Stop Wasting Your Energy on Things You Can’t Change and Start Changing Those You Can. Put another way, for other people nothing is about you. For you, nothing is about other people. We as humans are really good at internalizing things we have no control over, and externalizing the things we do have control over. […]
How to Rid Your Life of Drama A Mental Trick that Changes Your Relationship to Conflict The Secret of Story Telling Why do the heroes of our favorite stories always get into worse and worse trouble? Because the mind loves conflict, and good writers take advantage of this. The worse the situation is, as long […]
You Are Wrong About What Will Make You Happy And Sometimes That’s a Good Thing If you do not have 21 minutes to watch this video where Harvard Psychologist Dan Gilbert exposes some surprising myths about happiness, then here is the gist: We synthesize—as in create synthetically—happiness. And even for the “natural happiness” where we […]
How to Create Instant Intimacy with Anyone The Power of Welcoming and Sharing the First Person Perspective of the Present Moment I went to a fantastic event recently called the Integral Living Room. It was my favorite Integral conference or workshop ever; the most embodied, interactive, and meaningful one I have been fortunate enough to attend. I […]
Is Your Brain The Enemy? Evolving the AutoFilter and Becoming Conscious of the Unconscious You might be sabotaging your happiness right now, without even knowing it. You might already have access to key pieces of information to solve all of your problems, to catapult you to the next level of whatever you want, and yet […]
What Do You Do? And What Does Your Answer Say About Who You Are? I get this question a lot, especially when meeting new people or reconnecting with acquaintances: “What do you do?” Innocuous, but for me utterly confusing. I could answer the question in so many ways. Right off the bat the following options […]
The Apology How a Nearly-Criminal Act was Transformed into an Experience of Love Saturday night my roommates and I threw a party with some full band musical jams. Normally when we jam music in the garage, I make sure everyone stops at10pm to be respectful to the neighbors. They are saintly—they have never complained, despite daily […]
How do you Define Success? Redefining Success in Relationships Many people think that a romantic relationship is only successful if it ends well—which is usually defined as marriage “til death do us part.” This is a recipe for unhappiness, and it does not recognize the complex reality of two humans relating to each other over […]
Love Life: The Monthly Check-In One Happy Trick for Healthy Relationships About eight months ago my girlfriend and I adopted a new practice we simply call “The Check-In.” Every month (around the 15th) we set aside an hour to check-in around how our relationship is going. We discuss what we love and what’s been bothering us, about […]
More on the Write Way to Happiness One Dude’s Journaling Practice My friends know that I’m a huge fan of journaling. I consider it an essential practice for my emotional well-being. Regular DailyHap readers will also remember that certain kinds of journaling—especially about emotional or traumatic events, real or imagined—have been scientifically demonstrated to increase happiness. So […]
Saying No is Saying Yes And Saying Yes Can Make You a Lot Happier When you say “no” to one thing, you say “yes” to something else. A simple, obvious, and underemployed statement. When you say “no” to going out and drinking, you say “yes” to reading the book you’ve been wanting to read, or getting up […]
Write An Angry Letter But for God’s Sake Don’t Send It Recently two of my friends got into a shouting match. They both said things they wish they hadn’t, going for insults instead of talking about the real issues underlying their pain. The situation reminded me of a simple, well-known, and powerful technique: Writing a […]