Choose Happy… A Sunday Edition Practicing Happy Conversation

The Practice of Happy

Conversation One: Choosing Happy

What does happiness actually mean to us?

Is happiness something that happens when life cooperates, or is it something we can choose, practice, notice, and make room for even while other emotions and experiences are present?

In Conversation One of our four part series, The Practice of Happy, host Anthony is joined by panelists Lorna, Mark, Gabriel, and Judy, with special contributions from Dr. Lynn, for an intimate and wide ranging exploration of what happiness means to each of us and how we find our way toward it through everything else that makes us human.

We began with personal reflections on happiness and quickly discovered just how different our relationships with the idea can be.

Gabriel introduced us to the concept of choosing happy. Not choosing happiness instead of everything else we feel, but recognizing that happiness can sometimes be an intentional choice we make for ourselves.

Anthony reflected on the idea of letting happy. What happens when we stop chasing happiness, defining it too narrowly, or waiting for permission to experience it, and simply allow happiness to find its place alongside everything else?

Judy reminded us about the importance of feeling what we actually feel. Sadness does not have to be replaced with happiness. Anger does not need to be covered with positivity. Fear, frustration, grief, disappointment, and uncertainty deserve to be acknowledged rather than pushed aside in an attempt to manufacture some version of happy.

Together, we discussed the possibility that more than one feeling, thought, or emotion can be true at exactly the same time.

We can be grieving and grateful.

We can be frustrated and hopeful.

We can be overwhelmed and still experience a moment of joy.

We can be disappointed by something happening in our lives and still recognize something else that makes us happy.

Happiness does not necessarily require the absence of everything that is difficult.

Mark offered another perspective, reflecting on how our jobs, advocacy, volunteerism, responsibilities, commitments, and the many roles we take on can create layers of buffering between ourselves and our happiness. Sometimes we become so busy doing, helping, producing, advocating, solving, and showing up that we forget to ask ourselves a deceptively simple question.

What makes me happy?

Throughout Conversation One, we kept returning to the idea of finding happy through the other emotions and situations we encounter every day rather than waiting for those emotions and situations to disappear.

And we are only beginning.

We closed our first conversation by moving from choosing happy and letting happy toward the larger idea at the heart of this series.

Practicing happy.

In Conversation Two, Happiness, Joy and the Space Between, we will explore happiness and joy. Are they the same thing? How are they different? Can one exist without the other? And what lives in that fascinating space between them?

We also teased where the rest of our journey will take us.

Conversation Three will explore what happens when life happens. We will look more closely at the stressors, disappointments, losses, responsibilities, pressures, and unexpected circumstances that can challenge our relationship with happiness, and how we navigate them without denying what we genuinely feel.

Then, in our fourth and final conversation, we will bring everything together through practical application. How do we take the ideas, experiences, questions, and perspectives explored throughout the first three conversations and actually put them into practice in our everyday lives?

Because perhaps happiness is not simply something we find.

Perhaps it is something we choose.

Something we allow.

Something we make room for.

And something we practice.

Host: Anthony

Panelists: Lorna, Mark, Gabriel, and Judy

Guest Contributor: Dr. Lynn

Hear The Practice of Happy live Sunday at 1 PM Eastern on 2020 The Beacon and Corona FM.

Shortly after the live broadcast, listen on demand by searching for Sunday Edition with Anthony Corona wherever you listen to podcasts.

Visit www.anthonycorona.com for all things Sunday Edition, the Sunday Edition family of podcasts, and digital media content services.

P.S. Would you like to join the conversation?