Happiness & Where To Find It Live

Scientists have traveled the globe to discover who the happiest people are in the world and how we can be more like them. The results are in, but it may not be what you're thinking. There is one key component to experiencing happiness and only one place to find it. That is what this talk is all about! Recorded live at Unity of Taos in 2021.

Transcript

Good morning.

Good morning,

Zoom.

Zoomies,

Zoomsters,

Zooms,

What have we decided to call the Zoom world?

Thank you all for having me back.

I really love being here at Unity of Taos.

It's one of my favorite places to speak and an extra special.

My pups are here with me today.

They've never gotten to see Mama work live,

So that's fun.

And my my soul brother there as well from Tennessee is in.

So really fun day and we're going to be talking about happiness.

I'm going to get rid of that so I can see you fine people.

Anybody want happiness?

More happiness?

Some happiness?

Have it more often?

Ken wants some?

Yeah,

All right.

A few.

I just want to make sure I can talk about something else.

What about you out there,

Zoom?

Yes,

Betsy's in,

Lucy's in.

All right.

Okay,

Well then we'll do this talk then.

I had a backup one,

But we'll do we'll do this one.

Yes,

Happiness.

That's the name of the game.

There are a lot of studies done on happiness,

A lot of searches for happiness,

A lot of inquiries around happiness.

We research happiness.

We want to find the formula for happiness.

And the bad news is it's actually quite simple,

Which makes it rather hard,

Of course.

Now,

I imagine today's talk is going to just be a reminder for a lot of us,

Like Ken was saying today.

You can hear the same thing.

You can read the same thing.

We can practice the same thing and not get it.

And then one day we get it.

So part of today is going to be a reminder for a lot of us.

We're going to get a little weird if you'll join me for it.

That'll be part of our talk today.

And then we're going to have a big oh,

Thank goodness component to the talk.

All right.

So that's where we're going.

Sound good?

Rock and roll.

All right.

I'm going to give you five little tips,

Tips,

Tools,

Keys for where to find happiness.

The first part is the really hard part.

It's the part that nobody likes and nobody listens to.

And we've got to hear it again and again and again and again.

And we've got to read it for 40 years.

And then we go,

Oh,

Because it's too simple to be possible.

And I'm going to spoil the whole talk.

Where to find happiness?

Here.

Right here.

It cannot be found anywhere else.

Here in the present moment is the only time and place we can ever access happiness.

That's it.

It's not in the past.

We might have fond memories,

But we experience those and enjoy them in the present.

We enjoy the happiness of those memories in the present.

But it doesn't exist.

The past has ceased to exist.

It is memory.

It is no longer real or accessible as happiness.

We're not going to find it there.

Where do a lot of us look for it?

Hit me with it.

The future.

You better believe it.

I'll be happy when fill in some of the blanks for me.

I'll be happy when my first 20 million.

When I make my first 20 million.

When I lose weight,

I will be happy.

When I find the right sweetheart.

When I find the right sweetheart.

Oh,

Then I'm going to be so happy.

When I win the lottery.

Yes.

Yes.

When I have my dream house.

Yeah.

When I give all nine puppies away.

When I give all nine puppies away.

We got some puppies to be given away.

Side note.

I like how you slip that in.

Yes.

When I find a loving home for these pups on my property.

Yeah.

So instead of thinking of I'll be happy when.

But where will I be happy?

Right here.

Right here.

Right now.

It's the only place.

And that's a real bummer because being right here right now can be kind of hard.

Yeah,

That can be kind of tough.

But that's that's the end of my talk,

Everyone.

Thank you so much.

It's here.

Where is happiness?

Right here.

Thank you.

The see the evening show.

It's different than the morning show.

It's right here.

That's what we have to remember.

Happiness and where to find it.

Where do we find it?

Right here.

So here comes the second part.

If it's not in the past and it's not in the future and it's right here.

It's also in you.

It's not in a sweetheart.

It's not in the home.

It's not in someone else.

It's not in the money we make.

It's always got to start with you.

Yeah.

There is nothing out here that is going to bring happiness,

Create it.

