/12 at 10:42 PM
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Saturday, December 25, 2010

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

This is the time of year we all celebrate. We have loving times with family and friends, sometimes traveling many miles to bask in and share the love. It’s the time to play games, set the card table up for a bigger (or smaller) puzzle than last year. Its time to get the cards out for a few games of hand and foot. And the video games and Wii. Get out the sleds, snow shoes, snow boards, skis and rev up the snow mobiles.

We enjoy the Nutcracker, the beautiful voices of carolers, the Christmas bells, gorgeous decorations, and parties of the season. We sing song, bake Grandma’s favorite goodies, stuff the turkey, rub the prime rib, enjoy the Ethel M’s and Bisinger’s after the Christmas pudding and pies. Stollen for breakfast, leftover ham sandwiches for lunch and too many appetizers…

Angels, nativity scenes, the gift of God’s Son, and prayer add special feelings of the holidays. But the glee of children stirs the deepest joy in all of us. The days of play, the laughter shared by all, the dogs in their bows, the nuts and cider, and peppermint hot chocolate brings the savoring of past Christmases and ones to come.

Experience the joy, feel the peace, share the love and take these into the next year with the best flourishing of your souls.

Merry Christmas,

D’Arcy,
Bentley and Beau

Posted by D'Arcy Vanderpool on 12/25 at 01:26 PM
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Monday, December 06, 2010

Embrace the Life you Have

Clearly you are living right now where your decisions and life circumstances have taken you. If you want life to be easy, your job is to accept this and blossom. That doesn’t mean you have to just stay where you are forever. It does mean that you have the opportunity to be the best you can be where you are right now. When you do that, things will change and evolve.

You may be learning and preparing for something else that requires you to be where you are now. So you are learning something now that will help you in the future. Maybe you are where you are to help someone else. By staying there you may help another and, of course, that comes right back to you. There is a reason for you to be your best right now and blossom with the life you have.

While you are in your blossoming life, take the high road. Be kind and thoughtful. Stay out of the drama and gossip and be the best you can – blossom with the type of person you are – be your best right now in all areas of life.

Enjoy your job. Find new ways to be creative, to be giving or to learn something new in your job. If you have coworkers you don’t seem to have much in common with, try being curious and getting to know their strengths. If you are unhappy in your marriage, find positive things on which to focus. Think about some good memories or something truly wonderful and special about your spouse

Bloom within the challenge or situation. You might find by accepting it and making yourself happy within the situation, you might really like it. It is never about changing the other person – boss, co-worker, spouse – it is always about you changing. . The main thing to put your attention on is yourself. Whether you have relationship, job, financial, or friendship issues and dislikes, find the goodness in these areas and others. Make yourself focus on positivity and gratitude.

Blossom and be the best you can be. Embrace the life you now have and see where it leads you. Probably to something even better that will allow you to bloom even bigger and brighter.

Posted by D'Arcy Vanderpool on 12/06 at 11:27 AM
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Thursday, November 25, 2010

Make Thanksgiving a Day of Worship or Gratitude

Make this a day of prayer, of love with family and friends, of being your true spiritual self. I wish for you a loving day and season of peace, freedom and kindness to all. Live in gratitude each day, and you will be spending the day as it was done in this country a few centuries ago. Enjoy your celebrations.

Posted by D'Arcy Vanderpool on 11/25 at 10:08 AM
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Sunday, November 14, 2010

Values, Actions and Symbols

Your Values

You might consider values such as honesty, love, spirituality, forgiveness, curiosity, bravery, helping others, health, financial health, learning, wisdom, adventure, humor, achievement, good judgment, perseverance, energy, resilience, playfulness or any of the hundreds you can think.

I chose these values:

• 1) Living my life according to what I believe is my Soul’s purpose;

• 2) Using everything for my advancement, accepting my “lessons” as a joyful part of my evolution, and committing to my personal growth;

• 3) Having loving intimate relationships with friends, family and a significant other;

• 4) Mastery and success;

• 5) Experiencing beauty in all things;

• 6) Longevity, wellness, strength and grace.

