Unfolding the map

Strand Four: Your journey

Unit One: Planning your route

A popular way of looking at your life is as a journey along a path. You walk along hoping you are going somewhere nice. Some people plan out their route in great detail, some people just take whichever turning looks good when they come to it. But the plans we make don't always take us where we had thought they would and if we turn right and left whenever a way looks better we can find ourselves back where we started.

If you are following the happiness programme you have decided to change direction. You are starting out on a new road. You know the old one and it didn't lead where you hoped. The scenery didn't even look very pleasant along the way. You can see that long road stretching onwards ahead of you, much the same, a few twists and turns perhaps but basically going in the same direction as you have been going for a while now.

The new road beckons. It isn't straight. In fact it begins to look a little scary with its steep hills, hairpin bends, and overhanging trees that make you bend double. But it looks interesting. You think that even if it is hard going you'll see things along the way you'd never have seen on the old road. But especially here at the start it is going to take a lot of concentration, determination and stamina to make progress.

But I make you one promise: the further you travel, the easier it gets.

Though there may be a few places where you're not sure which fork to take, or where there are signs off right and left along roads that look straighter and wider, I want you to know that if you stick on this road things get very much more pleasant and you will find a lot of the way very easy.

Just be aware that if you make up your mind now to take this new road, you will still constantly be tempted to branch off back to the old familiar road. Because the new road takes a bit more effort, that old road will always look easier, wider, flatter. It may look a bit boring or even unpleasant – like walking through a disused industrial area, perhaps – but compared to all the ups and downs, all the picking your way through brambles and getting your feet deep in mud, that old way will often look worth taking once more.

So get clear right now why you are taking this new road.

You didn't think the old road was taking you in the right direction. However easy it looked, you know it was pointless taking it because it was, quite simply, the wrong path.

You know where the old road goes, and you know you want to go somewhere better. So decide to try this new road now, and stick with this wise decision. Better to travel very slowly towards somewhere worthwhile than stride along a path taking you to the wrong place! Besides, once you get going, you'll see that walking up hills gives you a great view when you reach the top. And you'll feel full of enthusiasm to keep going to reach the next peak.

This is the fourth strand of the programme.

I have called it 'Your Journey' because here we will look at how to decide what your happiness goals are and how you might get diverted from attaining them. It will prompt you to think about where your life is going and where you want it to go and to map your route. It will help you decide if your direction needs changing from time to time. And it will help you avoid going round in circles. This strand is all about 'getting back on track' and seeing a purpose in your life and a future that looks good.

As in the other three strands, each unit gives you an exercise to do. Some will be easier and faster to complete than others. Some will need to be repeated again and again as you move forward and into different situations. Think of it as planning your route but needing to look back at the map from time to time, just to make sure you're still going in the right direction.

So, here's the first unit.

This is the point at which you are seriously committing to the longer haul. So give it some reflection.

First of all, what is your destination?

Well, given the name of this book: The Happiness Programme, I'm guessing your destination is happiness or a stronger sense of well-being.

But what does that mean? How will you know if you are going in the right direction and getting nearer to your goal? How will you measure the distance you have travelled?

You may think all you want is to feel a bit happier in general. But that leaves you without the possibility of using a map. Without a route, or a plan, that marks where you are starting from and where you want to finish, it's easy to wander off course and find yourself in the wrong place.

But these two points both take a bit of thinking about. After all, some days you may feel in a pretty good place and other days not. And the end? How can we possibly pinpoint an exact end to this journey? So to help get some rough idea of your start and finish points I suggest you do the following exercise.

Rather than thinking in general terms about what would make you happy I suggest you use a scale of 1 to 10 of how you rate your happiness on seven aspects of your life at present. This will give you a starting point for your journey.

Use 1 for 'deeply depressed' or 'very anxious' and 10 for 'over the moon' or 'blissfully contented'.

1. Stuff
   

How happy are you with the money you have and the house, car, items and services you can afford? Does a lack of money currently affect your happiness?

1. Health
   

Are you worried about your health, your weight, your smoking? Do you often feel out-of-sorts, exhausted and beaten before the day even begins?

1. Love
   

Do you crave love but find yourself saddened by being alone or with someone you don't love?

1. Friendship
   

Do you sit at home alone wishing you were out with friends? Do you see others enjoying being together and wonder why you are never part of the group? Or do you socialise with the wrong set of people because the people you'd like to know, you never get to meet?

1. Work
   

Does your work interest you, challenge you or bring you down?

1. Self-image
   

Does the image you carry of yourself, your body image and your sense of self-worth, make you happy or sad? Do you like yourself?

