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A More Positive Way of Grieving

I’ve been interested in the grieving process since I was 14 years old.My brother died in a tragic accident trying to save his fiancée’s life.It was a late summer night in Long Beach, New York. She was drowning, he ran into the water to try to rescue her.She survived, he did not. It was my first intimate encounter with grief, touching the cold skin of a dead body, and learning to ride the roller coaster of emotions that come with mourning a loved one. Since that time, I have also buried my mother, my half-brother, aunts, uncles and grandmother. I’ve had friends die young. I’ve buried my dear friend’s mothers and fathers. I’ve attended the funeral of many close to me. I have supported many people in their grieving journeys—a journey that’s never over. You never really get closure. Instead, you savor the bitter-sweetness of reminiscing. Ritual and Remembrance Last Saturday marked another loss; my best friend’s father passed away. He suffered a heart attack on the tennis court playing with his friends, one of the many physical joys he savored. Monday would have been his 76th birthday. The family had birthday dinner plans and they kept them. We set a place for him at the table, got him a balloon, ate a delicious meal, including his favorite cake, and we sang “Happy Birthday.” Then we lit a candle and took turns while each person recounted a special memory about him. Not only was it an incredibly moving experience, it was a beautiful demonstration of the power of positive psychology put into practice and positive grieving. Positive psychology is defined as the scientific study of optimal human functioning. It aims to move people north of neutral, rather than treating depressed people in order to get to a baseline of happiness. Positive grieving is a way of grieving that does not just get a person out of the negative and back to baseline; it isa form of grieving that builds cognitive, emotional and social resources along the way. The key is using the power of ritual and preventatively building those muscles so that they are there for you and your family during times of need. Many people turn to positive interventions in the heat of the moment and wonder why they didn’t work. I’ve had people tell me, “I tried that deep breathing stuff and it didn’t help me.” “Oh yeah?When did you try it?” I’d ask. “I was having a panic attack, and I tried to take deep breaths to calm down,” they would reply. Well, that’s like running a marathon when you’ve never run a 5K. The purpose of these practices is that you do them over and over so that they become available to you in times of need because you’ve developed that muscle. Building the Muscle According to Jan Stanley (MAPP), who writes frequently on positive psychology, habits, practices and rituals each serve different functions. A habit is abehavior repeated so often it becomes automatic. A practice is an activity that is performed to acquire or improve a skill. And a ritual is a behavior that is performed with symbolic actions that anchor an experience. My best friend’s family has gathered for every birthday dinner and performed this candle ritual for decades. The rituals they’ve performed built a reservoir of social capital in their family. They deepened trust, belonging and safety. And at a time when they needed it most, the ritual—in all its meaning—was there for them. I was profoundly honored to witness their process. We wept together and shared memories. Everyone supported each other and they celebrated his life. I kept thinking, this is positive psychology in practice. Routines provide comfort and predictability in life. Rituals unite people and elevate the ordinary to the extraordinary. Living Through Loss Loss is something that everyone will face at some point in their life. And while you can never prepare for what it will be like to receive that call, you can identify the practices and rituals you share with your friends and family, that build your social glue and networks of support. Bring people together to share, connect and celebrate. Then, you and your community, can stand by each other’s side, hold each other through the tears and build a buttress of support to get through life’s dark days. Read more: 9 Best Books for Dealing With Grief and Loss Emiliya Zhivotovskaya is the CEO and founder of The Flourishing Center, a New York City-based, Benefit Corporation (B-Corp) that is dedicated to increasing the flourishing of individuals, organizations and communities worldwide. She is the creator of the acclaimed Certification in Applied Positive Psychology (CAPP) program, currently offered in 12 cities across the U.S., Canada and online. She holds a Master’s Degree from the University of Pennsylvania in Positive Psychology and is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Mind-Body Medicine from Saybrook University. Emiliya holds a PCC credential with the International Coaching Federation (ICF), as well as over a dozen certifications, ranging from yoga to Thai massage, biofeedback, motivational interviewing and more.