How do You Demonstrate Your Values?

Next, what actions do you take to demonstrate these values? What symbols do you have in your home that reflect your values and remind you of them? Here are some of mine:

1. I live my life according to what I believe is my Soul’s purpose.

a. I meditate, stop and pause often during the day and reflect on my purpose, compulsions, interests, inner guidance and dreams. I pray and ask for guidance a lot. I am attentive to what the universe brings into my life.

b. In my home and garden I have gentle reminders: statues of Buddha, St. Francis and Pan; The Crucifixion, Transformation, 2 pieces from The Divine Comedy all by Dali on my gallery wall; various family and other Bibles, meditation books; candles everywhere; a favorite saying about being in God’s hands at the front of my Jacuzzi tub; and another on my desk about how in His infinite wisdom He made the world round so I can’t fall off it when I get too near the edge.

2. I use everything for my advancement, accept my “lessons” as a joyful part of my evolution, and commit to my personal growth.

a. I reflect; I journal to correct my direction, review my errors and set corrections into motion as much as possible. I keep certain loving relationships in my life that are difficult as ways to continue growing.

b. Around my home, I have the most beautiful journals I can find and I have a Borders and Amazon collection of friends in the “self-help” category in my study. I also have a rose garden with many flowers as symbols of growth. I have a ceiling-height plant in my bedroom, originally a $4.95 plant that was a Christmas tree for my son and me over 35 years ago. I keep it as a reminder that I can compost and rise like the phoenix from the bad times and create the good.

3.  I have loving intimate relationships with friends, family and significant others.

a. I communicate intimately with my close friends, some relatives and a spiritual family I have helped create. I spend time relating and having fun with them. I am enjoying my significant others and dedicate time and loving energy to our relationships.

b. In my living room hanging over the fireplace is a lovely painting of a man and woman entwined in their love. I also have a large woodcut of a man and woman dancing and intertwined in grace over the fireplace in my bedroom.. I have a photo collection in the upstairs hall, reminders of fun intimate times. There is a picture from my parents’ foyer when I was a child, my Godfather’s stein, Sterling Silver from my Godmother, toys from childhood, and antique pins from Sis. My home is filled with homemade gifts from friends, rocks from special nature days, rose petals from special dates. In the kitchen, a Moroccan cooking oven from my best pal recalling many breakfasts and workout sessions together; a coffee pot like my other best girlfriend’s, recalling mornings of complete laziness and dreams; books of Italy and France recalling special trips; beautiful wine glasses filled with robust sharing and laughter; and conversation places throughout the house and garden.

Write your Values, Actions and Symbols

I want to encourage all of you to be sure and have symbols of your values as reminders of what is important. The more we live in integrity, the more satisfied and fulfilled we experience life. I’ll give you some time to complete yours and next I’ll share my other three top values.

Posted by D'Arcy Vanderpool on 11/14 at 02:43 PM
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Monday, September 27, 2010

Helping Others Develops Happiness and Meaning

BUILD YOUR MOTIVATION

When you want to help others as a way of increasing your own happiness, it is important to understand your motivation as something altruistic or spiritual and a manner of expressing an important value in your life. It is not as effective to help others because it is a selfish way to make yourself feel better.

Most spiritual or wisdom traditions include something like the Golden Rule as a core value and we have incorporated the saying. “It is better to give than to receive” into our everyday language. Helping others and being kind can do a lot to add more happiness and meaning to our lives. Helping does these things:
• makes us feel good or brightens our day
• distracts us from our problems and allows us to relieve the stresses of others due to seeing our advantages
• offers a way to feel more connected to others
• increases self esteem and confidence by allowing us to view ourselves as compassionate and useful
• leads others to appreciate us
• provides the possibility of others being reciprocal when we need help
• benefits society as the ripples of altruism spread out
• develops a stronger avenue to the meaning of life

MATCH YOUR INTERESTS, GOALS AND VALUES

Acts of kindness toward individuals can be small things like letting someone go in front of you in line at the grocery store, paying someone’s toll charges behind you on the toll road, giving someone you care about a massage. You might buy groceries for someone, take a friend to dinner, or leave a $100 bill in a card for someone who is out of work.