It might help enliven it in us,

But we only experience it actually here in and of ourselves.

And I hate to break it to you,

Ken,

If you're not happy already,

That sweetheart ain't going to do it.

She won't.

That's a lot of pressure on him or her,

Are they?

Yeah.

If we don't have it already.

We're not going to.

We could get the 20 mil.

We could hit the lottery,

Which I hope you'll split with me.

We'll try it.

It'll be a test.

We'll do some research.

Let's do it.

You know,

If anybody wants to give us 20 million,

I will test it for you and I will do a full report on if it was helpful for happiness.

But it starts with you.

Doesn't come anywhere from the outside.

And that's great because you're with you all the time,

Which means you have access to this all the time.

You're with you all the time and you're always right here.

So that's actually pretty good news.

What if you're not happy with you as you?

What if you are feeling a lot of stress,

A lot of anxiety,

A lot of sadness?

A lot of this isn't fair.

A lot of why me?

I try so hard.

I don't know about you.

I get in the victim martyr mode personally myself,

And it's real hard to be happy there.

Yeah,

We don't have it in.

We don't have it.

And the thing is,

I don't know about you guys.

I spent the first part of my journey as I started this path of self mastery,

This path of spiritual exploration.

I thought the answer was out there.

Yeah.

In the books,

Deepak's one of my favorite.

I have a signed copy of his as well that my mom got when she was my age when she then she gave me the book because I got into him at the same age she did by my own.

So,

Yeah,

Deepak,

Man,

He's where it's at.

Yeah.

I started thinking,

I got it.

I know the problem.

It's this darn human.

The human is the problem.

I got to get out of the human.

I have to transcend the human,

The human condition,

The human experience.

Boy,

Is this a drag.

In order to be spiritual,

I have to get out of being human.

I actually had a lot of anger,

Resentment towards the human.

It makes it so hard.

It's got to eat all the time.

It has all these emotions coming up and things are just triggering it.

And if you're like me and have a background of trauma or abuse or hardship or adversity,

Being human can suck.

Can be really hard.

We were talking earlier about the folks who have passed and I admitted there's a part of me that feels a little bit of envy when I hear of someone's passing because I thought they're out of this.

They're out of the human.

Oh,

Oh,

Yeah.

Somebody.

Oh,

God,

Wouldn't that be nice?

It kind of sounds nice.

Yeah,

The humans kind of hard.

And as anyone who walks the spiritual path or the path of self mastery long enough,

We find the human is part of it.

That's why we're here to be in the human condition,

To learn the things that only we can learn through the human,

This little creature,

As Jenny put it,

To love the human and to be part of it.

And something I've noticed,

And this is changing,

I'm seeing a big trend in this changing and I'm jumping on that train and riding it.

We often leave the actual human out of the process when we are looking at our spiritual exploration,

Our transcendence,

Our happiness,

Our joy,

Our peace.

We often leave the human out.

And boy,

Are we really shooting ourselves in the foot when we do that.

Because the thing is,

We are in this human body most of the time.

If you have astral projection going on or you've learned to go outside your body,

That's great,

But we spend a lot of time in this body.

And if we don't have that as part of the team,

We don't have a lot of luck.

And being in those spaces,

That missing the past,

That waiting for the future,

That I'll be happy when this happens.

If only this happened,

I'd be happy.

This stuff keeps happening to me and blocking my happiness.

And we're creating this anxiety and we're seeing these threats coming from everywhere.

And we are,

It's out there,

It's out there,

This is bad out there,

It's good.

We have all of these triggers going on.

There's very,

Very directly a physical component that goes along with that.

We are one.

We are one,

But also we are one.

We are a whole unit package.

Everything came standard and included.

And all of those things that bring up anxiety and stress,

Which more and more I see a lot of people spending their time there.

Chronic stress has become our norm in the West.

And we're seeing it show up in all these physical ways with more disease,

With more sickness.

We're seeing it show up in behavioral things.

We're having more addiction,

More trauma,

More violence.

Why?

Fear.

Fear more,

Yeah,

You bet.

What is fear?

Yeah.

It's not real.

Well,

But the body,

But fear is real in the body.