1. The 'real you'
   

Do you feel down because you under-achieve? Do you have ambitions that would make you happier if you achieved them? Are you proud of yourself? Do you feel the world knows or sees the 'real you'? Would more public recognition of your talents make you happy?

When you've got these seven numbers, circle any which are below 6. These are the areas you need to give special attention to and this programme will help you do this. Your goal should be to bring all these ratings up to at least 6 and some to around 8 or even 9.

Why not 10? Perfect happiness? Well, I'm not sure humans can cope with bliss full time! The moment of swooning in a lover's arms, or hearing you've passed your exam, or opening the front door to the beautiful home you'd always dreamed of owning, these are all moments of ecstasy and score the full 10. But they are moments. They would destroy you if you lived them long term. Look at the effects of pleasure-inducing drugs. Even winning the lottery would wreck most peoples' lives if that was all they had.

Straight tens seem to be dangerous and addictive. Like having an endless supply of chocolate and ending up hating the taste.

Until very recently getting enough of what we needed and wanted (and I believe these are ultimately the same) was tough for the vast majority of the population – it still is for much of the world. Happiness is the feeling of getting these things on occasion. If they are a constant they start to lose their ability to make us happy.

Money, lots of it, is so often cited as the thing that will change our lives for the better that I want to take a moment to look at the validity of this belief.

I have never been rich but, due to certain circumstances, I socialised with some extremely wealthy people at one stage in my life. This gave me the opportunity to assess how money related to happiness.

And I was shocked.

Were these fortunate men and women happy? No more than anyone else was. Just like me and you, they all still needed a six or more on every aspect of their lives. In fact, I would say they were often less happy than the average. They knew their money gave them the ability, in theory, to do whatever they wanted. But their private sense of self-worth was often surprisingly low. Because we equate wealth with being able to do anything, succeed at anything, many felt they were failures because this didn't happen. Added to this was the difficulty of making choices.

When you don't have much, making the right choice is not really very complicated. But imagine you had so much money that you could choose to do anything, travel anywhere, wear whatever you wanted, study whatever subject took your fancy, and pass over any opportunity because you knew it would always be available.

The very wealthy have so much choice in every area of their lives that they find it difficult to select just one thing. And they find it even more difficult to stick to that one thing, when they know everything else is out there for them to try too. They experience the same problems that a toddler does when given twenty Christmas presents at the same time. Things usually end in tears.

And, as they flip flop from one idea to the next, one home to the next, one relationship to the next, they are surprised that their projects don't always work out well. Indeed they harbour a sort of private shame that, even with everything, they can't always achieve what they hope.

Most of us point to lack of money, time or connections as the reasons we fail to do what we plan. Very rich people have all of these in abundance. So they feel they have no excuses for failing. And this makes anyone feel bad.

What about money and loneliness?

Well, the rich I met had no problem finding lovers and friends. Whilst you or I might wait years to bump into someone special, there is a whole army of people tracking the rich and planning carefully how to 'just happen to be there' at the right time. But a few years down the line that love can disappear, usually along with a large slice of their assets! If they avoid fortune hunters by mixing only with other very wealthy people, they find themselves in a sort of social prison. Instead of money giving them the freedom to do whatever they want, it actually restricts them.

So don't pin all your hopes on money, look at all seven aspects of your life carefully.

These seven aspects you have scored cover the main areas of our life and our thinking. They are what make us feel we are happy or sad. And just as we can get addicted to high scores so we can get addicted to low scores. This is depression.

Your aim should be to make measurable progress in areas where you are starting from a mid or low score so that you end your happiness journey on a score above the middle on all aspects. In some areas you may find you have pushed your score up to high.

Just as falling in love or winning a race can make our score hit 10 for a short while, so tragedies can make our score hit 1. We can't live lives perfectly free of tragedy. People we love get ill or die. Our business goes bust and we have to move out of our lovely home. But these tragedies should not leave our scores at 1 for more than a few months at most. The ability to push back up is called resilience. If you follow all the steps of the happiness programme I believe you will have learnt how to develop resilience. Not only will you generally feel happier, as shown by your improved scores, but if a tragedy comes along you will have the ability to recover faster.

Now do this second exercise.

Against each of the seven aspects write down something that you think would make a positive difference. It could be near or far. So you might write down '£100 a week more salary' or 'a penthouse in Manhattan'. These targets will help you to see what you feel is keeping you sad.

Is it really not having more money that's saddening or is it disappointing your family when they want things you can't afford to provide? Is it not having a home worth millions that depresses you or is it feeling you've under achieved compared to others? Is lack of a partner the real source of your sadness or is it that you miss having someone to share your hopes and plans with? Is it not getting your poems published that makes you sad or is it never hearing the words 'you're fantastic!'