Reading

Top 10 Books That Will Change Your Life in 2018

When inspiration catches you at just the right moment, it can change your life. A new way of looking at things or an insightful tip can motivate you to create more meaning and fulfillment in your life. To help you find those ideas, we’ve narrowed your search by culling some of the most exciting new books about happiness, health and wellness, productivity and more. Get ready to shake up your status quo—one of these books may just hold the key you’ve been looking for. 1. The Hope Circuit: A Psychologist’s Journey from Helplessness to Optimism by Martin E. P. Seligman, Ph.D. In his new book, which comes out in April 2018, positive psychology founder Martin Seligman takes an in-depth look at the history of the positive-psychology movement and intersects it with stories from his own life. He shares his personal struggle with depression at a young age and argues that by harnessing hope, gratitude and wisdom, anyone can achieve mental health and a brighter, more fulfilling future. 2. Big Potential: How Transforming the Pursuit of Success Raises Our Achievement, Happiness, and Well-Being by Shawn Achor In Shawn Achor’s bestselling book The Happiness Advantage, his research revealed that happiness leads to success, and not the other way around. In his follow-up book, Big Potential, Shawn shows that our connectivity with others is the path to fulfilling our potential. By pursuing success alone—or pushing others away—we limit our potential and become more stressed and disconnected. Studying people in 50 countries, he identifies five “seeds” or strategies to achieve big potential in today’s complex world. 3. The Healing Self: A Revolutionary New Plan to Supercharge Your Immunity and Stay Well for Life by Deepak Chopra and Rudolph E. Tanzi, Ph.D. Deepak Chopra, an expert on integrative medicine, and Rudolph E. Tanzi, the neuroscientist who identified the genes that cause Alzheimer’s disease, team up to show us how to take care of our immune systems for lifelong health. This brand-new book provides a “transformative plan to enhance your lifelong wellness,” including ways to better manage chronic stress and inflammation with the right lifestyle choices. 4. Your Best Year Ever: A 5-Step Plan for Achieving Your Most Important Goals by Michael Hyatt Will this be the year you finally achieve a long-held goal? Discover how much power you have to act and effect change in your life. “We need to get beyond our natural urge to play it safe. Playing it safe is not that safe,” writes author Michael Hyatt, the former chairman and CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers. This book outlines a five-step plan to achieve the goals you care about most. One of his tips: Use gratitude as an important tool for success. 5. The Wisdom of Sundays: Life-Changing Insights from Super Soul Conversations by Oprah Winfrey Fans of Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday TV show will love this book—a collection of wisdom and “aha moments” from the show. Featuring insights from thought leaders such as Eckhart Tolle, Thich Nhat Hahn, Arianna Huffington and Shonda Rhimes, each chapter focuses on a different life-changing insight. “All of us are seeking the same thing. We share the desire to fulfill the highest, truest expression of ourselves,” Oprah writes. Read it to discover how to live more purposefully in the present moment. 6. Make Your Bed: Little Things that can Change Your Life by Admiral William H. McRaven In a commencement address at University of Texas at Austin, Admiral William H. McRaven shared 10 principles from his Navy Seal training that helped him overcome challenges. “Without pushing your limits, without occasionally sliding down the rope headfirst, without daring greatly, you will never know what is truly possible in your life,” he said, and the speech went viral, with more than 10 million views. His ultimate message: Face hardship and challenges with determination and compassion. Turn to this book when you get in a slump and need to recharge. 7. The Power of When: Discover Your Chronotype—and the Best Time to Eat Lunch, Ask for a Raise, Have Sex, Write a Novel by Michael Breus, Ph.D What if your life could improve dramatically just by understanding your natural rhythm of sleep and wakefulness? Knowing whether you are a morning person, night person or somewhere in between matters, according to Michael Breus, clinical psychologist and a diplomate of the American Board of Sleep Medicine. Each of the four chronotypes are represented by a different animal. Most people are bears, and their body clock tracks the rise and fall of the sun. Wolves are night people and lions are morning people. Dolphins often have trouble with sleep. Once you identify your chronotype, the book explains how to set up the ideal daily schedule to maximize your energy and get better sleep. 8. Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change and Thrive in Work and Life by Susan David, Ph.D. The way we navigate our inner world—our thoughts, emotions and the narratives we form about ourselves—isthesingle most important determinant of our life success, explains Susan David, a psychologist at Harvard Medical School. Our inner world drives our actions, careers, relationships, happiness, health—in short, everything. Learn a new way to talk to yourself and navigate your inner world with more flexibility. Evaluate your emotions and use them to more closely align your life with your values. Learn how to be emotionally agile, says Susan, and you will thrive. 9. I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time by Laura Vanderkam Organizational expert and author Laura Vanderkam set out to discover how women who thrive manage to “do it all” using real data. She collected hour-by-hour time logs from 1,001 days in the lives of women who make at least $100,000 a year. What she discovered about how these women spend their time surprised her. They went jogging or to the gym, played with their kids and had lunches with friends—finding time for the things that made them happy and gave them meaning. Instead of adhering to rigid schedules, they piece together their days “like a mosaic.” Restructure your day so you live life more fulfilled, says Laura; be kind to yourself and realize that quality family time around the dinner table is important. 10. How to Be a Person in the World: Ask Polly’s Guide Through the Paradoxes of Modern Life by Heather Havrilesky Simply realizing that we are all in this life together can empower you to take risks and face new challenges, says Heather Havrilesky, author of “Ask Polly,” a weekly advice column for New York magazine. In this book, Heather shares a collection of wisdom gleaned over years of doling out advice—delivered with her signature grit and humor. “Every morning, you will wake up and see that life is all about fumbling and acceptingthat you’re fumbling. It’s all about saying nice things to yourself, even when you’re lazy, even when you’re lost. It’s about giving yourself the love you need in order to try,” she writes. Sandra Bilbray is a contributing editor for Live Happy, and the CEO and owner ofthemediaconcierge.net.

