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When I graduated from college with an engineering degree, I thought I had arrived. My joy was short lived; I had to find a job, and in 1971, they were in short supply. To insure that I’d be happy, I got married immediately upon graduation. Surely, being married would bring lasting happiness! Neither of these worked so well. As it turned out, engineering was not a good fit for my interests and adjusting to marital life was difficult at best. For me and many others, searching for happiness was much like looking under rocks. There had to be something under one of them to fulfill us. Fortunately for me, it wasn’t too many years later that someone pointed out that there was a better way. I met a wise teacher who told me there’s a deeper truth to finding happiness and inner peace. Happiness is inside Yesterday, I had the good fortune to accompany my five year old granddaughter to story time at our local library. The story teller had the children mesmerized by a tale of frogs and pollywogs. She had them hopping, dancing and wiggling with joy. The kids were in ecstasy. And this is with them every day. My granddaughter is delight personified. She doesn’t need to be given a gift to have joy, her happiness just is. She’s excited by life – a silly expression, a new idea, a song, almost anything brings her delight. I’m grateful to have her in my life, her joy is contagious. The good news is that it is a memory or state of BEING that we can nurture even as adults. My first meditation teacher often told us that the nature of life is bliss. He explained that stress blocks the flow of energy and bliss in our nervous system. By releasing inner stress and tension, meditation allows us to reclaim the well-being and joy that resides inside all of us. States of being I see the evidence of it with every Effortless Meditation™ course that I teach. As we progress through the series of seven sessions, the mood gets lighter and more joyful. Frequently, couples who express relationship concerns notice after only a few days of meditation practice that they are more patient with each other. They also recognize they are happier and at peace for no apparent reason. Eureka, happiness, inner peace, and delight don’t need a reason to exist! They are states of being that occur spontaneously and effortlessly when our brain and nervous system are functioning more normally/optimally. In his delightful book, Guardians of Being: Spiritual Teachings from Our Dogs and Cats, author Eckhart Tolle states that “true happiness is found in simple, seemingly unremarkable things.” You may experience it when watching your dog run playfully through a meadow. “But to be aware of these little quiet things, we need to be quiet inside. A high degree of alertness is required. Be still. Look. Listen. Be present.” To get there, try this… Meditation is rapidly growing [...]

Do you remember the days when a 40-hour work week was standard? We all know those days are gone. Wayne Muller, in his classic book Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in our Busy Lives states that we live in a world where overwork is seen as a professional virtue. A badge of honor, and yet with it there’s often exhaustion and a resignation that you are helpless to do anything about it. Life spinning out of control is seen as the norm. Well, it doesn’t have to be this way. There are strategies for working more efficiently. It’s often possible to scale back those hours without reducing the amount of work that gets done. In my earlier life as an industrial engineer, I saw lots of people resigned to working long hours, and many were wasting a lot of time at work. There are lots of distractions that can fill up our days if we allow it. Try focusing on what’s important and minimizing or discarding the rest. Hint: How much time do you spend on social media, TV watching, shopping, personal email or texting? Awareness and performance: Breaking out of prison Change does not come easy for most of us. Overwhelm from working long hours or obsessive thinking gets hardwired in our brain. And the problem gets worse the longer we maintain negative routines. These become habits of thought and action. So how do we move in the direction of positive change? It starts with awareness. A spiritual teacher once asked his students what is the first thing that you need to know if you want to break out of prison. Some said, befriend the guard who has the keys. Another said, find where the keys are kept. The answer however was, the first thing you need to know is that you are in prison. Without that awareness, breaking free won’t happen! Change is only possible when we have the awareness that we are stuck. Until that moment, we aren’t ready to change and will resist it. Lifestyle changes: Meditation … For many of us, our lives took a dramatic turn for the better when we learned to meditate. Sitting with our eyes closed in the deep effortless calm of meditation for 10 – 20 minutes twice a day is a game changer over time. Awareness expands in every meditation. One of the first signs of change that many new meditators experience is, after just a few days of meditation practice, they begin to respond to situations in a healthier way. They realize that they are more relaxed and patient; they are seeing things from a broader perspective. By adding meditation to our daily life, such positive changes in thinking and behavior occur spontaneously without effort. The calm awareness of meditation integrates seamlessly into our lives after meditation. For example, I began to eat healthier foods after learning to meditate. I wasn’t looking for ways to change my diet, a healthier diet sort of found me. Many others [...]