When you are able, you might take a younger relative into your home, baby sit for the young couple down the street so they can have a date night, or pay for someone’s college education.

Find acts of kindness that are meaningful for you. In the same way, search for organizations which match your interests and find ways to give or volunteer. It is important to identify interests and ways of helping others that fit your goals and values. You can be of service and you can improve your community through civic action.

EXAMINE YOUR RESISTANCE OR OBSTACLES

Before you commit to regularly doing acts of kindness, or a day each week doing several acts of helping others, or on-going work with a charitable organization, look at the obstacles to your volunteering or the reasons you would quit.  Solve the time issue, lack of interest, how to get started, social anxiety, lack of social skills, and anything else that might sabotage a magnificent way of adding meaning to your life and increasing your happiness. We know from many positive psychology researchers that people who help others get happier.

ESTABLISH A CONSISTENT PLAN FOR HELPING

After you have dealt with your resistance, establish a consistent plan of helping others. Implement a routine as a way of making it part of your lifestyle. I have a young 19-year-old client who, as a way of heading off narcissism and dealing with depression, is conscious of being kind and connecting with each individual with whom she comes in contact daily. She is enjoying giving kindness to others and it fills her life right now, after having to leave home at the request of her parents. 

A friend of mine takes every Tuesday as the day she devotes to helping others. She cooks for the homeless, she washes someone’s car for them, she takes neighborhood elders to doctor appointments, and any other meaningful act she can think to do or stumbles across in her day.

We all know people who serve on non-profit Boards, serve on committees, buy tables or tickets, provide entertainment, host events, provide foster homes for children or animals, work at the hospital gift shop one day a week, design mailers for their organization or type the newsletter. Volunteering adds pleasure, engagement and meaning if you find the perfect fit for yourself.

I have an executive client who awards college scholarships to students at his alma mater and who loves participating in annual department events in his honor. You might not be able to do big projects like building a department on a campus or a bell tower at your nephews’ school, but you can take one day a week to devote to helping others.

Sonja Lyubomirsky who wrote The How of Happiness suggests that her research shows that one day a week derives more fulfillment than spreading it out over the week. Immersing yourself in giving seems to provide you with more happiness, satisfaction, and meaning.

EVALUATE AND PLAN FOR THE NEXT YEAR

At years end when you evaluate your accomplishments and design your next year, remember to assess your helping and modify it for any improvements you can make for helping others, volunteering or giving. Incorporate helping others a part of your lifestyle as important as the activities you do with family and friends. You are increasing your happiness and well being by improving your community.

It is wonderful to give back to those who give to you. It makes for beautiful relationships and builds up a savings account of love and friendship. I have also been partial to helping others who were not the ones who helped me. And I love “secret acts of kindness!”

PAY IT FORWARD

As a young girl, I read Magnificent Obsession a 1929 novel by Lloyd C. Douglas and saw both the 1935 and 1954 film versions. I loved the philosophy of the book, based on a passage in the Gospel of Mathew (Chapter 6: 1-4), the idea that good deeds received are not to be paid back to the doer of the deed, but to a person in need in the future.

This concept provided a key plot element in the denouement of a prize winning play by Menander, Dyskolos, in Athens in 317 BC. The philosophy has come through the centuries. Ben Franklin rediscovered and wrote about the concept and Ralph Waldo Emerson followed up with the idea in Compensation. Since 1916 when Lily Hardy Hammond wrote, “You don’t pay love back; you pay it forward” we have had literature, film, the law, and sociology referring to “pay it forward” or “generalized reciprocity.” Many universities have done research and begun foundations and societies on the concept. In 2006, Oprah gave 300 audience guests $1000 and a camcorder and asked them to record their acts of kindness, to give the money to charitable organizations or someone who needed it who was not a relative, and do it within one week.