relationships

Love and Happiness

In fairy tales, lasting love just happens. But in real life, healthy habits are what build happiness over the long haul. What follows is an excerpt from Happy Together: Using the Science of Positive Psychology to Build Love That Lasts. Written by positive psychology experts and husband-and-wife team Suzann Pileggi Pawelski and James O. Pawelski, this is the first book to explain how you can use the principles of positive psychology to create thriving romantic relationships. *** As important as positive emotions are for us as individuals, they may be even more important for our relationships. They help us forge strong connections with others by breaking down boundaries that separate us from each other. By broadening our attention in ways that help us see ourselves as less distinct from others, they allow us to create all kinds of relationships, including romantic ones. When we are in romantic relationships we desire to expand ourselves by including our partner or spouse within our self and we associate that expansion of our self with the other. Overlapping Circles of Self This influential self-expansion model of love is based on the research of leading relationship scientist Arthur Aron, professor of psychology at Stony Brook University. Aron argues that self-expansion is a catalyst for positive emotions. He and his colleagues use pairs of overlapping circles to ask couples about their relationship quality. On one end of their scale, the pair of circles does not overlap at all, and at the other end, the circles overlap almost completely. The researchers have asked thousands of couples to pick which pair of circles best depicts how they feel about their relationship. The more overlap an individual feels with his or her partner, the better the relationship is likely to fare. This simple measure has been more effective than more complex surveys and interviews at predicting which couples will stay together and which will break up. While self-expansion triggers positivity, Barbara Fredrickson, Kenan Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the leading researcher on positive emotions, finds it works the other way around, as well. In a variety of experiments, she has found that even lab-induced positive emotions can help people see more overlap between themselves and others. These emotions can help people feel closer and more connected to their loved ones. And the more you continually kindle positive feelings in your relationships, the more connected and happy you feel overall. Our Contagious Emotions Another way positive emotions can enhance relationships is through contagion. Just as we can pass colds along to our partners through physical contagion, so we can pass along our feelings to our partners through emotional contagion. Ever notice how when you spend time with your partner, you often wind up feeling the emotions he or she is experiencing? Emotional contagion is rather complex and often happens below the level of our consciousness. It results from the fact that we are built to mimic each other. As infants, we start mimicking our parents soon after we are born, behavior that is critical for our development and constitutes a primary pathway to learning and growing throughout our lives. Emotional contagion results from our tendency to copy or synchronize our facial expressions, vocalizations, postures, and behaviors with those around us, and as a result take on their emotional landscape. So although the underlying processes are different, we can talk about catching emotions from others, just as we can talk about catching their colds. And just as there are those who are more susceptible to catching colds from others, there are those who are more sensitive than others to their emotional environment, and thus more likely to pick up the emotions of those around them. This experience, of course, is even more common than the common cold. How many times have you found yourself in a situation in which you are doing fine, but then you spend some time with a partner who is not doing fine? Soon you begin picking up the other person’s negative emotions, and before you know it, you are not doing fine, either. Your partner’s negative emotions have spread to you, and you are now feeling them yourself. How Emotions Spread Researchers have studied this phenomenon by various means and have documented ways in which emotional contagion can result in behavior change. One such researcher is Sigal Barsade, now professor of management at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She and her colleagues conducted an experiment with ninety-two college undergraduates, bringing them into a lab and randomly assigning them to twenty-nine groups of two to four students each to simulate a managerial exercise. In some of the groups, she also included a research confederate, an actor trained to display a negative mood. Before beginning the managerial exercise, participants completed a mood questionnaire rating how they felt right at that moment. Each participant, including the confederate, took turns giving a presentation. Immediately afterward, participants completed another questionnaire with the same mood items they had rated previously. They were also independently rated by video coders trained to recognize emotion through facial expression, verbal tone, and body language. Sure enough, the groups with the research confederate became more negative over time, with lower levels of cooperation, decreased perceived performance, and more conflict as compared to the other groups in the study. . This indicates that negative emotions can not only spread to those around us but also negatively affect behavior and performance. This study and others like it show us how important it is to be aware of our emotional states. The negative emotions we are feeling can easily spread to our partners and this can affect not just how we feel but also how we behave. Happy Together: Using the Science of Positive Psychology to Build Love That Lasts by Suzann Pileggi Pawelski, MAPP and James O. Pawelski, Ph.D. © 2018 by Suzann Pileggi Pawelski and James O. Pawelski. TarcherPerigee, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC. Suzann (“Suzie”) Pileggi Pawelski (MAPP) holds a Master of Applied Positive Psychology degree from the University of Pennsylvania. She is a freelance writer and well-being consultant specializing in the science of happiness and its effects on health and relationships. Suzie blogs for Psychology Today and writes the “Science of Well-being” column for Live Happy, where she is also a contributing editor. James O. Pawelski, PhD, James O. Pawelski, PhD, is Professor of Practice and Director of Education in the Positive Psychology Center and Adjunct Professor of Religious Studies in the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the Principal Investigator on a three-year, $2.5M grant from the Templeton Religion Trust on “The Humanities and Human Flourishing.” Together, Suzie and James give Romance & Research® workshops around the world. Go to buildhappytogether.com to interact with the authors.

Podcast

Attitude of Gratitude with MJ Ryan

MJ Ryan is one of the creators of the Random Acts of Kindness book series and the author of several books, including The Happiness Makeover, The Power of Patience and Attitudes of Gratitude. MJ has mastered the art of living in gratitude, and says that anyone can find more joy by applying this simple practice. She’ll teach us how we can improve our workplace, our relationships and our personal lives with a little more gratitude. What you'll learn in this episode: The value of gratitude How to practice gratitude during difficult times How gratitude can improve your relationships Links and resources mentioned in this episode: Learn more about MJ on her website. Purchase her book Attitudes of Gratitude: How to Give and Receive Joy Every Day of Your Life. Follow her on Twitter.

