The Mental Gymnastics Of Happiness

As we go through life, often, it is the little things of life that trip us up. A negative comment, an uncomfortable situation, or a worrisome thought. Learning how to navigate these little and sometimes big disturbances to our happiness is how people can quickly return to their state of peace. (Please note, this is a talk, not a guided meditation.)

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

Life is interesting.

It can be going really well.

You can be having a good day and then something comes along and bang!

It changes.

That good day becomes a bad day.

And these minor or major intrusions into our happiness can come from the external world or the internal world.

For example,

We can be at our favorite restaurant with our favorite partner having a wonderful meal and then a waiter comes by and perhaps says something not very kind and all of a sudden our beautiful evening dinner isn't so nice anymore.

Or let's just say we're quietly sitting at home watching something on the television or on our computer enjoying ourselves and then a thought kicks in.

A thought about how last week at our family gathering Aunt Joyce commented on how I looked a little heavier and was putting on weight and it hurt my feelings and I thought about it and then I go on this tirade.

Am I putting on weight?

Why would she say that?

That was so mean.

And on and on goes our quiet evening of just relaxing at home.

Isn't calm anymore.

Isn't peaceful anymore.

This one we probably have all seen.

A couple,

A woman is excited about her wedding day.

She has all these expectations that it will go just right and then things happen and her beautiful wedding day is ruined because of what someone said or did.

I remember once being in a wedding and the best man was giving a toast.

Well he was the best man so he was friends with the groom.

Well as he was giving the toast,

When he said the bride's and groom's name,

He accidentally said the groom's ex-girlfriend's name instead of the bride.

The best man was married and his wife was in the audience and immediately she shouted out the correct name of the bride.

There's a bit of a chuckle but you can imagine it could have potentially ruined that bride's day.

It didn't but it could have and I think often things like this happen.

And what I mean by that is it's not just our wedding day,

It's our life.

We go through our day,

We're enjoying ourselves,

Things seem to be going pretty well and then something happens.

Something we do not like and it affects us.

But today what we want to look at,

How long do we let it affect us?

Because it is going to affect us but is it going to ruin our day,

Perhaps even our life?

Or are we going to get right back on track,

Let it go and continue to enjoy our day and our lives?

That's the big question today.

Because the one thing I can guarantee is that life is not going to go the way that we want it to all the time.

There are going to be lots and lots of bumps but do these bumps necessarily have to take us away from our happiness,

From our day going well?

I believe they don't if we do some mental gymnastics about our happiness.

So what do I mean by mental gymnastics?

Well think of a gymnast.

When they're performing their routine,

When they're beginning to do it,

They're going to make a lot of mistakes.

And even when they're really good at it at that Olympic level,

They're still sometimes going to make mistakes.

Do they stop?

Do they scream?

Do they yell?

Do they let it destroy their routine or do they just keep going even with the mistake?

I mean if you've watched gymnastics you know they just keep going.

And life is very much like that.

We are,

As I said and I think we can all agree to this,

That we as human beings are going to have bumps in life.

The key to it is how are we going to handle them?

Because I guarantee you the bumps are going to come throughout our lives.

There's so many ways they can come to us just through little irritations,

Through mental thoughts that we just can't let go of from the past,

To big events like sickness,

Illness,

Death,

Losing a job,

A divorce.

These are the bumps of life and the key of it is how do we handle them?

Do we address them?

Do we say,

Okay I get it.

There's something I can do about this right now so I'm going to do something about it.

Or do we say,

No there's nothing I can do about this right now so I'm going to get back to living my life.

For example,

Let's say we're at a movie and one part of the movie reminds us of a breakup.

Now let's say we're going through a breakup right now or that we're alone or fill in the blank,

Whatever it may be.

Do we let that memory,

Do we let that thought affect ourselves?

Or do we just keep enjoying the movie?

And here's a real important question we want to ask ourselves when a bump comes,

Whether external or whether it's internal.

First,

Is there anything I can do about that bump right now?

And I really do mean right now.

I mean in a movie theater all we really can do is watch the movie.

So whatever thoughts we have that are disturbing us,

It would best to get back to the movie,

Enjoy the movie.

And life is like that.

We ask ourselves right now,

Is there anything I can do about it?

Or do we even want to do anything about it?

Again,

Let's say someone's being rude.

We're driving and someone rudely drives in front of us.

We can honk at them,

We can foul them intensely,

We can be angry,

We can scream,

We can do lots of things.

Or we can just slow down,

Let them go by and just go on our way.

I mean sometimes,

Of course,

We do need to do things.

I mean think of the Ghandis and the Martin Luther Kings of our world.

We need sometimes to do things when our lives aren't going well or other people's lives aren't going well.

Absolutely,

Positively.

But we really want to ask this question,

Is there anything I can do about this right now?

And if there isn't,

Then we just enjoy our lives.

For example,

I was recently on vacation to Washington DC for a week.

I had a really nice time.

And both on the flight there,

On the flight back,

There were some unruly-ness going on in the plane.

I had no control over it.

I wasn't involved.

I could witness it.

I could see it.

I could hear it.

But it didn't involve me.

There's nothing I could have done to have changed it.

So I just focused on enjoying my flight to Washington DC and enjoying my flight back from Washington DC.

I didn't say,

Why is this happening?

What's going on here?

This shouldn't be going on.

I said,

Hmm,

That was kind of uncomfortable.

And then I got back to what I was doing reading my book or watching a show or taking a nap.

