Practice

Children born with a heart defect in America are treated and grow up living normal, happy lives. In fact, the procedure is so routine, surgeons can perform three in one day. However, with little to no access to health care, children with the same defect in remote areas of the world may go untreated for years, if they receive treatment at all. The HeartGift Foundation is mending those hearts. With chapters in Texas and Louisiana, HeartGift helps children like Louise, an 11-year-old girl from the West African country of Liberia, receive a procedure that would have been taken care of earlier in life if they had been born in the United States. At no cost to the child, HeartGift coordinates his or her entire journey, from the trip to the United States for the operation through the recovery process. During the child’s stay, he or she is embraced by a host family as well as the surrounding community. “We really count on [the city] to help. It takes a village,” says Barbara Johnson, executive director of the Dallas chapter. “Our cause is pretty easy to sell. Helping save children’s lives—how can you say no to that?” With the help of the local children’s hospital, the host city and private donations, HeartGift can save a child’s life for about $25,000, and since its inception, the organization has served more than 200 children. Barbara says volunteers often say they feel they get as much out of the experience as the children. “Open-heart surgery is no picnic,” Barbara says. “We have a serious mission that we are carrying out, but [in the end] it’s extremely fulfilling.”

Welcome, Happy Activists! What is a Happy Activist? A Happy Activist is someone who, through kind words and intentional positive actions, strives to make the world a better place. Live Happy invites you to join our #HappyActs movement! On the 20th of each month, we encourage everyone to incorporate kindness into your daily lives by participating in each month’s planned activity. The more who join the #HappyActs movement, the more positive impact we’ll all have on our homes, workplaces and communities. What you think and do matters! June's happiness theme is perseverance. In Ryan Niemiec’s book Character Strengths Interventions, perseverance is defined as the ability to take pleasure in getting things done. Studies have repeatedly shown that perseverance has been tied to academic, personal and professional success. When we engage in perseverance, we are actively engaged in our lives, which can often lead to a state of flow. During this experience, all of your stressors melt away as you focus on the task at hand. All it takes is time and effort. June’s Happy Act is optimism. A key factor in perseverance is maintaining optimism. If you feel good about yourself and your abilities to complete your goals, then you are more than likely going to cross the finish line. Small defeats are just bumps in the road on your journey to success. Plus, the more optimistic you are, the greater chance that the people around will be too. Happiness attracts happiness. The next time you experience any setbacks, think about the positive angle to having these adversities: What have you learned from the adversity? How can you grow from your setback? How will this new knowledge help you in the future? Spend 15 to 20 minutes pondering these questions, then write down how you may benefit from it. Ryan calls this exercise benefit-finding. Research has shown that people who practice benefit-finding often become more forgiving, which is another character strength that can make you happier. Our May Happy Activist is Paula Francis. She is the co-founder and president of Gross National Happiness USA (GNHUSA), as well as a Chief Happiness Walker. A little over a decade ago, she became one of the original founders of GNHUSA, an organization that champions and encourages the use of Gross National Happiness to measure human progress and flourishing. She then traveled to Bhutan, a country that adopted GNH in 1972, to see how it all works. Since then, she has dedicated her life to promoting happiness for all people. In 2014, she committed to The Happiness Walk, a 10,000-mile trek across the country, interviewing people and to bring awareness to human happiness and what matters most in life. She is scheduled to complete her journey this fall in New England, where her happiness journey began. “It has been an incredibly rich journey for me personally. I have learned many things along the way,” she says. “One of them is to not hold on to fear and to allow things to happen. And when they happen at their own time it’s usually in the best possible way.” She says she has also learned that people are kind, generous and want to connect with one another. “That’s a very positive message for me. And what this brings to people that I meet, I hope, is the opportunity to reflect on the things that are truly important in life.” For more information on how perseverance can help you thrive, read the articles listed below. 3 Strategies to Build More Perseverance Do You Have Enough Grit The Power of Grit Time to up your #HappyActs game. Help us spread global happiness by becoming a Happy Activist and host your very own Happiness Wall. Learn how you can host a wall at your school, business or organization and find out how to create your own fantastic wall using one of our Happy Acts Wall Kits.

