How do we harness our individual power to create wellbeing and peace and whatever else we desire by training our minds to think positively and in alignment with our Soul’s desire for our happiness? The simple answer is by asking this very question “how good can it get?” every morning upon awakening.
This question is actually a tool for self regulation and can retrain our minds that are focused on worry and expecting the worst and feeling like a victim of the circumstances to start opening to the Soul/Universe, and asking it to show us the magic of the Creative flow. It excludes focusing on the negative, or the worries and doubts that lower our vibratory field and generate negative emotions and grief that are resonant with survival, suffering, struggle.
Training our minds to see the benefit of the adverse situation can help flip them into valuable opportunities for change. The old programming that experiencing suffering and struggle is necessary for knowing happiness can now be lifted, and we could allow ourselves to live in the state of abundance and harmony with our souls.
The phrase “you get all that your heart desires” is another guiding principle for creating your “Good” day or your “Good” life, because your heart is the brain of your Soul. If you open your heart to Beauty, nature, joy of living, it will create wonders for you. Just compare how you feel when you are the emotions of anger, resentment, or grief to how it feels when you are happy and joyful. What feeling would you prefer? I bet that the answers will be universally the latter as it gives the sense of the Lightness of being.
A Few Tips for achieving Enjoyable Harmony in Your Life:
Heart-Brain–Mind coherence is one step in achieving a more harmonious existence. Science has established that we have more than one mind; our hearts and gut also inform our brains. Most of us have been taught in school that the heart is constantly responding to “orders” sent by the brain in the form of neural signals. However, it is not as commonly known that the heart actually sends more signals to the brain than the brain sends to the heart! Moreover, these heart signals have a significant effect on brain function, influencing emotional processing as well as higher cognitive faculties such as attention, perception, memory, and problem-solving.
In other words, not only does the heart respond to the brain, but the brain continuously responds to the heart.
Controlled slow breathing also leads to bidirectional regulation between heart-lungs and brain and can be a tool in achieving heart coherence. Research has found that achieving 4-6 breaths per minute can lead to greater sense of peace and reduced stress via harmonizing breath and heart beat and achieving greater heart-rate variability in regulating stress response. It increases the influence of the vagus nerve that acts as a “STOP” sign for stress hormones in the body and the brain and reduces activation of the “ALARM” system in the brain along with reducing amygdala activation in the brain that is reactive to fear and stress.
Research by HeartMath Institute for over 40 years has demonstrated that different patterns of heart activity in the context of different emotional states have distinct effects on cognitive and emotional function. During stress and negative emotions, when the heart rhythm pattern is erratic, the corresponding pattern of neural signals traveling from the heart to the brain inhibits higher cognitive functions. This limits our ability to think clearly, remember, learn, reason, and make effective decisions which helps explain why we may often act impulsively and unwisely when we’re under stress.
The heart’s input to the brain during stressful or negative emotions also has a profound effect on the brain’s emotional processes that reinforces the emotional experience of stress. In contrast, the more ordered and stable pattern of the heart’s input to the brain during positive emotional states facilitates cognitive function and reinforces positive feelings and emotional stability. This means that learning to generate increased heart rhythm coherence, by sustaining positive emotions, not only benefits the entire body, but also profoundly affects how we perceive, think, feel, and perform.
The same applies to the Gut-intelligence and our “Gut feeling” or intuition that can inform our emotions and thought processes, as has been shown by our own and other’s research; there is a strong Gut-Mind-Brain Connection leading to bidirectional communication between the systems and restructuring microbiome and brain that can be seen on neuroimaging and in the process of response to antidepressant treatment or taking probiotics and prebiotics resulting in improved mood.
Different mind-body practices can help us achieve mind-brain-body balance. Why is this a good thing? Why are they promoted as remedies for reducing stress in everyday life? Because they offer tools of bringing the mind and body in the harmonious state of coherences that puts the mind and body at peace, rest and centering place from which functioning is much more pleasant and offers informed and controlled decision making instead of rushed reactivity. These practices build the sense of emotional and physical wellbeing and promote individual and group resilience to stress. Access to individual and universal wisdom is available from the heart-mind balance.
Another source of happiness is the sense of purpose in life. Purpose provides an important sense of focus in what can be a chaotic world. Purpose may be very simple. Perhaps you show up for your job every day so you can provide for your children or you are in the healing professions and draw satisfaction in serving others. Purpose also connects you to others who share your path and passions and make you feel connected to the shared community’ goals reduces loneliness, anxiety and depression.
A sense of awe has been linked with happiness. Awe is the feeling that you are in the presence of something greater than yourself- creations like nature or art are typical objects of this sense of awesomeness. You’re at the beach and the crashing waves impress you, or you look at a sunset and feel inspired, or the sight of the Grand Canyon mountains moves you, or the sound of a child’s laughter gives you hope. All of these affect you by reducing blood flow to the part of your brain which is vigilant about yourself and how you’re being perceived. You tend to feel connected the greater Universe and this can give you a sense of liberation and happiness. These elevated soulful experiences also connect you to your Soul.
The Happiest People on Earth
Although states of constant happiness are not easy to achieve and, especially, maintain, some nations on the Earth are better at this than others, with all Scandinavian countries consistently rating at the top on the Gross Happiness Index that was first coined by the 4th King of Bhutan, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, in 1972 when he declared, “Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross Domestic Product.”
The report uses Gallup World Poll data from 2019 through 2021 to score 146 countries across factors including gross domestic product per capita, social support, life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity and perceptions of corruption. Researchers note that Finland’s victory is “significantly ahead” of any other country. Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland and the Netherlands round out the top five, in that order. The U.S. now ranks as the 16th happiest country in the world (3 spots gain from the previous report), lagging just behind Ireland, Germany and Canada.
Overall, the report found that the world is experiencing a long-term moderate upward trend in stress, worry and sadness, and a slight long-term decline in the enjoyment of life. Worry and stress have risen — by 8% in 2020 and 4% in 2021 compared with pre-pandemic levels. For the young, life satisfaction has fallen, while for older adults, it has risen — with little overall change.
On the positive side, the most remarkable change seen during COVID-19 has been the global upsurge in benevolence in 2021. This benevolence has provided notable support for the life evaluations of givers, receivers, and observers, who have been gratified to see their community’s readiness to reach out to help each other in times of need. In every global region, there have been large increases in the proportion of people who give money to charity, help strangers, and do voluntary work in every global region.
COVID-19 has also demonstrated the crucial importance of trust for human well-being influencing mortality from COVID-19 during 2020 and 2021 that was markedly lower in those countries with higher trust in public institutions and with lower inequality.
All in all, the information provided here can lead toward developing an individual toolkit for improving self-regulation and achieving greater happiness in life through greater mind-body-soul harmony and the sense of purpose.