We have “Secret Santas” in our work places at Christmas time. You could become a “Secret Angel” in the fabric of your life. I would love to hear from you about the ways you have helped others. If it is secret stuff, you will have to tell the angels or leave a message without name or caller ID. Sorry, technology does not allow the average person to send an email or text. Nevertheless, let me know the non-secret acts of kindness.

I encourage you to find inspiration for your helping others, volunteering and giving. Happy helping!

Posted by D'Arcy Vanderpool on 09/27 at 10:48 AM
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Monday, August 24, 2009

How to Stop the Negativity in Your Life

Don’t interact with your negative thoughts

First, there are our own thoughts. These are negative thoughts that just seem to come up in our minds like pop-ups. These can be self critical or they can be about other people or situations. It is our job to refrain from interacting with these thoughts. In other words, don’t follow a negative thought with another thought as if in conversation with the first. Do everything to not enlarge or enhance the negative thought. That way you will avoid rumination and reinforcing your own negative beliefs.

Ask others the end their verbal negativity

There are negative comments we hear from others in the form of gossip and sarcasm. Right along with these is the continuous flow of negative comments that others make. They might be about other people, maybe their own victim type stories, or about situations that evoke their criticism. We can choose to not listen to these. We can attempt to have the other person change by encouraging him to speak more positively or to not share gossip with us.

Deal with others’ negativity by changing something in oneself

More importantly we can change the situation by changing something in ourselves.
         

• We can inject more understanding, acceptance and compassion into our attitude.

• We might also rid ourselves of judgment and strive to be more open.

• We can take action that involves doing something different so we create a different result.

• We might also try focusing our attention on something more positive. We might think about the people or situations differently or find appreciation in them. What we attune to is what we see and experience. We have a choice of where we place our focus.

• In addition we can put another meaning on the situation or interpret it differently.

Distance oneself or end relationships with negative people

Our last resort might be to choose to end the relationship with negative people or to reduce our involvement. It is very important to rid ourselves of negative influences if we cannot deal with negative people and situations.

Reduce or end other negative influences

It is easier to be positive if we reduce or eliminate as much negativity as possible from our lives. We could stop much of the violent television we watch. Turn off the negative news. Stop the newspaper. End the negative music, movies and video games. What might life be like if we didn’t feed our minds and souls with such negativity? There would be so much room for positivity. I suspect it would be a mental muscle we’d all have to get used to exercising!

Dispute negative thoughts

When you experience your own or others’ negative thoughts, you will want to work hard at disputing them. Examine the facts and prove the positive is true. Argue with yourself as if you are the best attorney. Prove the thoughts to be incorrect.

Be mindful

One of the most important skills to control your negativity is mindfulness. Mindfulness means to pay attention to your thoughts and responses in an aware, objective and detached manner. You eventually learn to detach or create distance in watching your reactions and responses to things that happen. You are trying to not have an emotional action or reaction. This allows you to create neutrality or more positive emotions while you simply allow the negative thoughts and emotions to pass through you. It’s like watching them but not building on them. You want to build on the positive but not the negative. Mindfulness reduces stress, pain, anxiety, depression, obsessive compulsive experiences, and self-injury, improves immune functioning, and changes metabolism in brain circuits known to underlie emotional responding. It even increases a certain part of the brain. You can learn to meditate by taking a workshop, reading a book, or just sitting and relaxing

Exercise

Take a look at your negativity this week to see how you can refrain from interacting with your own negative thoughts, change your behaviors or thinking in relation to others, don’t participate in or listen to gossip and sarcasm, turn down the amount of negative media in your home, dispute your negative thoughts, and begin to meditate, even if you are only quiet and slow down your breathing for 5 minutes a day. You might want to make a chart to help you keep track daily of reducing your negativity.

Posted by D'Arcy Vanderpool on 08/24 at 10:24 AM
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Monday, June 15, 2009

When You Want to Improve Your Life, Where do You Start?

