Lift Off to a Happy New Year

lift-off-to-a-happy-new-year

 

After a particularly challenging year, we are all ready for a lighter, more hopeful new year. That’s what book reviewer Viga Boland had in mind when she chose to create an audio review of my book, Color Your Life Happy, 2nd ed., as her last podcast of 2016.  Click the link below to enjoy it.

http://vianvi.com/?powerpress_pinw=3796-podcast

or you can read the full written review below.

Enjoy!

COLOR YOUR LIFE HAPPY

by Flora Morris Brown

 Vianvi Podcast #17: A Book Review by Viga Boland

As we bid goodbye to 2016, I am bringing you my final book podcast book review for this year. Looking ahead to 2017, today’s book seems the most appropriate on which to end one year and usher in the new year. After all, who doesn’t hope that 2017 will find them happy? Perhaps Color Your Life Happy is just the book you need to read. Wishing all of you a wonderful and happy new year! Thanks for your patronage over 2016. I look forward to welcoming my listeners back sometime in mid-January 2017! Cheers!

Advance happy new year 2017_3

 

Are you searching for happiness? Who isn’t, right? Have you spent a small fortune attending seminars, hours watching videos and many dollars buying books in the hopes of finding the secret to being, and staying happy? Well you can stop all that searching right now! Just get yourself a copy of Color Your Life Happy by Flora Morris Brown, sign up on her website to receive her blog posts, and you’ll have everything you need to recognize happiness when you see it and Color Your Life Happy.

51baDtvpYELWhat a delightful, easy and important read Color Your Life Happy is. Flora’s style is conversational, personal and friendly. Reading her book is like sitting down and having a chat with your best friend, a friend who is close enough and knows you well enough to remind you of what you really do know but keep forgetting. Flora understands you: she’s been there. She’s bottomed out but recognized that inside each of us are the answers to getting back up. You just have to trust yourself. Flora Morris Brown urges you to stop listening to that inner critic who tells you you can’t, and trust that inner voice, your intuition, that says “go for it!” She’ll insist you start now to say “no” to everyone else and “yes” to yourself. Doing otherwise can stop you from being really happy.

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Author, Flora Morris Brown

In Color Your Life Happy, Flora Morris Brown presents all the positive reinforcements you find in the countless number of books available on how to be happy. Yes, she includes quotes but she expands on every idea by using anecdotes from her own life. These anecdotes are sometimes funny, sometimes touching but always relevant and so enjoyable to read.

As I read Color Your LIfe Happy, I found myself constantly reaching for a pen to jot down a great thought or sentence, like these:

“When we’re feeling stress, it’s because we’re not accepting that what is, is”

“Treat your body like a temple, not a dumpster!”

“Give up the ‘if only’s’ and ‘what if’s”

“Being happy and successful is not a matter of luck. It’s a matter of doing what is most important to you minute by minute, day by day.”

You have to read this book to see how she develops and expands on those thoughts. It’s all wonderful wisdom and so worth your time reading. Flora tells us we should take on challenges and be willing to fail…or quit when it just doesn’t feel good and isn’t working for you. Consider how much nicer it will be when you’re in your rocking chair and you can talk about what you did with your life instead of what you’d wish you’d done! She encourages readers to set realistic expectations and not to guilt trip over not being perfect or making a mistake. When you think about it, it’s all just good common sense. Color Your Life Happy is a book you need on your night table or somewhere ever handy when you need that important pick me up or reminder of the wisdom of the Serenity Prayer.

Another appealing part of Color Your Life Happy is its presentation: each chapter features a lovely illustration above the chapter heading. Along with that come highlighted sections, chapter summaries, and an extensive bibliography. Flora Morris Brown has really researched her subject. She includes book titles and quotes other authors as she writes, and suggests websites worth investigating. I certainly plan to check out many of them. There are also poems to make you smile and reflect and a delightful story about a Mexican fisherman and an American tourist in Chapter 6. If that story doesn’t convince you to slow down your crazy life, breathe, and take time out for those things that do make you happy, nothing will.

Marvellous book and highly recommended.

©Viga Boland, author and book reviewer

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Haven’t gotten your copy of
Color Your Life Happy yet? 
Get it now on Amazon

Remedies for Relieving Your Post-Election Stress

eye-609987_1920If  the USA presidential election has left you feeling numb, nauseated, or discombobulated from post-election stress, you may find recovery for yourself (and your children) among these suggestions. 

