The Infertile Mind

Book Review: Happy For No Reason by Marci Shimoff....

While I was helping my parents move this summer, I found the book Happy for No Reason: 7 Steps to Being Happy from the Inside Out.  I felt a little foolish reading it for some reason, as if in my head I was really thinking, "Happy for No Reason? Yea right!"  But I slowly read it over the summer and thought I'd share with you a few good insights.  And it's full of great quotes, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

1. Get 8 hours of sleep. Nothing new, right? Well, the book added a note that according to Ayurvedic wisom (ancient medical tradition of India) that "getting an hour of sleep before midnight is worth 2 hours of sleep after midnight"  That was new information - when to get the 8 hours in. (p. 174)

So I decided to implement this one, which was not an easy choice because I am a very natural night owl.  I used to joke I'd be happy as a vampire, coming out only at night.  However, I must say after sticking to this all summer, I'm a believer.  Now I make sure I'm in bed by 11 and I'm up around 7.  There's nothing I miss about being up late and I'm going to sleep soundly every night, which was not the case before.  My next step is I think I'll be pushing back to 10:30 or even 10!

2.  The Solutions Focus Technique. (p. 63)  If I'm stuck in a situation or relationship where I'm unhappy or frustrated, I'm quick to list out all the reason it's going wrong.  However, I never stop to think how it's going right!  With this method you think of a situation you've been complaining about and rate how you feel about it from 1 to 10.  If you didn't score a 1 then you need to write down those reasons about why you didn't score it lower.  I was surprised to find even my most frustrating situations were at least a 2 or 3, so some possibility was there!

The next step is to look at your list and think of a small step you could take to raise your satisfaction by even 1 point.  Then take action.  Just the re-framing of the situation and then taking even tiny steps to help it along made this some good advice for me.

3. How People Learn.  (p.281)  The following information/quote was compiled after extensive research by Psychiatrist William Glasser. 

“We Learn . . .
10% of what we read
20% of what we hear
30% of what we see
50% of what we see and hear
70% of what we discuss
80% of what we experience
95% of what we teach others.”

- Dr. William Glasser

Being an avid reader, I was a little stunned to see we learn only 10% of what we read and excited to see we learn 95% of what we teach to someone else.  Without really realizing it, it may be what prompted this post!  I think by compiling my thoughts here, I hope to retain these good insights more deeply.

In closing, what I liked about this book it is was actually more like a summary of a lot of other people and information I've read before.  For example it brought up Byron Katie and The Work, the Sedona Method and on and on.  It also gave you action steps to implement and had lots of good stories to illustrate the point.  It's also an easy read that you can easily take on in chapters and not feel like you've lost the whole story. 

Okay, I'm off to walk the dog and do some crafting with one of my nieces later!

Have a slow day.....

 
I recently got this book, In Praise of Slow: Challenging the Cult of Speed , free via my Bookmooch.com account. I haven't had a ton of time to devote to yet but I am intrigued by the concept of it being okay to slow down and in fact that we need to slow down to really enjoy life.  I found this passage on page 29 stood out to me, as I've tried this technique first hand unwittingly in the midst of grieving.

"Time-sickness can also be a symptom of a deeper, existenial malaise.  In the final stages before burnout, people often speed up to avoid confronting issues.  Kundera thinks that speeds helps us to block out the horror and barrennss of the modern world: "Our period is obsessed with the desire to forget, and it is fulfill that desire that it gives over to the demon of speed; it picks up the pace to show us that it no longer wishes to be remembered, that it is tired of itself, sick of itself: that it wants to blow out the tiny trembling flame of memory."

To learn more about author Carl Honore, why he wrote this book and the Slow movement, check out his website at: http://www.carlhonore.com/?page_id=6

So, here's to having a slow day!