When you want to improve your life, where do you start? How do you go about it? Many clients have come to my office wanting to be out of the pain they are in and desiring to experience more happiness. They arrive with many different presenting problems and we always look at the superficial solutions to those symptoms. But there is always something underneath that we can discover which dictates their sabotage or repeated failures in life. It’s usually about their excuses. So, whether they come in for help with depression, anxiety, trauma or a relationship, we look at the underlying causes, the excuses, and the patterns that began in childhood which do not work so well in adulthood. So often we learn beliefs and behaviors when we are two, three, four or five years old that do not work quite the same when we are 30 or 40. This is the stuff of therapy.

For those of you who are reading this who are not in therapy and who do not wish at this time to begin such an adventure, I’d like to offer you some things which you can do on your own which will give you insight into your core beliefs and help you clear unfinished business of childhood and early adulthood. I also want to help you stop your excuses and start being successful in the areas you have avoided. I also want to help you forgive yourself and others and get onto the business of loving – loving yourself and loving others.

If you are in therapy, this will help you in working with your therapist. It may give you an outline for self-help work or you may pick and choose what you and your therapist think will help you with your particular issues and patterns. If you are in coaching, it will also help you to work with your coach on what you do to excuse and sabotage your success.

Where to start?

What makes you mad? What can’t you stand? What drains you or zaps your energy? What causes you pain? What are your guilty about? What would you like to change in your life? These questions about negative influences in your life or negative reactions should shed some light on where you can begin. Start journaling about these questions. You might separate them into items or issues or people or situations. When you are writing about them, just let your thoughts flow and your feelings get expressed. Be sure to indicate what happened, who did what (including yourself), who had less than respectable behavior? What did you do that was a mistake or wrong in some way? What did others do that was a mistake or wrong in your opinion? How did you feel or how were you affected by what happened? How do you think the other people involved may have felt? What good came from this? What good could come from this if you determined that it would? What action do you have to take to compost this experience and make it a learning experience in your life rather than a drain because of negative emotions? How will you take this action? When will you do it? Who will know about it? Who can give you recognition or praise about correcting this lesson in life?

Whenever you have a negative experience or something that has affected you in a negative way, try to identify your errors, the others’ errors and what you can do to correct it. Also identify the lesson in it for you. Find a way to become grateful for the experience and feel and express your gratitude. It might take you a couple months to get over the anger or hurt. It is important to get over it. It’s important for you to move past this place to a place of acceptance, understanding and even gratitude for having an opportunity to learn and grow.

Posted by D'Arcy Vanderpool on 06/15 at 12:58 PM
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Friday, June 12, 2009

Gratitude Is The Easy Answer to Happiness and Well Being

Expressing our gratitude is an activity that increases our happiness levels by over 25%; gives us higher levels of positive emotions, life satisfaction, vitality, optimism and lower levels of depression and stress; gives us better sleep quality and more energy; and it is one of the more effective ways of coping with disease, disability and even death. People who keep gratitude lists make progress toward completing important individual goals such as academic, interpersonal and health-based, according to research by Robert Emmons.

Keep a Gratitude Journal

Establish a daily habit of recalling and writing ordinary events that happened to you today, the valuable people in your life and what they contribute to you. Spend the day looking for people, incidents, events, and qualities that you enjoy and that support your life. Look for the gifts, grace, benefits and good things in your life.     

    1. Think and recall throughout the day the good things happening…
    2. Write at least three things of gratitude toward the end of the day.

Share Gratitude with your Family

    1. Have your family share at dinner three things that happened to each of you that were good or things for which you are grateful
    2. Have our children recall and speak gratitude when going to bed
    3. Share gratitude blessings with your spouse at the end of the day
    4. Make Thanksgiving a holiday of super big thanks all around the table

Write letters of gratitude

    1. Write thank you notes for gifts, events and special thoughtful acts
    2. Write letters of gratitude to people who have improved or touched your life – teachers, friends, family members, old friends, former spouses, etc.
    3. Write birthday letters sharing about the person’s qualities and good acts

Think of ways you can see the challenges of life as a gift and then how you can express your gratitude.