A friend presented the idea of starting a Live Happy journal project through Facebook.I saw her brief explanation of what Live Happy is all about when she announced she was starting the project with her students.I went online and checked it out myself and thought it would be a fun to do with my fifth-graders at Chester Thompson Elementary school in Tacoma, Washington. Just the idea of focusing on happiness, as opposed to everything we can complain about, is what appealed to me.Often, I have students who walk in the door first thing in the morning and complain, “I’m tired,” “I want to go play,” etc.Typical kid responses, especially with the group of students I work with.We have one of the highest numbers of kids who qualify for free or reduced lunches within the elementary schools in my district, and many of our kids have very difficult home lives—homelessness, drugs, absent parents, you name it. However, we discussed as a class how we could turn those complaints into something to be happy about.For example, “I’m tired” can turn into: “At least I got up for school on time so I can work on doing my best and learn as much as I can.” I wanted to do whatever I could to shine some light on these kids and get them to find some happiness. The day I officially started the project was a day one of my co-workers, who is currently battling cancer and dealing with chemo treatments, broke down.She was tired, felt overworked and didn’t feel that she was being the teacher, wife and mother that she wanted to be.It was at that moment that I realized we needed to start something here that could bring light to any situation.I told my students, “You never know what someone is going through, so asking someone about their day, holding the door for someone or inviting someone into their group of friends all can be ways to spread happiness. Little acts of kindness.” In this case, a hug for my co-worker and some kind words from a few of us teachers helped to soften the blow a bit. I wanted my students to understand that a little bit of kindness can go a long way." My students make a journal entry every day.It is part of their morning work.They come in, put their things away, complete a math problem and finish up with a journal entry of a happy moment or act of kindness. Many kids make comments in their journals about how happy they made me when they finally “got” something or asked for help.A few have mentioned that they’ve written me a note thanking me for being their teacher, and when they saw me read it I had a huge smile on my face.Other comments include things like telling their bus driver “thank you” for taking them to and from school and to “have a nice day” or explaining how they helped out at home with younger siblings. And at the end of each day, I let two or three kiddos share one of their Live Happy moments. They love to share, and it is a way to give other kids ideas for how they can make other people happy. Teacher stress is a huge issue—the long hours, the lack of materials, the amount of money we spend on our classrooms—the list can go on and on.I’ve personally spread the word to a few other teachers in my school.My teaching partner has her kids keep a journal, and about once a week their prompt is to write about something they did to make someone else happy. Many of my students have told me they have told other kids about our project.I see many of them wearing the orange bracelets we received from you.A few kids have passed on the Live Happy journals you sent us to their siblings.And this week during conferences, I’ve had many parents tell me that their student has talked to them quite a few times about their Live Happy journal.Some even bring it home on a regular basis to write more than what is required. I hope to continue spreading the word around my school and possibly out into the community as well.We’re still only in the beginning, but hopefully as the year goes on, more people will become interested. I think the mindset has changed with my students because I’ve noticed fewer complaints.When one kid complains about something, other kids chime in and rephrase their statement to something more positive.It’s been pretty cool to see. Advice to other teachers This journal project has been a fun way to find the happiness in each day.It gets the kids writing, and it seems to inspire them to want to do things to make others happy.They’re realizing how it makes them feel when they do something nice for someone else.They feel good inside. With high-stakes testing and rigorous academic material, kids are often stressed.Those with difficult home lives are really stressed.So hopefully, this is just one way to help them feel good.

I guide my life with 12 personal commandments, and one is “Lighten up.” This year, I have several goals aimed at becoming a more lighthearted parent, including less nagging and more laughing. We all want a peaceful, cheerful, even joyous atmosphere at home—but we can’t complain and yell our way to get there. Here are some strategies that help me: 1. Make each child helpless with laughter. Try to do this at least once a day. 2. Sing in the morning. It’s hardto sing and maintain a grouchy mood, and it sets a happy tone foreveryone. 3. Get enough sleep. It’s so tempting to stay up late to enjoy the peace and quiet after the kids go to bed. But morning comes fast, and you’ll be cranky without enoughrest. 4. Wake up before your kids. Myfamily was so rushed in the morning that I started getting up half an hour before my children. That means I can get myself organized, check email, post to my blog and get my bag packed all before they get up. It can be tough to wake up earlier, but it has made a hugedifference in the quality of ourmornings. 5. Try to cast answers as “Yes.” So many messages to kids are negative: “Stop,” “Don’t,” “No.” Instead of saying, “We’re not leaving until you’ve finished eating,” try something like, “Yes, we’ll go as soon as you’ve finishedeating.” 6. Look for little ways to celebrate. For minor holidays, we have special breakfasts. We use color placemats, some food dye in the milk, atable decoration and throw in some seasonal candy. These meals are quick, fun and everyone gets a big kick out ofthem. 7. Say “No” only when it really matters. Your daughter wants to use adifferent color of nail polish on every finger? Fine. Samuel Johnson said, “All severity that does not tend to increase good, or prevent evil, is idle.” 8. I remind myself how fleeting this is. All too soon the age of strollers, magic markers and science projects will be over. The days are long, but the years are short. 9. Be a treasure house of happy memories. To me, this means keeping a few special things and getting rid of everything else! It makes me happy to be reminded of good memories, and it makes me very unhappy to be overwhelmed by clutter. Mementos work best when they’re carefully curated. For my two daughters, I bought a fancy file box. Ihave a file for each year, and I add keepsakes like the girls’ birth announcements, birthday invitations, school photos, my sister’s wedding invitation, our family Valentine’s Day cards, etc. This is a painless way to keep special documents in goodorder.

