In this newsletter I aim to give you tips and valuable information to help you get More Time and More Life with Less Stress.

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1. The pleasure principle

In The Art of Happiness the Dalai Lama says:

“I believe that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness. That is clear. Whether one believes in religion or not, whether one believes in this religion or that religion, we all are seeking something better in this life. So I think the very motion of our life is towards happiness…”

The Dalai Lama has always struck me as a particularly happy person, despite the fact that he is not allowed to go home to his own country and lives a wandering life. He seems to live in the present moment and enjoy it.

How many of us do the same?

THE POWER QUESTION

What makes you happy?

Can you list five things that do? How often do you experience the things that make you happy?

How much happiness are we entitled to? Do we believe that it is in short supply and so we must be careful how we use it in case we run out?!!

Many times we confuse pleasure with happiness. Pleasure is more immediate but not so meaningful. For example eating a box of expensive chocolates may be pleasurable (and as a chocoholic I am not going to disagree with that) but will it lead to happiness?

The Dalai Lama suggests that before we do something or make a decision we ask ourselves “Will this lead to happiness?” By doing this we will ultimately create more happiness for ourselves and those around us.

2. It’s all in the mind

In the western world we often confuse money and possessions with happiness, but a study of lottery winners found that the initial high of the win eventually wore off and that the winner returned to their usual range of moment-to-moment happiness that they experienced before the win.

Further studies have also shown that those people who are struck by challenging events such as cancer, blindness or paralysis typically recover their normal or near normal level of day-to-day happiness after an appropriate adjustment period.

In that case the question is what determines our basic level of happiness and can we increase it? Well the good news is that the answer is yes – happiness is (according to many leading psychologists) not so much to do with the conditions around us but how we perceive our situation and how satisfied we are with what we have.

I am always fascinated when I see programmes about people in other parts of the world – many of the people we would consider poor are often only poor in the sense of possessions as opposed to love and compassion. Even when watching the short films made for Comic Relief this year the young orphans were still able to laugh and smile and enjoy life, despite some of the awful experiences they had been through.

Nearer to home you can read about numerous celebrities who have money, talent and adoration and yet happiness seems to elude them.

3. Game for a laugh

Laughter is infectious and will boost your immune system. On my NLP module last weekend we were given a very interesting statistic: Children laugh around two hundred times a day. By the time they become adults it has fallen to fifteen times a day!

Little wonder that you can now take laughter courses. Laughter is a great way of changing your state. So next time you are thinking of getting angry, how about having a laugh instead. Do you notice any difference?

4. NEW! Life Gym Members Area – FREE access for Newsletter readers

Webmaster Paul has been hard at work to set up a page full of documents that I use with clients, plus some recommended reading.

All subscribers to this newsletter can go to the life gym page by using the following link:

http://www.dreamcatcher-lifecoaching.co.uk/lgym.htm

Then click on the Members Area on the left where you will be asked the following:

Username: lifegym

Password: thevault

This will give you access to all the life gym documents and I will be using some of them over the next few issues of the newsletter.

5. Up Close and Personal

The Equine Patient

Thanks to all of you who enquired after Paddy’s operation. He was lucky to be at one of the best equine hospitals in the country (http://www.theleh.co.uk/ ) and took it all in his stride. I was a nervous wreck getting him there, but he walked straight into the trailer and off we went. He unloaded fine but then decided the weighing scales were far too scary to get on and dug his heels in!

The staff at the Liphook Equine Hospital were great. Having been referred by his vet Harry I then booked him in for his operation and we turned up as arranged. Firstly I had to announce his arrival to Nikki and Julie at reception who called Cass, an admissions nurse who met us and accompanied us to his stable. She then took all his details, including of course what he ate including any special dietary requirements and checked all his vaccinations were up-to-date. I also told her about his cotton wool phobia and this was duly logged (with some amusement!) on his notes.

I had a chat with David who was the surgeon in charge of removing his numerous sarcoids and he answered all of my questions with great patience.

Then I headed off home and to my four day course. This meant that I could not visit him but the team were amazing, David updated me after the operation (including the news that Paddy had burst his stitches when he jumped up a bit quickly on waking) and then Emily his house vet left me regular updates as to his progress and his general well-being. Personally I think Paddy was secretly quite content at being surrounded by so many women!

I finally got to see him on the Monday and had an update from Emily on his progress over the weekend where he seemed to have been a model patient. I was told he could come out on Tuesday so we collected him in the afternoon and Laura, one of the nurses, gave us full instructions on his medication and his schedule for the following week (box rest while his wound began to heal). We were then off home with two appointments booked for him to be checked over by his vet.

Looking at the amount of people I interacted with over the week he was in hospital I have to say that I was really impressed at the service. They were all willing to answer my questions and I have no doubt that he was very well looked after. It makes all the difference when people get it right!

This care has of course continued at his yard with Fay and David keeping his wound clean and taking great care of him while he is on box rest. I think he will be really happy when he can go out in the field again, which we hope will be this week.

Boogie Nights

I have taken up a new class at the gym namely “Dance Fusion” which has made me realise that a stiff lower back presents a particular challenge when trying to do anything remotely resembling a wiggle or shake of the hips! Great fun though and a good workout! Plus it means more variety in my fitness programme which keeps it interesting.

Have a good couple of weeks!

Ann

ann@dreamcatcher-lifecoaching.co.uk

http://www.dreamcatcher-lifecoaching.co.uk/

The Life Gym is written by Ann Brosnan. Ann is a coach who specialises in working with busy  people to create More Time and More Life with Less Stress.

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