Posted by D'Arcy Vanderpool on 06/12 at 07:57 AM
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Thursday, June 11, 2009

Forgiveness Is Urgent

It is important to forgive yourself the mistakes you have made and the things you have done that have been most hurtful to others. By writing them you give yourself the gift of making your load lighter as you attempt to experience more happiness.

It is a good thing to forgive people who have done things that have been hurtful to you. It allows you to move on past that incident or wrong and be in present time without bitterness or anger in your heart. Forgiveness is for you, not the other person.

This is a simple exercise. Either take out your journal or sit at your computer and start writing:
1. These are things I have thought, said or done for which I want forgiveness or for which I want to forgive myself.
2. These are things others have said or done that I want to forgive, clearing me of all negative feelings.

After writing the items, say aloud you forgive yourself and you forgive others. Ask for forgiveness and imagine being your perfect spiritual or higher self, understanding, accepting and loving yourself. Imagine your parents doing the same. And sense the forgiveness of God or the creative force of the universe. Then again say aloud your forgive yourself and you forgive others who harmed you.

Sometimes it is important to share these things with your clergy, a therapist or a trusted friend. Receiving acceptance and feeling the caring or love of another makes it easier to move into forgiveness and let go of the negative feelings.

Life gets better and well being is strengthened when you regularly clear and forgive these actions of yours and others. Feeling gratitude after forgiveness helps solidify the release of negative emotions.

Posted by D'Arcy Vanderpool on 06/11 at 06:15 AM
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Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Compliments

Expressing positive things about another person is like giving them a gift. It says you recognize something special, unique or even just ordinary about them. By bringing it to their attention you are encouraging them to continue doing or being that positive way.

It is also important to tell them how it affects you. An example could go like this: “You called to tell me what you would like to do this evening. You are sensitive to my need to plan a little in advance and I appreciate that you are considering my preferences.”

Please give 3 compliments a day to anyone with whom you are living or spending a lot of time (spouse, children, co-workers, or friends).

Posted by D'Arcy Vanderpool on 06/09 at 10:05 AM
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Saturday, June 06, 2009

Acts of kindness

Doing an act of kindness is one of the best things you can do for yourself and others. When you do something thoughtful or nice for another, the regard comes back to you in multiples. You help make a better world when you pick up trash that blows around your neighborhood. Your vacationing neighbor appreciates putting the newspapers and trash can out of site. The elderly woman at the doctor’s office is thankful for your holding the door and the elevator.

Your magnitude of loving and sense of happiness can grow exponentially if you do some acts of kindness as secrets. The secret act of giving can be enormously fun and fulfilling. 

During the holidays we sometimes play “Secret Santa” to someone in the office and leave them small gifts like a special coffee from Starbucks or perform a small task without them knowing who is doing it. Why not be a Secret Pal all year long? I know a creative and big-hearted woman who secretly goes to a friend’s home and decorates the outside of it for every major holiday. She does it in the middle of the night so her friend never knows who the Secret Decorator is.

Take this challenge: do one act of kindness each work day this week, Monday through Friday.

If you are wanting to try another challenge, here it is: Select three things to do in the next month that are secrets from the receiver. Be a “Secret Pal” and do something for three different people where they cannot discover who you are. Good luck! Please share your stories with us if you’d like. We’d love to hear from you!

Posted by D'Arcy Vanderpool on 06/06 at 04:42 PM
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Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Take Vacation Time

I’m being very nice to myself and going on vacation. If you need help doing this for yourself, call me at 702-242-4222 and leave a message. Please note I will not return the call until I am back. Enjoy life!