It's an actual real process that's happening in the body.

Now this was great.

Way back in the day when we had actual threats going on,

This fear response,

This survival system that built in,

It's top notch.

It's the Tesla of functioning.

It is amazing.

Because if we have an actual threat,

Like,

Let's say,

A saber tooth tiger that finds us to be particularly tasty looking today,

We're going to want every system of our body to shut down.

That is not important for us to run.

Or if you're really bold,

Fight.

I recommend the running.

But everything shuts down.

Our immune system,

We don't get the resources that we need.

Go into that.

Our digestive system,

Our nervous system has a big change that goes on.

Our brains and bodies do not understand that that anxiety of the I don't have enough money.

These people don't like me.

I don't look the right way to be acceptable or lovable or attractive.

My car is not working and I'm trapped by all of these things are going in and they are being perceived as actual real life threats on the outside.

And the brain goes.

You got it,

Kid.

I got you.

That's what I'm here for.

It is my top priority to keep you alive.

And the nervous system gets on board with that as well.

And all of this normal functioning.

It's positive because we move into our sympathetic nervous system.

And so often these days we're living in the sympathetic nervous system.

And our actual state,

If you can believe it,

Is our parasympathetic nervous system.

It's our homeostasis,

Our peace,

Calm and connected,

Which once upon a time,

That's how everyone lived.

We didn't have this norm of stress being OK and even being celebrated.

Yeah,

That's a sickness in itself.

You bet.

You bet.

It is cool.

I used to work from the minute I woke up before the sun to 11 p.

M.

At night.

I had a full time job.

I was producing a documentary.

I was starting my own business.

I was in recovery.

And boy,

Did I think I was cool.

I didn't have a day off.

Oh,

And everybody was like,

Wow,

You're very dedicated.

That's commitment.

Wow.

You must be so important.

Look how busy you are.

Who's done that?

Created busyness because then it seems like we have some value,

Some matter.

Just me.

I'm the only one.

We got one in the back.

Are we had a couple?

I mean,

Nobody's looking.

It's OK.

Everybody blinders on.

Yeah.

That's right.

That's right.

It's celebrated.

So this is the part where we're going to get a little weird.

Who's with me?

You want to get a little weird with me?

Fantastic.

I am going to give you the simplest way to get back into the parasympathetic nervous system to bring the body back to homeostasis.

If our bodies are not on board with being here and now and happiness coming from within,

We're screwed.

You cannot will it.

You have to get your body on board.

Because it's part of us and you can't leave it until you do.

And I've tried.

So just let me be the example for that one.

All right.

So we're going to stay in the body.

So let's work with our body.

We're incredibly intelligent,

Conscious beings.

We don't have to have our bodies hijack our lives and dictate how we live and our happiness.

We don't have to do that.

Not anymore.

So here's the simplest trick.

And we're all going to stand up if you're comfortable doing so.

All right.

You two zoomsters stand up if you're willing.

Lucy's on it.

I love it.

Lucy.

Oh,

All right.

She's in the mix.

OK.

I make sure we don't knock anything over.

Go ahead and just let your body fall comfortably.

All right.

Can you still hear me OK on the mic?

You can watch me if you can't.

We see this in the animal kingdom.

Indiana's just doing it right now.

We're going to shake it off.

Just get in it.

Just get in it.

We see animals do this all the time.

They run from a line of what do they do?

And go ahead and make a sound if you're willing.

Yes.

Jump up and down.

Shake it off.

This seems like the simplest thing,

But this actually moves all of that nervous energy.

Keep it going.

Get a little in there.

Just shake it out.

Shake it off.

And I'm going to give you something to say while you're doing it.

All right.

Because remember,

We're more in that survival mode.

Give me a thumbs up if you can hear me over here.

You can.

OK.

When we're in that survival mode,

Our body actually thinks we are in danger.

It does not understand.

It's 2021 and someone not liking us on social media is not a real threat.

The brain doesn't know that.

OK,

So we're going to tell it.

I'm going to give you guys my secret phrase,

OK?

And I want you to say it after me.

I am safe.

I am safe.