We need to say really clearly,

Is there anything I can do about this?

And should I do anything about this?

Sometimes it really isn't good to get all riled up about something.

We just say,

Huh,

That person must be having a bad day.

I'm gonna go on with my life and enjoy my life and be happy.

That's the mental gymnastics that we do.

Because a lot of times we just get stuck.

Something comes along and it ruins our day,

Our week,

Or as I said,

Sometimes even our lives.

So when we ask ourselves,

Is there anything I can do about it?

And do I need to do anything about it right now?

That can be super helpful.

Another thing that we do with our mental gymnastics for happiness is we stop saying,

Life isn't fair,

This isn't right.

That is not helpful.

Life just is.

Sometimes it goes really well and sometimes a whole lot of things happen in a row that are a little bit overwhelming.

So we get help,

We get support.

But saying that life is terrible,

Is awful,

Is a mental thought.

Instead,

There are just challenges sometimes.

Sometimes there are more challenges,

Sometimes there are less.

But putting labels on life that life is bad,

That people are bad,

It has power to it.

And if we do that,

We're definitely going to be unhappy.

What we do is we say,

Yes,

Sometimes things go well and sometimes they just don't.

And that's okay.

Because in life,

The beautiful thing,

There are a lot of things often going well.

And people that are happy,

Give their attention,

Do these things.

They're not going to deny or pretend that the bad thing didn't happen.

It's just,

It's one part of the day.

It's one part of life.

When everything's going on,

There's always something good going on.

I knew a man once who had a tremendous financial crisis.

And he was in the process of losing what he felt was everything.

But then I asked him,

How's your health?

It was good.

How's your relationship with your wife?

It was good.

How's your relationship with your kids?

They were great.

Did he have friends?

Lots of them.

Did he have hobbies?

Lots of them.

So that one thing that was a big deal was only one part of his life.

And I think we have to remember that when we have the bumps in life that come,

That we can choose to focus on them.

Because they're going to come,

Guaranteed.

Or we can deal with them if we need to.

Or let them go as soon as possible and just focus on the good things that are happening.

So often,

Life throws things that can disturb our happiness.

We get back to our happiness state by using our skills of focusing in on the here and now,

By focusing on the things in our life that are good,

And giving ourselves attention to that.

We don't deny the things that were rough.

We just let them go.

Particularly,

Which is often,

When we can do nothing about them.

Then we just let them go and focus on the things that are good in our lives.

Because that's happiness mental gymnastics.

And I think where a lot of people get confused is they think some people are just naturally happy and have good lives and everything goes well for them.

And for the majority of people,

Life is hard and it's tough and they just suffer because life is hard and they ought to suffer.

But the truth of it is people that are happy still have hard things that happen to them.

They lose jobs,

They get sick,

They lose people that they love.

All kinds of things happen throughout their life just like other people.

The difference is they don't hang on to things.

They let them go and they have a real tendency to focus on the good things in life.

And when the bumps come,

Particularly the little bumps.

Because in many ways what really gets us are the little bumps throughout the day.

Someone seemed to give us a dirty look.

There was traffic going to work.

I have a slight headache.

I'm hungry.

When I got home,

My partner didn't give me a hug like I wanted to.

Again,

It just goes on all day long.

These little things,

And I know sometimes they're big,

But these little things are kind of like beating on us and beating on us.

What people do that find happiness in their lives is they don't let them in.

They say that's just part of life.

There's lots of good things that happen and the little things just kind of roll off their back like water on a duck's back.

It's there but it goes away very quickly.

They get very good at letting things go.

That's the key.

And focusing in on all the beautiful things in life that life gives us all day long.

It does,

But we have to focus on it.

We have to give it our attention.

If we let the little things of life wear us down,

They'll win.

And we all know very depressed people that are so worn down by life.

They never see anything good.

They hate people.

They hate so many things and their lives are miserable.

But here on this podcast,

We're probably not one of those people.

We're more in a sense like people that just get disturbed by the little things.

It was a really good meal,

But it was a really good vacation,

But it was a really good date,

But all the buts get us.

And the buts are just part of life.

When we realize that,

We can let them go unless there's something we can do about them.

And even if we can do something about them,

It's a short amount of time.

It may be talking to the manager.

It may be sharing our feelings with our partner.

But usually the resolution comes quickly or what we can do about it comes quickly.

We may have to keep addressing it later,

But right now there's nothing we can do about it.

So we let it go.

We have a court date six months from now,

But we just wait until that court date.

Right now we live and we live well.

We have to stop expecting there not to be bumps in life.

Like the gymnast is going to trip up sometimes,

But when the trip ups come,

You just keep going forward,

Realizing that life truly is a beautiful adventure.

And when we do that,

It is a good life.

We can all have good lives,

Even with all the little and big bumps of life.

But we can't let them take too much predominance in our life.

We have to let them go as quickly as possible when they come.

And then we focus on all the beautiful things that life gives us every day.

And if we keep doing this and keep working on this,

I believe with time we can all reach the level of an Olympian athlete in regards to happiness.

Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

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That just about sums up my life attitude!!!! Thank you. Im a bright-side looker, a joy seeker… a ‘see the positive’ person. I know it is a choice… a conscious decision and behavior to do this. Thank you, fellow California traveler. Very well done

A great perspective. I love the statement that "life just is".

Always meaningful guidance. I’m going to listen to this every week for the rest of the year. Thank you 🙏🙏

Another excellent talk! Thank you Dr Puff🙏

Thank you 🙏