Love,
D’Arcy

Posted by D'Arcy Vanderpool on 05/12 at 10:35 AM
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Monday, May 11, 2009

Be Loving to Make your Life Happier and More Satisfying

Today I have been reading and reflecting on love. In thinking about love, I looked at our purpose in life, how to fulfill it, and how to be happy. That led me to this:  Love is the answer to life. It is the only way to live. And its the only thing we have to do…

When I was ordained as a minister my spiritual teacher gave me a blessing that said to teach love. I have been wondering about the focus of my dissertation and the book I have been told and prompted to write for quite some time. I feel about ready to do so. It seems I should have put it all together, but, you know how sometimes it is difficult to see the forest for the trees? Well, I got lost in all the positive psychology research – necessary for a dissertation. I was advised by several advisers to write my own stuff. My way of doing things had to be in there. So, today it is coming together better than ever.

Learning and studying The Need for Positive Regard: A Contribution to Client - Centered Theory and understanding Unconditional Positive Regard from the man who coined the term was what my Masters studies were all about. And my life at that time was in large part learning about how to love, individuating, maturing, being in emotional control, understanding my core beliefs, being autonomous, and becoming a better person. I was mentored by a master who gave me the opportunities to develop my talent in helping others heal their conditional love and learn to love unconditionally in their personal and business lives.

The answers about how to have a better life and how to feel happier all comes from the life and teachings of Christ. I doubt that if the University of Chicago would have known, they probably would not have granted the first theoretical dissertation, in psychology and under Carl Rogers, for a theory that explained Christ’s life and ministry in theoretical constructs as the way to understanding how a human develops psychologically. But they did. Christ is the example: love unconditionally and you are the Christ consciousness we all have within us. We can do as many miracles and more. We simply have to put into practice loving attitudes and actions.

I studied Christ in Sunday school, in MYF, in college. My mother took me to attend all types of religious services as we learned about them together. Later my work took me to the depths of schizophrenia, multiple personality disorder, alcohol and substance abuse, teen delinquency, psychopathology and sexual perpretration. I continued my quest. I studied Buddhism and A Course in Miracles, meditated, prayed, and read. Then I studied the ways of the saints and from all faiths, their religious experiences. I went on to study possession and exorcism. These were followed by spiritual practices and I became an ordained minister. With my father’s joy and my teacher’s ministerial blessing I began to “officially” teach love.

I added to my mission working with thousands of couples who were trying to love and struggling. I helped parents learning to deal with power while loving their teens. And I have worked with the worried wealthy and executives from around the world trying to create heart-oriented organizations and communities.  We’ve been adding to their lessons on how to love in all relationships, partnerships and marriages, families, their work, their businesses, their communities. From governors, statesmen and CEOs to the homeless, I have been learning about love as I have helped myself and so many others. We have all improved our lives, careers, organizations, families, primary relationships, and all our loves.

We all live in our relationships. And it is in these relationships that we all grow and become the best people we can. This is our purpose and our job! When we send our children off to school, we tell them their job is to learn: to go to school and listen, do their homework, study, and get the best grades they are capable of getting. As time goes on we add to their curriculum to become involved with activities of their choice and we advise them on sports, music, service, clubs and talents. We tell them to become good friends and we help them learn about friendships as they socialize through all of their schooling. In our places of worship we teach our children about various moral values. We teach them by our own modeling throughout our lives and in vivo about it until we stop teaching them.

How much of all this teaching is about love? A lot of it is, although we may not label the class as Love 101. None of us attends a class called Love.

I’d like to pull together what I have figured out how to love and use love to create your happiness and well being. Once we have taken care of our basic needs of shelter, food, water and sex, we set about to fulfill our higher level needs. We pursue relationships and nurture those we like and love, we establish ourselves in engaging work, we master some interests, and bring meaning into our lives by the service we provide to others. The essence of our pursuits is to create more happiness and well being through pleasure, engagement, meaning, and relationships. So it is that we spend our lifetime in the pursuit of happiness. If we love all the people and esoteric things with which we have relationships, we increase our happiness and improve our well being. You can make yourself happier and the world better. It is our journey and our destiny.

Posted by D'Arcy Vanderpool on 05/11 at 02:16 PM
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Institute for Happiness Studies
and
Center for Relationship Happiness

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