I am loved.

All is well.

You can combine those and you're feeling that stress and you're feeling it all pent up and you get in your head and you're going,

Going all crazy.

Stand up.

Literally shake it off.

That will switch you into you can stop now if you're losing your breath like me.

A few minutes of this a day will drastically change every single system in your body.

Digestive system,

Immune system,

All of them,

Because that is our signal to the body that we're OK,

That we are safe.

That we are well,

We are loved and actually telling the brain,

I am safe.

I am safe.

It goes,

Oh,

OK.

The brain's not in charge.

The brain just receives information and then does things accordingly.

So let's get on top of it.

Many trampoline in front near the computer.

Yeah,

That's perfect.

And I know this seems silly to jump up and down and to shake it off.

But we do.

We see it in the animal kingdom all the time.

They just know intuitively that all of that energy is stored and it does every single thing has and is energy.

And we hold it all in our bodies and we don't think about things like chronic stress as trauma,

But it does have a traumatic effect to the body.

And when we're living in that state,

Forget it.

Happiness will not be for you to something else.

You can have stress,

You can have anxiety,

You can have a real bummer of a life.

It's your call.

But happiness will not be yours.

Bring your body on line.

All right.

So it's here.

It's got to be with you.

Parasympathetic nervous system.

All right.

Well,

How do we do this?

How are we supposed to have all of us in our memory and not catch ourselves?

Right.

Awareness.

We talked about that in meditation today.

We've got to have awareness of our actual experience and state.

Yay.

Thank you.

I'm going to pause and take a sip real quick.

It's nice.

Awareness.

Yeah,

Because we've got to be able to pay attention to what's going on in us.

We have to go,

Oh,

Who sits like this at the computer and you find your shoulders have crept way up.

And now we're like weird monsters and we've got the claws happening.

Yeah.

When else do we do this?

Scared?

Danger?

So when we're sitting like this,

The brain's going,

We're in a lot of danger.

I don't know where this person is,

But boy,

Is it unsafe.

Right.

We have to catch that.

Oh,

Shoulders are up.

Oh,

I haven't had a breath in quite a while.

I'm taking really shallow breaths.

Awareness is a really important key.

So we're going to do a little practice for awareness now.

It doesn't involve shaking your tail feather.

All right.

If you're comfortable doing so,

Go ahead and close your eyes with me now.

You can put your feet flat on the floor.

Just let your hands rest where they are.

Take a nice deep breath in.

And as you do,

I want you to just however it makes sense,

You let your body know you are doing this for it.

I love your body.

This breath's for you.

Feel your lungs as much as they can.

Nice sigh out.

Letting those shoulders drop.

Bring that attention into your body.

Your feet flat on the floor.

Just feel Mama Earth supporting you.

Can feel a chair beneath you.

The whole weight of you being fully supported.

Keep those nice breaths going as well.

Maybe you feel the texture of your clothing against your skin.

Perhaps you feel the air moving across your skin.

Bring your attention to your taste buds.

What do you taste?

I mean,

It's this morning's coffee or the Breathe Easy Tea.

I just took a nice sip of.

What do you taste?

All your attention to your taste buds.

Just get curious.

As you take that nice deep inhale,

What do you smell?

No judgments around it.

Just what comes up.

Just stay curious.

Move our attention up to our ears.

What do you hear?

Clock ticking.

Just no judgment.

Just noted.

Maybe you're hearing my voice.

You're wondering,

Has this been a long ruse to get us to close our eyes so this weird lady can go through our pocketbooks?

Don't open your eyes.

You don't know.

It could be.

Maybe you're hearing electronics.

Just listen.

I'm going to be quiet for a minute so we can listen.

I'm going to give you some instruction before the next one,

So keep your eyes closed until I say now.

Keep them closed.

Clear your mind.

Feel your body.

When you open up,

Not yet,

Wherever they land,

Whatever object or being,

Be a part of yourself,

Find something beautiful about it.

What's the miracle in it?

Find it.

See it.

Without planning,

Let's open our eyes now.

Just wherever they landed,

Find the miracle of it.

Find the beauty in it.