This exercise might sound really simple, but it isn't. What you write here tells you where you are heading. It's important to get it right. You don't want to find yourself in a place that's no better than where you are now. So take some time over this. The thinking you put into deciding on your answers is all part of helping you develop the mind-set that will get you there.

If you were given only two minutes to answer the questions above, you would come up with the sort of ideas that popular novels and advertising put forward as things that make us all happy.

I want a beautiful new silver Mercedes (yes, I do actually!) and to be able to park it in front of a wonderful old country house (yes, roses too, I want roses in bloom by the door) and to step out of it looking slim and elegant (I want, for once in my life, to wear heels and a slim skirt) and I want friends and family to wave to me as I arrive (fun, interesting types) because they've been using the pool all day and feel great to be invited (I want to feel appreciated and in demand). None of us work so we're all relaxed and unstressed and cheerful (oh, how I want to feel less tired and have time to call my own).

But take a moment to think about this vision of heaven on earth. What is it about this picture that I find so appealing? What does it tell me about what I lack?

A Mercedes is a machine for getting you from one place to the next without getting wet. Why would I include this in my vision of happiness?

Status.

I have learnt that an expensive car gives the owner status. A Mercedes has become a sort of short-hand for success. So I seem to be telling myself that a lack of success, and public acknowledgement of my value, is making me feel bad. Would a Mercedes solve that? If I really think myself into that person getting out of the car, am I happy? Wouldn't I be happier if I were driving my Mercedes knowing that I had succeeded in building up my own business, or getting my novel published or discovering a cure for cancer? After all, a Mercedes gets dusty when you drive it even once, whereas those other badges of success can never be tarnished.

So perhaps I need to think a lot more about what I would count as real personal achievement. I have to think beyond symbols to actual successes that would make me happy to know I'd achieved. That might be getting my garden accepted for the Open Gardens Scheme or getting elected to the local council or some other thing that people don't put into 'happiness is' ads because they take a bit longer to explain. If I now think myself into the person being complimented on my wonderful garden by a visitor or the person thanking the community for being elected to speak on their behalf, isn't that 'me' the one who's happy?

In this way you will start to build a picture of the sort of happiness you are aiming at which may be very different from what you see in OK magazine. All the things I mention above would be great to have, but on their own they wouldn't allow me to achieve real happiness.

The rambling old house? I want to feel I have a real home where I am rooted and unlikely to move from. When I get home I want to feel happy that I'm back in my own space which looks welcoming, safe and beautiful. But the essentials of this vision I could get from a cottage with a tiny garden - as long as I'd planted the roses the year before. So perhaps the scale of what we want is less relevant than the essentials.

Slim and elegant in heels and a slim skirt? Let's be honest, I hate wearing heels. I like the idea but hate the fact. But I would feel happier if I were slimmer and fitter. So perhaps we need to clarify what it is about our visions of happiness that we could enjoy in reality, given our personality, stature and any other things we can't change about ourselves and our circumstances. I might set my happiness goal at losing ten pounds and taking part in a half marathon. If I think about it, finishing that race would make the real me a lot happier than wearing killer heels!

Friends and family to welcome me home? Yes, friends and family are certainly a key to my happiness. But would the sort of people who don't work but hang around pools drinking Martinis really be the folk I'd feel good hanging out with? I'd feel much happier chatting to someone involved in scientific research or the arts, if I'm honest. It isn't friends that will make me happier, it is having people I can turn to informally to hear about what's happening in areas of life I never get to see: people who make me think, make me glad to be alive and make me expand my horizons. What they look like is pretty much irrelevant when I come to think about it. So I might set my happiness goal at finding three interesting people that I get on easily with and meeting up with close family for supper every couple of weeks to catch up and keep in touch.

And no work? Sounds great - relaxed, unstressed and no longer tired at the end of the day. But what am I going to do with all that energy? The word 'boredom' suggests itself to me when I think through my image of perfect happiness.

A more sustainable vision of happiness might be one where I had a feeling of having done what I set out to do for the day and was able to relax guilt-free and satisfied, even if tired. It might include sleeping really soundly and stilling the inner conversations in my head that churn over the bad choices I blame myself for making. I might see happiness as having a full, interesting and worthwhile day, a good night's sleep to look forward to and the knowledge that I will leap out of bed early the next morning because I have so much I want to get done and so much energy to do it with.

I know these thought-through pictures do not have the same wow factor as the perfect world I first came up with. But the 'perfect' picture is just a string of well-used symbols and I have now put my own personality into the picture. By thinking through what really would constitute a happier me I have been able to set goals for the happiness programme but also get a bit clearer about why I am not too happy at present.

