The Life Change Experiment News

HAPPINESS AND ITS CAUSES CONFERENCE SUMMARY

What an enlightening and fun few days. Rather than your typical ra ra seminar or love fest the “happiness and its causes conference’ was rich with cutting edge info from boffins doing research from the biggest universities in the world. Combined with some of the most well respected minds from both sides of the science and spirituality fence, I was in Life Change info heaven.

Interestingly enough they were all singing a similar tune. Reaffirming my hunch that the chasm between science and spirituality is really all one big misunderstanding, and some day soon we’re all gonna feel pretty silly when we realise we have been talking about the exact same thing .

Anyway here are some of the key bullet points from the different speakers. let me know if you want me to enlarge on any in future blogs

NOTE:- Some of these points you might think “DUH I knew that years ago”. The point here is now it can be proven. So we have no more excuse to delude ourselves expecting or chasing a ‘happy ever after’ that just does not, can not, and it seems, we really would not want to exist.

KEY POINTS

• Happiness can not be chased. It comes from learning to let go and ‘re-perceiving’ our experiences (obvious? Sure but do you live it)
• Most people suffer approx the same amount of positive and negative emotions – its how we train out minds to process them
• There is no happiness without negativity – Trying to achieve this will only negate the positive experiences you ARE having.
• Negative emotions are more beneficial to our growth than positive ones – embrace them
• The best way to find happiness is to give it to others (KEY POINT)
• The greatest minds, most enlightened beings and most well read scholars suffer just like you – That’s how they became who they are!
• Its all about how you PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE perceiving your life.
• The brain is malleable but you must actively mold it
• Meditation REALLY works
• Think outside the box – you’ll open up more possibilities
• Remove the illusion and perceptions we create and you will see ‘bliss’ is at the core of everything. (Try it, it works, but at least until our last breath it is a skill we need to practice)
• Don’t react – respond
• Your brain grows and is molded by the stimuli around it – how are you stimulating your brain daily
• Meditation has actually been proven to impact beneficially the lives of those  around you, as well as your own.
• If you want to understand the pine tree, become the pine tree – (This refers to the need for full immersion rather than simply reading books ,listening to words and expecting change and happiness)
• All ‘truth’ is based on false premise – Since it has to be based on a starting point and no starting point can be absolutely proven. So don’t let your ‘truths’, or your search for them cage you.
• Rather than just Truth and Knowledge, actively live in a world of possibility
• Try to expand your thinking from the linear. ‘if point A is right, and point B is right then C is right….Many of the greatest discoveries of man have come from the leap of logic into the illogical, that in hind sight makes perfect sense e.g

• No one can change anyone. Best we can do is – Bring people to a place to initiate their own wisdom
• Think Positive – It’s now scientifically proven to have amazing effects. This does not mean plastic positivity, smile n bear it. It means mustering genuine positive emotions in adversity such as gratitude, acknowledgement or even just a memory of something in the past. (Although simply eating some sweets has a measurable effect)

Positive emotions increase awareness

Positive emotions increase our ability to see options and opportunity

Positive emotions lower blood pressure

Positive emotions Increases focus

Positive emotions Increases ability to see big picture

Positive emotions Increases ability to see alternative courses of action

THE POSITIVE RATION

The optimal ration for ‘happiness’:-  3 positive to 1 negative. Negative emotions are vital for appreciation hence the ration is not 3 to 0

Like a sailing boat keel (negative experience) under the water holding steady the energy and forward motion of the sails (positive experience)

THE SAILING BOAT AND KEEL

Anyway hope some of these pointers from the experts ring true