A New Year's Recipe for Happiness

The Keys to HappinessFrom Body & Soul by Tania Lynne Greener

1. Take the guilt out of pleasure. Sometimes the thing you want most is just what you need.
2. Invest in experiences, not just objects.
3. Don't overthink: Some happy moments are best left unanalyzed.
4. Real intimacy is expressed not with more words but with meaningful ones.
5. To find your strength, push past your comfort zone.
6. Sometimes getting lost is the only way to figure out where you really are.
7. Allow yourself the chance to really savor each moment.
8. Optimism isn't just a shift in perspective. It's an act of bravery.
9. Only you can decide the path worth taking.
10. Dont's wait for your mood to change; take action despite it.
11. You can't grow without pushing your limits.
12. No one knows what the future will bring. Put your energy into now.
13. Multitask stuff, not people. Look someone in the eye when you talk to him/her.
14. Reconnect with your work. Think beyond what you do to how it affects others.
15. Just as a seed contains all it needs to sprout, so are you already equipped to thrive.
16. True love begins with both curiosity about and acceptance of yourself.
17. Coping with stress becomes easier when you know what deeper fear it's triggering.
18. Real awareness isn't about hanging on to the moment, but simply recognizing it's there.
19. Consider this year the opportunity of a lifetime. Start fresh.
20. Heartbreak does more than just hurt. It opens you up to love in a whole new way. 

Why You Should Trade Your Bucket List For A F*ck It List
by Courtney Sunday

One great part of my job is interviewing lots of interesting people. People who change my perspective and make me think for much longer than the duration of the phone call. One of those people was Scott Jones, a recent Ted X speaker, who enlightened me about the revelatory concept of a “fuck-it” list.

“I don’t need to see the Pyramids,” he admitted. “I don’t need to skydive. I just want to enjoy the small parts of everyday life.” Scott became a voice in my head from then on. I realized that there were things lingering on my bucket list that no longer made sense for the current version of me. I was putting off these activities for a reason.

When I was honest, I really didn’t want to do them. By letting them go rather than just putting them off, I made space for what I really wanted.

Intrigued? Here’s how to build your own:

1. Start looking for the areas of your life plagued by "shoulds."
I am a yoga instructor, yet I always think it’s unnecessary when people say they should do yoga. There are many other opportunities to find inner calm or exercise or even wear those killer yoga pants. Maybe it doesn’t make sense for you, even though your friends are doing it. That's okay.
2. Take notice of the things you keep de-prioritizing.
We like to think that when we will be older, we will have ample time to get all the things in order that we neglected when we were young. Maybe you really don’t need to have your photos organized. Maybe the boxes will do. You can use the time you would have spent organizing (or trying to talk yourself into organizing) creating new memories instead.
3. Acknowledge that if something brings more frustration than joy, it may not be worth your time. There are many things that we can’t control in our lives. What we do in our free time, however, we can control. After my second knitting class, I realized that I wasn’t getting the benefits that knitting devotees swore by. I was spending most of the time silently cursing. It wasn’t my passion. I recently tossed those knitting needles. Maybe another version of me will want to pick it up, but the one I know right now certainly doesn’t. And there's no reason to waste time trying to like something I don't.

There's no better time to explore this concept than during the “coulda woulda shoulda”–laden holiday season. We tend to add on to already full plates rather than using this time to sort out what isn't actually a good use of our time.

Maybe you don’t want to travel this year. Maybe you don’t want to be in a relationship and you are enjoying the sweet freedom of being single. Toss some of those bucket list items to the side. We can start living today, with honest expressions of who we are.

Why not just say, "Fuck it"?

Wishing you a rainshower of courage, a bucket-ful of abundance & embarrassing happiness this new year.... Ache' y Luz, April