Done carefully this exercise has many benefits. It will help you set off on your journey in the right direction: the direction that suits you, your personality, your needs and your circumstances.

When you've got these lists made out, write them down in your diary. You should look at them at least once a week.

Change the scores when you feel ready to. Change the items if they seem less important or central to your happiness as you go along. This programme is about making major changes in your life so it is likely that some of these items may need to change too.

But always have something which seems to sum up clearly what you need to achieve in order to feel you have reached your goal. That will give direction to your journey. This is your map. If you decide to change direction a bit because you want to get to a slightly different place, this is just fine. But don't travel with no aim at all.

Home is where the heart heals

 

The third strand of The Happiness Programme is about building a stronghold.

You can't be out there achieving, being confident, glowing with happiness full-time. Sometimes you have to retreat to a safe place and build up your energy stores ready to take on the outside world again. Sleep forces us to do this on a daily basis and it's one reason why sleep is vital to humans. But sometimes sleep just isn't enough. Things come along in your life which knock you for six. And this is when you need a stronghold.

There are basically three types of stronghold: the cave or den, the pack and the champion.

This is the first unit of this strand. In this unit I'm going to ask you to think about the first of these strongholds: your cave, or den.

What is a den for children or a cave for early man?

It is basically a place to hide. Just as an animal will run away when endangered and retreat to a safe place when a threat comes along that it calculates it cannot deal with head on, so humans need to do the same thing. Today humans call this the home. It might be a bedsit, it might be a palace. Size is irrelevant. It is safety that counts. It has to be a place where we can literally close the door on the outside world and yes, hide, inside.

Children from an early age, and certainly by their teens, demonstrate the need of a den. Signs on their bedroom door along the lines of 'Keep out' mean just that, however amusing they are. This instinctive need of a hiding place where they can recuperate is clear. Rows break out if they feel someone has been into their den uninvited. Parents despair of children who disappear for hours or days at a time into their private space. But the stresses on humans moving from childhood to adulthood are massive and sometimes hiding out is the only option to retain sanity and, ultimately, happiness.

Home-making used to be lauded in the fifties but now we need two incomes to support a mortgage it's seen as something that just happens naturally. But women know that this is not the case.

Making a home which fulfils the needs of a family should not be regarded as of minor importance. It is a mainstay of confident, achieving and happy people. A house people hate to come back to at the end of the day, a house echoing with rows and sarcastic comments, a house that allows all and any to wander in and out of it, such houses are not homes.

A home is a refuge. Everyone living there should feel they are at peace, even if that means giving everyone their own room and accepting that they may not want to mix much. Peace means compromises have to be agreed about noise. Safety means it must be a place where everyone can truly physically relax in the knowledge that the outside world cannot force its way in.

That means personal jibes about threats and failures outside the home must be silenced. No harping on about your child's poor school grades, your partner's failure to get promotions at work, your brother's lack of friends. These are dangers in the outside world. You come home to shut them out. Complaining about them brings them into the house and that destroys the point of a home as a refuge from a dangerous and threatening world.

What is useful, however, is acknowledging the home as more than an individual space (unless you live alone, of course!).

Whilst everyone needs as much private time and space as can be given them, they can also benefit from being part of a group. So plotting and planning are excellent home-making activities. Couples and families should regroup in the safety of their home to plan strategy. Ambitions should be discussed. Future plans announced. Ways of dealing with external threats talked through. This aspect of the den is highly valuable.

Speech allows humans to plot, plan and co-operate with a subtlety quite beyond animals (as far as we know). Nowhere is this more essential than in the home. That is why dreams, hopes and aspirations, however far-fetched they might sound, should never be stamped on. A major role of the home is to provide a space where strategy can be trialled. How will each individual achieve the goals they have set themselves? Do others in the home have experience to share that can warn against pitfalls or push the individual on even further in the right direction?

Criticism or laughter at another's hopes simply allows the baying horde from outside to invade the den. If children are open to the threats of the outside world even while they are inside their own home they will find happiness difficult to achieve. If partners feel unfree to express their aspirations, their relationship will be vulnerable. Staying together under the same roof will seriously threaten the happiness of both partners.

Parents need to provide a safe refuge and planning HQ for their children. And couples need to provide a place of peace and free expression for each other. This is what home-making is. And home-making is a major component of developing the ability to be happy.

So what if you live alone as so many people do?

Well you only need to look at the massive market in online partner-finding to know that instinctively most humans know they are stronger in a group. But if you live alone you must make the best of a less-than-ideal situation.