Read a great book

Publishers Weekly asked booksellers around the country what books they’re recommending to their customers.


 

Repeat these 5 affirmations

 Suzanne Bold, cbs12.com


 

11 More Things You Can Do Now

Diana Pearl, People.com/Politics


 

Try controlled breathing

Lesley Alderman, NY Times


 

Imagine the country moving forward

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt shares his vision on a TED Talk


 

Make rules for family gatherings and cut back on watching news

Ask the Expert


 

Learn to laugh

Nira Berry, life coach and laughter therapist


and of course I recommend that you

Get a copy of my coloring book for adults for the best way to relieve post-election stress
Color Your Life Happy Coloring Book for Adults

Imagine as an adult, returning to totally stress free moments joyfully colouring without a care in the world as you did as a child. No need to imagine. This delightful colouring book for adults provides an opportunity to go back to that innocent playful time along that also includes positive suggestions to access those precious moments for the present.” Excerpt from a review

 


What stress-relieving activities have worked for you? Share in Speak Your Mind below.

 

Caught Being Good?

“Grandma, look! I was caught being good!”  my youngest grandson announced with a broad smile showing off an award ribbon years ago when he was in elementary school.

“What was that?” I responded, thinking I had misunderstood him.

But I hadn’t.  He received the ribbon from a teacher on the playground who noticed he picked up trash and put it in a nearby can.

His school had begun a program, Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports (See PBIS.org), where they taught behaviorial expectations like they would any other core curriculum. There are many facets involved to make such a program successful, but the underlying tenet is respecting yourself and others. Students who met these positive expectations in and out of the classroom were rewarded with badges.

Before you begin to construct your argument against such a program, let’s just agree that shame-based approaches don’t feel good nor have appeared to work well for humans or animals. There is research to back this up, but simply put, when we reward a person for a desired behavior they tend to repeat it.

I wish my elementary teachers (and mother) had known about and used this technique. Thankfully, I managed to grow up to be a positive person in spite of occasional spankings, being sent to the corner, being shamed, and other painful experiences that reinforced my undesirable behavior. Negative reinforcement did not bring about positive results for some of my friends and relatives.

I suspect it would be a better world if we looked for and rewarded desirable, loving, and kind behavior. Focusing on the positive would be the end of news as the media currently presents it, but what would that world be like. 

A number of people have wondered the same thing, and decided to focus on the desirable, the beautiful, and successful in the world. 

Mariette Pan celebrates the good in heart shapes she discovers

Learn more from Mariette’s book, Gratitude Rocks: Manifesting Passion, Purpose, & Prosperity… One Heart at a Time

Louie Schwartzberg celebrates the good in fungi

The fungal-fantastical. Emerging from their axial homes, fungi are beginning to be understood as nutrients to the human consciousness and ecological sustainability. Paul explores mycology and compels support for your own good nature and our fungal allies. This is the first in a collaboration of Louie Schwartzberg of Blacklight films ( http://bit.ly/FantasticFungi ) and Paul Stamets of Fungi Perfecti ( http://fungi.net ).

 

Starbucks celebrates the good that ordinary people do to improve their communities

Upstanders is an original collection of short stories, films and podcasts sharing the experiences of Upstanders – ordinary people doing extraordinary things to create positive change in their communities. Produced by Howard Schultz and Rajiv Chandrasekaran, the Upstanders series helps inspire us to be better citizens.

 

Rick Charlie celebrates the good he found in his life story

He tells it in this interview by Jonathan Fields.  

 

How do you celebrate the good in your life and the world?
Tell us below in Speak Your Mind


 

 

Flow with the Seasons of Your Life

Shortly after birth of my son in 1975

Shortly after birth of my third child, my son, in 1975

When my children were young we discovered what it meant to flow with the seasons of life.  My husband and I had full-time careers, but our four children were at the center of our planning.  It was our childrearing season. We flowed with that season.

When we remodeled our kitchen we asked the designer to put in a work island. He cautioned us that our space didn’t allow for the preferred clearance around the work island. I insisted that we move ahead, however, because while the designer was thinking of a place for meal preparation and eating, we were visualizing it as a family center. 

We were right.  On week nights it was a wonderful spot for completing homework assignments and craft projects. On weekends it became the family cooking center. Sundays after church we’d experiment with new recipes from the  food section of the newspapers. The kids enjoyed  chopping, grating, measuring, pouring, of course, taste testing. One of those recipes was such a hit with us that decades later it is still our favorite dish.