Maybe the light is hitting the metal.

Beautiful colors.

Maybe it's something you've seen many times before.

Maybe it's a common object.

What's something new you can notice about it?

What's something beautiful you can notice about it?

If you're lucky like me,

Get to look out.

Beautiful faces,

Radiant faces,

The universe and all its magical expressions.

What a gift to get to sit up here.

Guess what we've just done?

Yes,

We've practiced awareness of our five senses of our beautiful human condition,

Which has switched us over to our parasympathetic nervous system,

Brought us right into the here,

Our happinesses.

And right inside you.

So we have a pretty good start.

I said there was a fifth one.

And this is the oh,

Thank goodness portion.

We have a reminder that it's here.

It's now.

That it's only in you.

And that was our reminder.

We know that we got a little weird.

We're shaking it off,

Chanting things.

Here's the oh,

Thank goodness.

This is a practice.

It's a process to remember these things to go.

Oh,

Whoops.

I'm back in the anxiety again.

I caught it.

Let me get let me shake.

Let me shake it off.

Let me remind my brain that I'm safe.

Let me take a few breaths.

And then what are we going to do?

Forget,

Forget again.

Or we're going to be out in the world with people living as if chronic stress is normal,

As if fear is necessary,

Like we're enemies of one another.

We're going to forget that we're family.

Someone's going to piss me off.

I'm going to tell you within two hours of leaving here,

Someone is going to get under my skin.

And I'm going to forget that they are the light,

Just as I am the light.

And that is my brother and sister.

I'm going to forget it.

And then I get to remember.

Oh,

Wait a second.

Then I have awareness.

Oh,

I did it again.

That's OK.

Don't judge it.

Let it go.

Chill out.

Don't judge it.

That's not helping anything.

Right.

Then you become your own threat.

Don't do that.

Come on.

Life can be tough enough.

It is a practice.

Yeah.

Yeah,

It's a practice that works as my favorite kind of practice.

Yeah.

I want you to be easy with yourselves.

I honor my efforts.

I remember three times today.

I'm going to call that a win.

Yeah.

We don't have to nail it.

It's not a light switch.

It is a practice.

OK,

So happiness is here.

It requires awareness.

It is a practice.

It requires our parasympathetic nervous system.

And it is in you.

H,

A,

P,

P,

Y.

Happy.

That is where you will find it.

Who saw that coming?

Nobody saw.

We all want.

No,

Nobody saw it.

Boom.

Mic drop.

I'm going to leave you all with just a little a little piece of mind that I hope you'll you'll carry with you in your hearts and minds today.

Called If I Could Go Anywhere.

The best place to go is nowhere.

A day with nowhere to go is unparalleled.

Nowhere seems to have an uncanny way of always being right where I'm at.

It is said that you can go nowhere quickly or that you can take all day long to get there.

But really,

There's only one time to go there.

And it's now.

Nowhere and now are incredible friends.

Their love is patient.

Their patience is love in action.

In truth,

We are always nowhere.

We need only stop trying to go somewhere to realize it.

Nowhere offers the best scent of rain in the morning and the brightest view of stars in the night sky.

Nowhere is less a place and more an intention to go.

Nowhere means I am content where I'm at and willing to let it carry me at the pace it chooses.

Nowhere and now are where and when I let control slip through my fingers like desert sand at dusk.

Nowhere is where I fell in love with you.

Now is when I fall in love with you over and over again.

If I could go anywhere in the world with you,

It would be nowhere.

And we'd be on our way there right now.

It's now here.

It's now.

It's here.

It's in you.

You all might not know it,

But I love you so,

So much.

You deserve to be happy and it is fully within your agency.

And now you've got the tools and tips to do it.

Thank you all so much for having me here again.

I can't wait to be back on November 14.

If anyone wants to get a hold of me,

I've got cards in the back there and I'll hang after service for a bit as well.

Zoomies,

Zoomsters,

Zoomosphere.

Thank you all for joining wherever you are at.

I'll pass it back to you,

Miss Jenny Bird.

Thank you.

Reviews

Thank You for this wonderful talk! I found it very helpful. 😌💚