Lifestyle

Laila Ali: The People’s Champ

She’s got the pedigree of a born champion, her own résumé of in-ring excellence and the natural charisma of a superstar. However, no matter how many battles she’s won in and out of the boxing ring, Laila Ali’s life has also been full of as many emotional peaks and valleys. These days, she bares her soul on her own inspirational podcast Laila Ali Lifestyle, available on iTunes and the PodcastOne network. Recently, she stepped in as the new host of Home Made Simple on Oprah Winfrey’s OWN Network, and her new cookbook, Food for Life, will be released on January 23. Live Happy: Congratulations on joining Home Made Simple as the new host. What can viewers expect from the show? LailaAli: I’m really excited because I have the opportunity to make people happy by teaching them how to make their house a home. A designer, a carpenter and I go in and we figure out what the problem is, come up with a design plan and then make it happen for them. I also get in the kitchen and cook with the families and teach them simple healthy recipes from my cookbook. Who in your life has taught you the most about happiness? What I’ve learned over the years is to not to put too much on others for my happiness and to be in control of my own life. Otherwise, people let you down.…You can’t control what other people do, what goes on around you, all you can do is control your reaction to it. It’s very mental. If you feel down, if you feel like, “Oh God, the world is such a tough place. Nothing ever goes my way,” that’s going to be your existence. You’re going to bring that all to fruition. Happiness is really a mindset…that’s what I’ve learned time and time again. When is the last time you laughed out loud? My children make me laugh a lot of the time, without even trying. I have a 6-year-old, Sydney, my daughter. I have a 9-year-old, Curtis. Some of the things they say are just out of straight innocence, you know? Just super-duper funny. I don’t take myself too seriously anyway, so I love looking for a good laugh. What is the kindest act someone has done for you? The acts that stand out would be those that people do with no expectations in return. Sometimes people do nice things for you because they want a certain response and they want something from you. But something as simple as just being in line in the coffee shop, and the cashier says, “This guy just bought your coffee,” and it’s totally unexpected. That happened to me a couple weeks ago and that’s one of the things I always appreciate. What are you passionate about? I’m passionate about encouraging others to take control of their lives through their lifestyle choices: eating healthy, exercising, having some spirituality, meditating, taking a holistic approach of finding balance in life. I think that this is especially important with all the problems we have right now with diabetes, heart disease, cancer, depression and mental illness. It’s like we’re on this hamster wheel all the time, so, I just want people to know that they can actually change that. That’s really a passion of mine. Where is your happy place? My happy place is at home, in the kitchen or family room with my family. I would choose being there any time over anywhere else. I’m most comfortable and at home in my kitchen cooking a good meal for my family. Gerry Strauss is a journalist who specializes in entertainment and pop culture.

Self-Care

3 New Year’s Resolutions for Optimists

To those of you who are optimists, like us, who push yourselves to exhaustion to be better every day and are way too hard on yourselves when you don’t hit your own irrationally high standards, we have some advice for you: Stop it. This time, we are approaching end-of-year goal setting in a new way. The research in Shawn’s book The Happiness Advantage shows that we have our thinking backward when we assume that success will lead to happiness when, in truth, having a positive mindset is the greatest predictor of our sustained success. Goals are important, and you may have lots of them, but the best way to achieve them is to start with positivity. So, the key to next year is focusing on the good things in this year. Our three resolutions for optimists are based on new positive psychology research. Resolution No. 1: Be the same in the new year as you were last year. Why does a resolution have to force you to be different? Instead of striving to do something you’ve never done before, like learn Spanish or write a novel, repeat patterns that worked well for you this year. In Before Happiness, Shawn outlines research that shows only two things motivate a brain: seeing that the finish line is close and seeing progress. So, the list you should make for Jan. 1 is not a list of “never-dones,” but rather a list of “dones”—areas you have seen progress in your life that you want to build upon. Think back over the past year. What led to your best moments? Was it taking time to have a date night? Was it saving money so you could vacation in wine country? Whatever it was, resolve to do it again. In research, some say that the best predictor of future performance is past performance. We don’t fully agree with that because it ignores the potential for big change. In general, the only way big change can occur is by repeating a pattern of positive behavior that leads to success. So, instead of starting something new, do even more of what’s already been working for you. What’s the favorite part of who you were this year? Keep it going! Resolution No. 2: For one year, don’t repeat a previous resolution. If starting a yoga practice has been on your list for three years and you still haven’t done it, it’s time to take it off your list. You are better off showing your brain progress rather than continually reminding it of failure. This goes along perfectly with the character strengths research that shows you are better off capitalizing on one of your strengths rather than spending all your time on fixing the weaknesses. When you beat yourself up mentally for your weak areas, you waste mental resources that could be better used on your strengths. Resolution No. 3: Stop saying how happy you will be when you hit this goal. There are admittedly a few hours of anticipatory joy when you make your resolutions for the next year, when you think about how amazing things will be. But that is often quickly replaced by reality. It is much better to peg your happiness to positive things in the past and good things in the present. This is scary for optimists like us who love thinking about the future and talking about new plans. We found as a couple we’d spend time on our vacation dreaming about future vacations, and in doing so, our brains were not in the present. So instead, resolve to be happy today. Do not worry that this will make you content to not grow in the next year. The Happiness Advantage research is clear: Create happiness and every aspect of your life improves in the future. That’s incredible! Moreover, if your goal is to lose 10 pounds, that is an excellent goal. But you will not necessarily be happier, even if you think you will. We bet today alone you met several skinny people who are quite unhappy. Getting a promotion or hitting a sales target are good goals, but you will not necessarily be happier when you attain them. The gain in happiness from money is negligible. There is no known correlation between the number of books you read, how many languages you speak, whether or not you go skydiving and happiness. So many of the things that fill up your resolutions will not make this a happier year. Things that scientifically will make you happier? Being grateful daily for the past and present. Journaling about positive experiences. Making someone else’s year better through an act of kindness. Being resolved to be happy and kind today, focusing on your strengths and giving yourself a break are the keys to your best year ever. Listen to our podcast: The Happiness Advantage With Shawn Achor Read more: Which Kind of Goal-Setter Are You? SHAWN ACHOR is best-selling author of the The Happiness Advantage and Before Happiness. Shawn’s TED Talk is one of the most popular ever, with over 5 million views, and his PBS program has been seen by millions. His latest book is called Big Potential. Learn more about Shawn at Goodthinkinc.com. MICHELLE GIELAN is an expert on the science of positive communication and how to use it to fuel success and the author of Broadcasting Happiness. Formerly a national news anchor for CBS News, Michelle holds a masters of applied positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. Learn more at Goodthinkinc.com.