I successfully completed the season of childrearing and have enjoyed a number of other seasons since.

Right now I am in a season of mourning.

My 40-year-old son, Herbert Thomas Brown, III,  died of a massive heart attack on January 24, 2016. He is the beautiful baby I’m holding in the image above. I learned in my grief support group that grief and mourning are not the same thing. While “grief” is the internal thoughts and feelings I have about my son, “mourning” is expressing how I feel on the outside, like talking about him here, crying, and celebrating his life on anniversary dates and throughout the year.

Even though at times I feel like I’m trampling through a strange new land without my familiar landmarks, slowed by tears and pain, I’m staying open as I continue to move forward on my unique journey through grief. Joining a support group is one part of my mourning and puts my grief in perspective, encouraging me to move at my own pace and in my own way to my eventual healing.  

Another help has been reflective moments and meditations like the one below. 

Your life, too, goes in seasons.

Throw your energy and efforts into the season you are currently living, rather than fighting against it. Resist the temptation to look back to a season that has passed or forward to one whose time has not come. Be fully in the season you are in, completing the activities that go with it. 

Perhaps you are in your spring season, attending college, completing an internship, entering a new relationship, welcoming a new baby into your family or reinventing your life. Open yourself to all the potential of the seeds you are planting in this season to create a firm foundation for the time when you will bloom.

Or perhaps you are in a cold and damp wintry season, at the end of a job, facing a scary medical diagnosis, feeling the loss of a relationship or  the start of an uncertain new way of life. Examine what you need to remove from your life and what you need to gather to expedite the growth. Be patient with yourself as you grieve the loss or embrace the change and know that the new growth that is not yet visible is forming and preparing you to emerge to a full harvest.

To curse the season you are in is not productive. It keeps you stuck and makes you resentful. The worse part is you miss the beauty and gift of your current season and its potential for happiness. Notice the season you are in and flow with it.

What season are you in? What are you doing to flow with it? Tell us in the comments.

Avoid Regrets by Making Time for Your Happiness

happiness

This is one of the inspirational cards from the deck of Everyday Happiness. 

When asked on their deathbeds what they regret, people often mention opportunities they missed out of fear, hesitance, or too much time spent working and earning money. Avoid letting this happen to you.

Even though we get to choose how we react to events and opportunities, too many of us look for what’s wrong in this world, and choose to be unhappy, miserable, and even angry. This is easy to do if we count on the news to set our happiness meter. After all,  we have trained the news media to focus on negative events by giving our attention to these that in turn boost their ratings and profits.

Every month of the year has a day dedicated to celebrating happiness.  August, for example,  is Admit You’re Happy Month. If you haven’t been celebrating your happiness this month, it’s not too late. Make it a habit to choose happiness so you will have no regrets at the end of your life.

If you have the health, freedom, and flexibility denied so many in the world, you have much to be grateful for. Being less than happy doesn’t serve anyone.

Here are ten simple ways to begin making time for your happiness.

1. Take the Happiness Pledge

Each day when I awake and discover I’m still alive,
I know I have another chance to grow, to learn, to thrive.
So as I enter the world anew I will bypass the door marked CRAPPY
And with a smile on my face and a song in my heart,
Walk through the door marked HAPPY.

2. Check out the world’s first 24 hour music video by Pharrell Williams.

3. Let this infographic take you from grumpy to happy in just a few minutes

4. The only secret to happiness is that there is no secret. We must each find out own version http://www.wikihow.com/Be-Happy

5. Schedule activities that make you happy, boost your self-esteem or make you feel empowered. Then keep your appointment with yourself.

6. Engage in activities that relieve stress and help you relax, such as the popular coloring trend.

 

7. Celebrate someone else’s success.

8. Do a random act of kindness.

9. Silence your smartphone and be here now.

  • If you’re in a conversation, really listen to the other person.
  • Attending a concert or a movie? Put your full attention on the music and action.

10. For hundreds more ideas and tips on embracing happiness, handling change, and creating the life you want, get a copy of , Color Your Life Happy: Create Your Unique Path and Claim the Joy You Deserve, 2nd edition.

 Click on the video below to get a taste of what to expect. I won’t tell anyone you were tapping your toe along with the music.

Tell us in the comments what you’ll do to avoid having regrets.