This is perhaps one of the most helpful questions to ask yourself when you are feeling stressed out or stuck. Whether you’re upset about your boss, spouse, a problem at work, or world news, changing your perspective will empower you to find creative solutions and relief. Dr. Wayne W. Dyer Author Wayne Dyer, affectionately called the Doctor of Motivation by many of his millions of fans, often said “When you change the way you look at things, the things that you look at change.” So, let’s consider the mechanics of how we can change the way we see things. Our perceptions reach our brain through the nervous system. Neurologists, the scientists who study the nervous system, have discovered that stress, pressure, fatigue, poor diet, alcohol and drugs damage neural connections between the brain’s prefrontal cortex (the higher thinking CEO) and the rest of the brain. With chronic exposure to these toxic influences, our higher more evolved rational thinking brain circuits get bypassed due to the impaired neural connections. Then to our detriment, the brain reverts to using its more primitive stimulus/response pathways. This is why we tend toward rigid thinking and reactive behavior, worry, anxiety, distracted attention, and low self-esteem. At these times, even the smallest of challenges can overwhelm us. So what can we do in our pressure filled world to see things differently, broaden our perspective and gain relief? I know of no better way to change the way we see and respond to the world than to incorporate a regular meditation practice into our life. While there are many styles of meditation. I’ll discuss the one with which I am most familiar – Effortless Meditation or EM. During EM, we experience a deep state of rest that releases stress in our nervous system. This is transformational because the nervous system is a conduit for all information coming to and from our brain. Stress, which has been called health enemy #1, is a major impediment to the proper functioning of the nervous system and brain. Therefore, when we reduce stress in our nervous system, we see and respond to things differently because our nervous system and brain are functioning as nature intended. The evidence of this beneficial change is seen in responses from people who meditate. Frequently they report that they look forward to meditating when they return home from work. Before they learned to meditate, they felt that they took all the stress of the day home with them. Now, after work, they sit in meditation and release their perception altering stress before engaging in family life. They are calmer, relaxed, more patient, and revitalized from the deep rest in their meditation. Many say that their families encourage them to meditate. Summary The world is as we are. After meditation, without effort, we see things differently because we are different. The benefits we experience are rooted in the change in our brain and nervous system brought about by meditation practice. “Love is my gift to the world. [...]

A good friend and business colleague, Wendy Kershner, sent me this wonderful story that I’d like to paraphrase for you. It comes from a book with the above title written by Gregory Knox James (2001). During the colonization of India, the British settled in Calcutta. They missed their game of golf tremendously so they decided to build a golf course. Once it was ready for play, the monkeys moved in as this area of India was home to many of them. They quickly disrupted the golfer’s pleasure by picking up the ball after it was hit and moving it. Not to be undone the British built a high wall around the golf course to keep the mischievous monkeys out. But, this was just a game for the monkeys – scaling the wall, was no problem! The Brits then decided to trap the monkeys and transport them far away. This was impractical as there were far too many monkeys, so they gave up. Then came a creative thought. They decided to change the game. The new rules were that you would play the ball where the monkey dropped it. This turned out to be a “win” for both the golfers and the monkeys. When life doesn’t go your way… Maybe you have noticed that life does not always go as we plan. Others do not follow our script or direction. They seem to have a mind of their own. How dare they? Anyone with children, a spouse or significant other probably sees this playing out quite often. So what do you do when the monkey drops the ball far from where you hit it? Do you grumble, get angry, sulk or worry yourself sick? Or do you make lemonade, when everything is turning up lemons? A friend told me that he and his wife were a good match because she liked to be right and he liked to be happy! Their relationship thrived because of flexibility and adaptability. Learning to stretch both physically and mentally is a good thing. I’ll suggest that you create some “space” in your brain so that creative solutions can come. An excellent way to do that is with a daily Effortless Meditation™ practice. As you begin to make some time to be still in meditation, the pressures of daily life will reduce. Then, like the British golfers, you too will begin to see new possibilities and opportunities. And you’ll have more fun. Life is good, just as it is, when you learn to let go, relax and be resilient. Greg Schweitzer Stress Reduction Resources, Director