Practice

Livehappy.com’s Top 10 Stories of 2017

This has been a year filled with lively, uplifting articles and plenty of recommendations for books filled with tools and tips for living a happier life. Here are our 10 most popular stories of the year. 1. 10 Books for Depression and Anxiety We interviewed experts in the field of mental health and combed through the shelves to find the most recommended, helpful and varied list of titles about overcoming depression and anxiety. From straight-ahead workbooks by psychiatric specialists to literary memoirs, the books on this list are intended to make those who are suffering know that they are not alone. 2. Top 10 Books About Happiness Looking for an uplifting read over the holidays? This list will take you all the way to next year, with can’t-miss recommendations such as Brene Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection and Gretchen Rubin’s best-seller, The Happiness Project. 3. 9 Best Books for Spiritual Enlightenment If you have been feeling a little mired down in the material world, try picking up one of these books—by authors such as Deepak Chopra, Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama. They are sure to transport you to a higher plane. 4. Top 10 Books That Will Change Your Life in 2017 In 2017 we recommended exciting new titles from digital happiness expert Amy Blankson, hygge writer Meik Wiking and grit guru Caroline Miller. 5. Sharing Brings Happiness Though published on Livehappy.com back in 2013, this article on the importance of sharing continues to please. 6. Ditch These 5 Habits to Find Happiness This feature story, originally published in the print edition of Live Happy, highlights several people who drastically changed their lives to follow their dreams and discover true happiness. What would you give up to find happiness? 7. Top 10 Books That Will Change Your Life in 2016 This article topped the chart in 2016 and 2017. The list includes groundbreaking books such as The Happiness Equation by Neil Pasricha and The Happiness Track by Stanford researcher Emma Seppälä. 8. 10 Best Books to Help Achieve Your Goals It can be hard to get motivated and stay committed when we set goals for ourselves. Luckily, we can learn from the pros when it comes to motivation, productivity, goal-setting and time-management. This book list has it all. 9. 12 Top Positive Psychology Courses You Can Take Online Anyone interested in studying the fascinating science of happiness can now do so at the click of a keyboard. Whether you want to take a casual class or earn a certificate, there are several great options to choose from, taught by some of the biggest names in the field. 10. 3 Expert-Tested Tips to Tackle Anxiety Alice Boyes, Ph.D., is not only a psychologist and expert on crippling anxiety, she has also experienced it. Read some of the main tips for overcoming the racing heart, nausea and obsessive thoughts that are included in her book, The Anxiety Toolkit.