Nothing explained my misery: I was five years into running my successful market research business, I had Fortune 500 clients, loyal employees, and was growing an average of 20% each year. I should have been happy given everything I had accomplished, but aside from short bursts of excitement from achieving goals, I just couldn’t find any sustainable joy. This had been the story of my life, whether it be sports, school or my career—I was forever striving for the next thing, the next goal, the next achievement. I’ll be happy when…I used to think. But the happiness never seemed to arrive, no matter what I accomplished. I was sick and tired of living my life this way and my insomnia had gotten so bad I knew something had to change, otherwise I risked becoming a liability to my own company. Four years later, after extensive coaching, self-reflection, meditation, reading, journaling and various retreats, I now understand that I had been suffering from a sickness that I now call Achiever Fever. Achiever Fever is the dark side of achieving—it’s the delusional state of mind we get ourselves into when we tie our self-worth and happiness to our accomplishments. Symptoms include: a constant need to prove oneself, frequent worry, an inability to stay present, comparison with others, fear of not living up to one’s potential and the over-use of food, alcohol, exercise, sleep or work to distract ourselves from our stress. However, as I have come to learn, there is a cure. The cure does not diminish our abilities to achieve: in fact, it only enhances them. But just as importantly, the cure allows us to discover the joy and peace that is already in us to begin with. If you think you might be suffering, here are five ways to break your fever: 1. The first, and in many ways most important step, is to recognize that you are feverish. Achievers tend to operate at a heightened level of busyness that keeps us focused on the external world. Our inner selves get ignored, our self-awareness decreases and we suffer in silence as a result. The suffering can only be dealt with when we acknowledge there is a sickness. 2. The next step, just like with any addiction (and many of us are addicted to achieving), is to tell someone you are suffering. This requires vulnerability and courage. Rest assured that most achievers are suffering from the fever, but most are too anxious to talk about it for fear of seeming weak. Owning it and naming it are critical. 3. Now it is time to get to know the voice in your head – the inner critic that natters away at you, the one that tells you are not good enough, smart enough, strong enough, caring enough or trying hard enough. We allow this voice to run our lives, keeping us in a state of self-doubt and feeling like we can’t get out of own way. This voice can be disrupted by questioning these irrational stories we tell ourselves. Do not accept the voice as truth. There are several systems of self-inquiry, such as Byron Katie’s The Work, that can transform our thinking and take away our fever. I speak more about this in my book, as well, The Achiever Fever Cure. 4. The only way we can truly experience joy is by being present, something that is difficult for future-focused achievers. Incorporating meditation into your life, even if it is only five minutes of deep breathing a day, will show you what it feels like to be present. You will be able to watch your inner critic at work and strengthen your self-awareness, both key in curing your achiever fever. 5. The ultimate cure for achiever fever is to learn to let go. This does not mean giving up, but rather giving in to the flow of life. Achievers like to be “in control” but all we are really able to control is our reactions to what comes our way. Our unhappiness comes when try to twist our life, and the people in it, to suit what we would like to happen. Instead, set an intention, create a plan, rest assured your work ethic will kick in and get out of the way. Remember that challenges bring gifts. Keeping Achiever Fever at bay is a daily practice. Just like we exercise our external selves, we need to pay attention to our internal selves. As we become more self-aware and more present, joy flows into our lives allowing us to feel more connected to ourselves and to others. It is in this state that we can flourish, accomplishing what we never thought possible, as our self-doubt and irrational thoughts fall away.

Are you willing to do whatever it takes to help a stranger in need? Do you make sacrifices to help the less fortunate reach their goals? Do you feel happy when others are happy? If you answered yes to these questions, then you would score pretty high on the Compassionate LoveScale. In 2005, researchers Susan Sprecher and Beverley Fehr developed this scale to measure the level of compassionate love we have toward one another and to gauge our more altruistic side. Through 21 carefully crafted statements, the scale tells you how willing you are to help someone you don’t know. Depending on your answers, your score will range between 1 and 7—the higher your number, the more compassionate you are. You can even see how you compare against people of the same gender, occupation group and ZIP code. Compassion is one of the keys to sustaining true happiness, according to psychologists and social scientists. This seemingly natural trait to relieve others of suffering gives us meaning and purpose, contributing to our own wellbeing. Aside from the emotional benefits we give and receive from being compassionate, we may not have evolved as a species without it. Charles Darwin even concluded that the communities that flourish most tend to have a greater number of sympatheticmembers. To participate in the Compassionate Love Scale, go to authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu under the “Meaning Questionnaires” section.

