Learned Optimism Test

Are you an Optimist? Not sure? Follow this link to find out!

Why you should be grateful (even if you don’t feel like it)

Please take a few minutes to read this article, it is worth it! Please click here: Why you should be grateful (even if you don’t feel like it)

Next Workshop, January 19, 2013

Please join us for our next workshop this Saturday, January 19 from 1 to 3 in Northeast, MD

THEME: OPTIMISM

Please contact Isabelle 302-897-7884 for more information

or visit our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/events/282074138582713/

November 13, World Kindness Day

The date decreed for World Kindness Day is 13th November. This was the opening day of the first World Kindness Movement® conference held at Tokyo in 1998, and the 35th anniversary of the Small Kindness Movement of Japan, which brought the signatories of the ‘declaration of kindness’ of the World Kindness Movement together in 1997.

The purpose of World Kindness Day is to look beyond ourselves, beyond the boundaries of our country, beyond our culture, our race, our religion; and realise we are citizens of the world. As world citizens we have a commonality, and must realise that if progress is to be made in human relations and endeavours, if we are to achieve the goal of peaceful coexistence, we must focus on what we have in common. When we find likenesses we begin to experience empathy, and in such a state we can fully relate to that person or those people. While we may think of people from other cultures as being ‘different’ when we compare them with our own customs and beliefs, it doesn’t mean that we are any better than they are. When we become friends with someone from a different culture we discover that despite some obvious differences, there are many similarities.

Sometimes knowledge is passed on to us about different races, different cultures, that has become distorted, and we build up a false, negative impression of these people. It is only when we get to know such people that we realise it is a lie.

Source: http://kindness.com.au/world-kindness-day.html

First workshop October 20, 2012: the world around us

Adults, teenagers and children were present for the first workshop. Hands-on activities were conducted.

Participants chose the word HAPPY or HAPPINESS and found a word for each letter of the word

Then, while listening to soft music they drew what happiness meant for them.

Some drew

Some just used words

Using blocks children and adults built an ideal world together.

Final figure, family built

Group effort to build a common world

The world around me
by
Amelie

Exercise makes you happy

Here are seven ways you can increase your sense of happiness through exercise:

1. Exercise will bring you into a totally new world and can forever positively transform your life.

2. Exercise will tone your body. Therefore you will begin to feel better about the way you look.

3. The brain chemistry changes while you are working out; leading to feeling calm.

4. You will feel a sense of accomplishment after each time you exercise leading to improved self-esteem.

5. Exercise can be a healthy means of distracting yourself from your emotional pain. Exercise can also be a means to face your emotional pain because the increased confidence will allow you to deal with internal traumas in a bold, self-assured manner.

6. Exercise by itself is known to improve depression and anxiety.

7. Exercise has been proven to make you smarter. Therefore you will develop the skills you need to let go of your emotional pain and discover genuine happiness.

Psychotherapist Bob Livingstone has helped millions heal their emotional pain during the past twenty years. He has been instrumental in assisting victims of emotional and/or physical violence recover from trauma and no longer be victims. He is a featured contributor to DrLaura.com, Beliefnet.com, eDiets.com, Selfgrowth.com and SheKnows.com. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book The Body-Mind-Soul Solution: Healing Emotional Pain through Exercise (Pegasus Books, Second Printing 2008). For more emotional healing visit www.boblivingstone.com.

Yoga Journal - Yoga Well-Being - Yogis Score High on Happiness

Scientific studies reveal yoga may be the key to bliss.

By Angela Pirisi

No matter how much we lust after worldly objects and material pleasures, in the end, we all just want to be happy. But despite our efforts, happiness often eludes us. Now the ranks of science have stepped in to help unravel the secrets of this precious state of being. And they're discovering what yogis have known all along.

Happiness, it seems, has a biological component. Groundbreaking studies conducted by University of Wisconsin psychologist Richard Davidson over the past decade have shown that people who report high rates of happy feelings have a larger and more active left prefrontal cortex than their depressed counterparts. Other studies have concluded that happiness may be a matter of genetics. A 1996 study of 1,500 pairs of twins at the University of Minnesota found that, on a self-report happiness scale, adult twins were highly matched in their scores despite variations in income, marital status, and education.

Happiness also seems to lie outside the limits of material wealth and life events. Winning the lottery may tip the emotional scales at first, but most people return to a certain grade of happiness within three months. This is nothing new to the practitioners of yoga. As Dr. R.M. Matthijs Cornelissen of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, India, explains, "In the Vedic tradition, ananda, or delight, is seen as being present in the essence of everything that exists. Happiness is thus not something that depends on what you have, but what you are."

In fact, many studies suggest that yoga can effect positive states of mind, despite life's highs and lows. In 1993, a British team measured the effects of three relaxation techniqueschair sitting, visualization, and yogaand found that yoga resulted in the greatest increase in alertness, mental and physical energy, and lust for life. Likewise, a 1994 German study, which compared a group of women practicing hatha yoga to a second group that did not, found that the yoginis showed markedly higher scores in life satisfaction, and lower scores in aggressiveness, emotionality, and sleep problems.

"Yoga primarily changes your consciousness, which includes your way of looking at things," says Cornelissen. "In the process, many aspects of your physical functioning also change, including your brain chemistry."

Whether we use yoga or some other self-affirming behavior, it's clear that even born-to-be-negative types can choose to cultivate happiness. Just as a bad mood can become a bad habit that perpetuates unhappiness, so can nurturing positive feelings lead to a more permanent positive state of mind.