relationships

The Holiday Celebration I’ll Never Forget

Traditions help give our holiday get-togethers meaning and comfort. What cherished memory springs to mind for you? Is it your family’s quirky rituals around opening gifts or the certainty that the chestnut stuffing will be sensational? Some know exactly where everyone will sit at the holiday table, including Dad at the carving station and Aunt Ida and Uncle Ed where they have the best shot of claiming the turkey legs. Then there are the holidays that take an unexpected departure in ways that test our abilities to improvise, to find a lesson in near disasters or to move on through grief. Here, three people share their most unforgettable holiday celebrations. Caroling in the Emergency Room Rade B. Vukmir, M.D., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania As an emergency and critical-care physician for three decades, I’ve worked a lot of holidays. Anyone who’s in the emergency medicine business—nurses, doctors, secretaries, administrators, paramedics—has. It’s often an especially busy time because doctors’ offices and urgent-care centers are closed and we get our share of holiday-related emergencies, like people who fell off a ladder when they were decorating the tree. And then you have some people coming in because they have nowhere else to go and they want to experience some holiday spirit. Maybe they’re elderly or disadvantaged. We do our best to be welcoming. There are always trays of cookies and tins of popcorn that the nurses have put out. You might not be with your family, but there’s a strong feeling of camaraderie and the sense that you’re where you need to be. The morning of Dec. 24, 2006, was quiet. The nurses were restocking supplies in the patient rooms before things got too busy. Then, in the late morning a patient in her mid-80s was brought in by ambulance. She’d fallen and hit her head. Like a lot of elderly patients in the ER, she seemed disoriented by her surroundings. I stepped outside so the nurses could help her get into a hospital gown and ready for suturing. I heard one nurse ask from behind the closed curtain if the patient had a favorite Christmas carol. She responded, “Silent Night.” And then in tones as pure and clean as angels, the nurse began to sing and the patient joined in. Silent night, holy night All is calm, all is bright Round yon virgin, mother and child Another nurse came in from the room where she’d been working and then still another nurse. Holy infant so tender and mild Sleep in heavenly peace, Sleep in heavenly peace. As I finished the laceration repair, the nurses continued, through all three verses of “Silent Night” and then on to “Joy to the World” and other Christmas carols. That experience would inspire the title of my second book, The ER: One Good Thing a Day. That’s all any of us can hope for—to do one good thing a day, and achieving that, led by the dedication and compassion of our nursing team, made that Christmas as good as it gets. Finding a Mission After a Christmas Mugging Jason Woods, Little Rock, Arkansas It was close to midnight on Dec. 23, and I was waiting for the bus in a deserted town on the outskirts of Peru. I was returning from a holiday celebration with some other members of the social-justice nonprofit where I was doing an internship. It was a long way from my home in Stillwater, Oklahoma, but while I missed spending the holiday with my family, I was flying to Buenos Aires the next morning to meet some friends, and I was excited about that. When I was approached by a guy asking me for money to ride the bus, I said no. I’d seen him a few minutes before counting his money as he came out of a store, so I knew he had enough change for the bus. When he said, “If you don’t give me money I’m going to slit your throat,” I pretended not to understand Spanish. Then he put his arm around my shoulder and ran his hand across my throat to pantomime his intention. After a couple of minutes of the standoff, as a few people started showing up at the bus stop, he put his hand in my pocket, grabbed my cellphone and ran off. I spent Christmas Eve alone on a layover in the Santiago de Chile airport and then got to Buenos Aires on Christmas. My friends were arriving the next day and the hostel was pretty much empty except for a woman from California named Sarah who was about my age. We decided to go out for a Christmas dinner together and, after lots of searching, found an Italian restaurant that was open. Over pizza and a bottle of wine, we chatted for the next four hours, talking about everything—experiences in South America, relationships, our families. Sarah could tell that I was still kind of flustered by the mugging, and she was very open, friendly and eager to celebrate with me. It ended up being a pretty fabulous Christmas. It’s been six years now. Sarah and I haven’t seen each other again, but we’re Facebook friends, and she’s definitely left her mark on me. I still travel a lot in my job as a writer for the nonprofit Heifer International, and I try to be there for people who are beset by minor disasters the way Sarah was there for me. Coming back from Tanzania with my photographer not long ago, we ran into a British woman at the airport who was in crisis mode. The airline had lost her reservation and after many hours she still couldn’t get on a plane. With no place to eat at the airport she was pretty famished. “I would kill for some Indian food now,” she said. The photographer and I had some time to spare, so we left the airport, went to a local Indian restaurant we knew and, after some finagling with the restaurant on how to do takeout, loaded a plate for her from the buffet. When we showed up again at the airport, she was amazed and overjoyed. That’s the Sarah effect. She turned me into someone who tries his best to look out for wayward travelers. The Family Dog Offers a Lesson in Coping With Grief Rachel Ghadiali, Alexadra, Virginia My dad passed away in March 2013 and none of us were in the mood to celebrate Christmas that year. My mom had always gone all out; she actually had a whole room in the house filled with Christmas decorations. We’d put up a big tree and lots of smaller ones, along with a bunch of different Santas and tons of lights. That year we thought about canceling Christmas, but instead mom put up one small tree and a few trinkets. Every year I would bring my dad a box of chocolate-covered cherries, and I still brought them that year. We opened that, along with our other gifts. My mom had cooked a traditional Christmas meal, and we were looking forward to that. At the last minute, we decided to visit Grandma (my dad’s mother), who lived only a few minutes away and was with other family members. So my mom, my brother, my husband and I all hopped into the car. We left dinner on the stove and told Rosy, my well-trained 5-year-old German shepherd, we’d be right back. When we returned about 30 minutes later, Rosy greeted us like her normal, happy-go-lucky lovable self. But when we walked into the kitchen it was mayhem. We’d left Rosy alone with food a million times and she had never counter surfed before. But this time she had gone to town, pulling everything off the stove to enjoy her own Christmas feast and leaving only scraps for us on the floor. We were shocked, and then we all burst out in laughter. None of us were angry. It was almost like there was so much sadness in the house, Rosy did what she had to do to break the tension and help us laugh again. So, we cooked up some hamburgers, made nachos with chips and cheese out of a can and broke into thecheeseball and fruitcake that mom’s friends had given her as gifts. We ate dad’s chocolate-covered cherries and, as we did every single Christmas, we sat down as a family and watchedA Christmas Story. Our spirits lifted, thanks to Rosy, and it felt as if dad were there right beside us. *** 3 Ideas for a Memorable Holiday Celebration Want to mix things up a bit? Here are some ways to tweak your annual Christmas, Hanukkah or New Year’s festivities. Share Plates for a Cause Robert Egger, president and founder of the nonprofit L.A. Kitchen, decided to try an alternative to the gala fundraiser this year. In a citywide weekend of dinner parties called Shared Plates, people invited guests into their homes for a ticket price of usually $75 and provided a communal meal. The host or co-hosts covered food costs and 100 percent of the ticket sales went to fight hunger. “We wanted to bring things back to street level and instead of one big light in a ballroom, we’d have hundreds of lights all over the city,” Robert says. “People did everything from a pizza party in a USC dorm to elaborate sit-down dinners in Beverly Hills.” The concept can easily be adapted for a local shelter, food bank or any cause of your choice. For host tips, check outsharedplates.org. Host a Meetup, or Be a Guest at One Last year, ReginaRodríguez-Martin, an American culture coach, tried an experiment. She posted notice of a Thanksgiving Chicago Language Exchange Meetup, inviting expats of all stripes to her home for a traditional holiday feast. Everyone who responded was assigned a dish (she handled turkey duties), and on T-Day her one-bedroom home was filled with guests from Russia, Honduras, Mexico, Kazakhstan, Lebanon and China, along with a few local friends and neighbors. “I’ve been that person with no family in a new city, wondering what I’m going to do on a holiday,” Regina says. “Not only did I feel I was extending a welcoming hand, it turned out to be a really great party and I’ll be doing it again this year.” Start your own holiday meetup. Organize a Progressive Potluck For a fun twist on the potluck, make it a progressive dinner, where each course is served at someone else’s home. (This works best for friends or family who live within walking distance.) The afternoon or evening might begin with munchies and cocktails at one home; appetizers, soup or salad at the next; the main course at a third home; and dessert at your final destination. SearchPinterestfor inspiration and ideas. Shelley Levitt is an editor at large for Live Happy magazine.