Welcome, Happy Activists! A Happy Activist is someone who, through kind words and intentional positive actions, strives to make the world a better place. Live Happy invites you to join our #HappyActs movement! On the 20th of each month, we encourage everyone to incorporate kindness into your daily lives by participating in each month’s planned activity. The more who join the #HappyActs movement, the more positive impact we’ll all have on our homes, workplaces and communities. What you think and do matters! February’s happiness theme is empowerment. Helping others feel a sense of empowerment can be a powerful thing. In a recent Live Happy article, actress Britney Young, described how portraying Carmen “Machu Picchu” Wade on the hit Netflix show GLOW, really taught her about her inner strength and how much she could help others. “I hope audiences are inspired to break down their own barriers and go after things they have always been dreaming of, or have been afraid of attempting. Because once those boundaries are broken, anything is possible,” she says. We couldn’t agree more. Our February Happy Act is to help people feel empowered. In Paula Felps’ Live Happy article, Shower Trucks Helps Nashville’s Homeless, she tells the story of a couple who started a mobile shower stations for the homeless. The idea was so inspirational, soon, hair stylists and barbers pitched in offering free haircuts and shaves. These are regular people using their talents and skills to help people in need, turning despair into dignity. Look for the ways in your life where your talents to be a source of inspiration and empowerment for others. If you are musically gifted, you can piano lessons for free, or if you are handy, then help build houses with Habitat for Humanity. There are plenty of ways you can help people feel confident and hopeful again. Our February Happy Activist is Luc Swensson from Boise, Idaho. This impressive 13-year-old, has been helping others feel good about themselves for almost half of his life. At age 8, he started raising money for patients suffering from pediatric cancer, and just recently, he launched the I Love This Life Foundation. With this foundation, Luc travels the country encouraging kids to be their best selves. To find out more about Luc and his work, go to ilovethislife.org. For more inspiring stories about empowerment: Stitching Lives Back Together Rowing the Pacific The Empowered Britney Young Find Your Tribe Time to up your #HappyActs game. Help us spread global happiness by becoming a Happy Activist and host your very own Happiness Wall for the International Day of Happiness (March 20). Learn how you can host a wall at your school, business or organization and find out how to create your own fantastic wall using one of our Happy Acts Wall Kits.

Since 2014, Live Happy has been creating awareness for worldwide happiness with our #HappyActs campaign. On March 20, every year we celebrate happiness by hosting pop-up walls where people can share their messages of happiness and hope. From nearly 30 walls in 2014 to an amazing 715 in 2018, we could never have pulled of such a feat without the help of our Happy Activist volunteers. In more than 20 countries, hundreds of happiness enthusiasts sign up at HappyActs.org every year to be a wall host and help bring more joy to the world. One of those happy hosts is Jane Serr from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, and she has been involved with #HappyActs for the past five years. She really enjoys helping people realize that they can live a happier life and her experiences at her Happiness Walls have left a profound effect on her. “I’ve always loved volunteering because of the release of the positive endorphins being a part of something that is good and amazing,” she says. “It’s nice to see what it does for other people and you get sort of a euphoric feeling in your own heart. I get to see what it does for other people and it just makes me feel good. It lets me know that I am doing something good in the world.” These good feelings are backed up by science, too. Author and professor of psychology Catherine A. Sanderson, Ph.D., writes in her latest book The Positive Shift, that research shows that when we do kind things for others we can increase our own happiness, which can have benefits on our health and well-being, and even extends our lives. Jane feels this is a “win, win” scenario and she has been able to create a lot of happiness at her Happiness Walls over the years. Whether it’s dancing to music, children playing and getting their faces painted or just people expressing their gratitude for her bringing more happiness into the world, happy people are interacting with each other, having fun and sharing their #HappyActs. “There are so many different things you can do at your wall and nothing is written in stone,” Jane says. “As long as it brings a smile and gets people out of their comfort zone and draws them in so they can understand the culture of what we are trying to do.” She admits that she gets curious looks from passersby, but once people stop to see what the buzz is about, the questions go from “What is this?” to “How can I do this?” The infectious feelings of happiness permeate, creating smiles for miles. “It’s just awareness that we can make a positive change. Even when people don’t understand and if they just take that leap of faith and find out a little bit more by participating, it makes a world of difference. They come out of it and they want to host their own wall in their communities or their schools. It’s really great thing to participate in.”