Self-Care

Personality Type Is Key to Keeping New Year’s Resolutions

Gretchen Rubin, three-time New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project, Happier at Home and Better Than Before, has a new book that could completely change how you make (and whether you keep) your New Year’s resolutions. In her previous books, Gretchen’s research showed how habits are critical to achieving goals. In her new book, The Four Tendencies, The Indispensable Personality Profiles That Reveal How to Make Your Life Better (and Other People’s Lives Better, Too), you can identify your personality type and use what you learn to set better habits for yourself (aligned with your values, interests and strengths). You can also learn to navigate the obstacles that have kept you from achieving goals in the past. To identify your personality type or tendency, first take Gretchen’s free quiz. Her four “tendencies,” or types, are based on how you respond to demands and expectations—both inner (i.e., wanting to lose weight) and outer (i.e., meeting a work deadline). Here are brief descriptions of each type: Upholders: Meet and respond to outer and inner expectations. Questioners: Question all expectations. Meet inner expectations. Resist outer expectations. Questioners won’t do something until it meets their inner standard and they understand why. Obligers: Meet outer expectations but resist inner expectations. Rebels: Resist both inner and outer expectations. Rebels like spontaneity and doing what they want to do. New Year’s resolutions are inner expectations—so each tendency responds differently to them, but one key to progress for all types is to turn behavior into a habit. “When we change our habits, we change our lives,” Gretchen writes. “If we have habits that work for us, we’re far more likely to be happier, healthier and more productive.” Consider what your tendency is when you set those resolutions so that you can create appropriate habits and achieve success. Here’s how each type can put her research into action. Read more: Gretchen Rubin's Strategies for the Holidays Upholders: Since you meet both inner and outer expectations with ease, you will have the easiest time setting and keeping New Year’s resolutions. You can count on yourself. You even enjoy New Year’s resolutions. How to strengthen your habits: “For an inner expectation to be met, it must be clearly articulated. Upholders must take care to define for themselves what they want and what they value,” Gretchen writes. Possible pitfalls: Don’t expect other types to be as committed as you are, and occasionally give yourself a break. Also, be aware of others who want to hitch a ride onto your accountability, whereas you might want to go it alone. Strengths you can deploy: A natural self-starter and self-motivated, you are likely to keep the resolutions you set. You are the perfect accountability partner or role model for the other types because you are independent, reliable and have a high degree of self-mastery. Questioners: You will readily meet expectations that are well justified because your outer expectation then becomes an inner expectation. “You can make and keep New Year’s resolutions but you may object to the arbitrary date of January 1 or the inefficiency of waiting to start a resolution,” Gretchen writes. How to strengthen your habits: Once you have and believe your “why” for doing something, you will do it. Convince yourself that it makes sense and you will have the commitment to follow through on your goals. Possible pitfalls: Analysis paralysis or waiting for perfect answers before making a decision or taking action. Getting stuck in endless research. Strengths you can deploy: Create a system you deem efficient and effective and you will follow it. Obligers: You respond to external accountability. When an expectation comes from the outside, you will respond. Obligers often say that they no longer make New Year’s resolutions because they’ve failed to do so in the past. Or, if they do make them, they often don’t keep them How to strengthen your habits:Create outer accountability. Possible pitfalls: Thinking you need to work on your motivation. Not true. “No matter how much obligers may want to meet a purely inner expectation—to exercise, to take an online course, to start their own company—they will almost inevitably fail. That’s a harsh thing to realize, but it’s true,” Gretchen writes. The good news is outer accountability is the crucial missing element for obligers. Strengths you can deploy: Obligers benefit the most out of any of the other types because all they need is to create a structure of outer accountability. It’s a straightforward fix. Need to work out? Hire a trainer. Or pay for a gym membership. Set up a system of outer accountability because you are great at meeting other people’s demands. Make sure you pick the type of accountability that feels right to you. Rebels: You are only going to make and keep a New Year’s resolution if you want to. In fact, you can probably stop reading this article because you are going to do what you want to do anyway. “Rebels won’t bind themselves with resolutions. Occasionally, rebels find it fun and like the challenge,” Gretchen writes. How to strengthen your habits: Make something a challenge for you. Rebels love challenges. Watch what happens if someone tells you that you can’t do something. Rebels also love defying people’s expectations. Possible pitfalls: You have trouble accomplishing tasks that need to be done consistently, the same way, every time. Rebels often do worse with an accountability partner. Strengths you can deploy: Don’t tie your goals to a schedule. “Rebels do better when they do what they want when they want—without any expectations that might trigger resistance,” Gretchen writes. One of the powerful takeaways from The Four Tendencies is realizing, even if we already know it intuitively, that people filter and respond to the world differently according to their personality. Accepting that others see the world differently should help us be more supportive of each other as we set new goals for the year ahead. Find The Four Tendencies at Amazon or wherever books are sold. Listen to our podcast:Better Than Before With Gretchen Rubin Sandra Bilbray is a contributing editor for Live Happy, and the CEO and owner ofthemediaconcierge.net.

Live Happy 9 Books for Dealing with Grief

Reading

9 Books for Dealing With Grief and Loss

Grief and loss take you by surprise: One minute you are sobbing and the next you are laughing through tears when you recall a funny memory. Grief can take your breath away with gut-wrenching sorrow, and it can also make you cherish the great moments you shared with a loved one. Grief is messy and different for everyone who experiences it. The amount of time that has passed doesn’t necessarily indicate how much you’ve healed. To help you navigate the path of loss, here are some of the best books to comfort you through your grief. 1. Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy By Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant Only in her mid-40s, Sheryl Sandberg faced the unimaginable. The COO of Facebook and author of the best-seller Lean In, Sheryl found her husband, Silicon Valley executive Dave Goldberg, suddenly dead during a vacation in Mexico. After the shocking loss, she would then have to face her children, her demanding job and her own seemingly bottomless grief. “We all live some form of Option B,” Sheryl writes. This version of her life—without the love of her life by her side—became Sheryl’s Option B. Co-written with psychologist and Wharton professor Adam Grant, Ph.D., Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy, shows how the capacity of the human spirit can help you to persevere and rediscover joy even after facing tremendous pain and loss. Inspiring words: “When we realize that negative events don’t mean ‘everything is awful forever’ it makes us less depressed and more able to cope.” 2. The Year of Magical Thinking By Joan Didion Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne were married and worked side-by-side as writers for 40 years. In 2003, John died from a massive heart attack at the same time the couple’s only daughter, Quintana, lay unconscious in a nearby hospital suffering from pneumonia and septic shock. Her husband’s death propelled Joan into a state she calls “magical thinking,” where she expected her husband to return and “need his shoes.” The Year of Magical Thinking is a memoir of her mourning, as she attempts to make sense of her grief, while tending to the severe illness of her daughter. Inspiring words: “Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant.” 3. Resilient Grieving: Finding Strength and Embracing Life After a Loss That Changes Everything By Lucy Hone, Ph.D. After losing her 12-year-old daughter in a car accident, psychology professor Lucy Hone had to figure out a way forward with her sorrow. Resilient Grieving combines her bereavement research with positive psychology to show the human capacity for growth after traumatic loss. Calling “resilient grieving” an innate ability, her book details the ways possible to move through grief and discover how to live a more deeply engaged and meaningful life. Inspiring words: “The death of someone we hold dear may be inevitable; being paralyzed by our grief is not.” 4. I Wasn’t Ready to Say Goodbye: Surviving, Coping and Healing After the Sudden Death of a Loved One By Brook Noel and Pamela D. Blair, Ph.D. Called a book of solace, I Wasn’t Ready to Say Goodbye is like a companion to walk you through your grief after unimaginable loss—the kind of book you can turn to again and again. Authors Brook Noel and Pamela Blair, PhD., write about unique circumstances of loss such as suicide and homicide, as well as different grieving styles and myths and misunderstandings about grief. Discover how to get through the pain of losing someone and begin to rebuild your life. Inspiring words: “A heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.” 5. A Grief Observed By C.S. Lewis “The death of a beloved is an amputation,” wrote author C.S. Lewis after losing his wife, Joy Gresham, to cancer. A Grief Observed, which inspired the movie Shadowlands, is his raw account of grief so strong it caused a man of stalwart faith to question the universe. He wrote, “…[grief] feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me.” Inspiring words: “Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape.” 6. On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss By Elisabeth Kubler Ross and David Kessler Influential psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s groundbreaking book, On Death and Dying, turned into a national discussion about grief and its five stages. Before her death in 2004, she and David Kessler wrote On Grief and Grieving, which examines the experience of grief. On Grief and Grieving explores how the process of grieving helps us live with loss, including the authors own experiences, practical wisdom and case studies. It delves into sadness, hauntings, dreams, isolation and healing. Inspiring words: “The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal, and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to.” 7. Please Be Patient, I'm Grieving: How to Care For and Support the Grieving Heart By Gary Roe A hospice chaplain and grief specialist, Gary Roe helps provide comfort to those facing the devastating loss of a loved one. His book is filled with tips on how to manage the ups and downs of grief. Learn how to navigate all the changes after a loss of a spouse or significant other, and face the future with hope again. If you want to feel understood, and like you aren’t alone, read this book. You also will find suggestions for helping people you love deal with grief. Inspiring words: “You are far from alone, you’re not crazy, and that you will make it through this.” 8. When Bad Things Happen to Good People By Harold S. Kushner Harold Kushner was a young rabbi when he learned that his 3-year-old son was facing a fatal illness. This grim diagnosis sent Harold on a lifelong quest to examine how God could let good people suffer. He shares how he merged his religious faith with the fear, questions and doubts in this classic book, which has become a resource for others facing similar tragedy. It includes Harold's own experience, plus stories from people he’s helped throughout his career. Inspiring words: “I wanted to write a book that could be given to the person who has been hurt by life—by death, by illness or injury, by rejection or disappointment—and who knows in his heart that if there is justice in the world, he deserved better.” 9. When Things Fall Apart By Pema Chodron When Things Fall Apart is a collection of Buddhist nun Pema Chodron’s wisdom on dealing with grief, illness, fear and more. In the beloved classic, she advises those who are suffering to move toward the pain instead of running away from it. She believes that embracing the negative situation or emotion will help readers find ways to cope and, ultimately, heal. The book weaves in Buddhist wisdom and practical advice throughout to target a variety of life situations. “The trick is to keep exploring and not bail out, even when we find out that something is not what we thought. That’s what we’re going to discover again and again and again.” Inspiring words: “Usually we think that brave people have no fear. The truth is they are intimate with fear.” Sandra Bilbray is a contributing editor for Live Happy, and the CEO and owner of themediaconcierge.net.

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