First you must be aware that the den, your home, is just as vital to your happiness as it is to a family's. Spend time making your home welcoming (to you) rather than seeing it as a place to flop between work and meeting friends. Spend time there, relax there. It is not a changing room or a hostel. It is your home. You cannot plot and plan as a couple can but you can think through your strategies for dealing with dangers outside and work through ideas for how to achieve your private goals.

Your inner dialogue has to be your 'group'. Not ideal but sufficient.

Close the door, look around you at a space you like, unwind for as long as it takes, sip a drink and think through your encounters with the outside world. What hopes do you have? What constructive plans can you develop to make your hopes a reality? It might be a quieter evening or weekend than you dream of but compared with a family home you have far more time and peace for rational thought. Compared with being part of a couple you have absolute freedom to make your own choices and concentrate on making yourself happy without regard for how this might impact the choices and happiness of your partner. Not ideal but it has its compensations.

The exercise based on this unit is to look around your home and see if it welcomes you and your family when you come in. Is it somewhere all of you love to get back to? Is it a real den – a place to hide out, regroup and gather one's strength? Is it a safe place? Do you enjoy spending time there? Do your family actually like being at home?

If you answer 'no', or 'not sure', to any of these questions, then now is the time to start making some small changes.

Think carefully about what each member of your family needs from the home. And plan how you can offer this. You don't need to spend lots of money. Just clear up, organise, perhaps redecorate or put flowers out, find spaces for everyone's gadgets and places where every member of the family feels they have the right to shut everyone else out and relax in the way they want to.

Once you understand the purpose of the home, it is easier to set rules which let each family member get the most from it. It also becomes more obvious why annoying things like clearing up and cleaning are vital.

Your home, whether it's just for you alone, or for you and a partner, or for you and a family, has to fulfil the basic purpose of a den or cave. It has to be safe from the outside world. It has to be a place ideas and hopes can be discussed without ridicule. It has to be warm and comfortable. It has to be easy on the eye.

A house that makes you sigh with resignation as you step through the front door is not a home. Is it the overflowing washing basket that depresses you? Or that untidy pile of bills? Or the unfinished DIY project in the sitting room? Or the knowledge that you can't express yourself openly because your partner or your children will treat you with scorn? Or the feeling that everyone treats the place like a hotel?

So take a good look at this space you call home. Does it fulfil its purpose in aiding everyone's ability to develop resilience to the knocks life brings? If not, start to sort it out at once. Do something every day to improve its effect on the mental health of those who live there. Set out some rules for yourself and your family. Explain why those rules are important. Explain what you want your home to become – a safe, warm and welcoming environment where everyone is free to dream and plan.

Listen to what your partner and your family need for this to become reality. Their needs might be different from yours. You'll all need to agree on compromises. Accept that privacy is not about hating others, it's about recuperation. Allow your family to shut themselves away for as long as they need to. Tell them you will need time alone too. You might be surprised that once people know they have the absolute right to be alone, they feel more able to join in.

The home is where the heart is – yes, it is! So keep it warm, safe, attractive and calm.

Get down, stand up, get dirty

 

Did you manage to get outside for at least half an hour every day since you read the first unit of The Happiness Programme? Easy when it's sunny, but quite a problem when it's raining, isn't it. But stick rigorously to the half hour rule. You'll be surprised that soon you will crave direct daylight in much the same way you crave water on a hot day. In both cases your body is telling you what you need to function successfully.

Now I want to introduce you to the second strand of the programme: Catch the happiness bug.

In the eight units of this strand I will be asking you to look at ways you unconsciously put up barriers to getting 'infected' by happiness.

Here's the first unit.

Open yourself physically to happiness.

Think of catching the happiness bug like catching the common cold.

We know that cold germs are present all the time and all around us. We're on a bus and the person next to us sneezes. Millions of germs rush into the air and nothing we can do can stop us inhaling them. The last person to use the 6^th floor button inside the lift had a bad cold and had touched his nose before pushing the button. Moments later we push that button and the germs make contact with our body.

We've caught colds this way before so we know how easy it is. But having a cold makes us feel bad so naturally we learn by our mistakes and we do whatever we can to protect ourselves from getting infected. We don't stand around too long in the cold, we use an umbrella in the rain so we don't have to sit in wet clothes at work, we try to eat nutritious food, we take an early night if we're feeling exhausted.

But our very best defence is simple. Stay well away from anyone who looks like they have a cold.

We don't share tissues, teacups, or toothbrushes. We stand further away when they speak to us. We turn aside if they cough or sneeze.

But now imagine you actually want to catch a cold. Naturally the best way is simply to do the reverse of these things. You get close to people with a cold, you might touch their hand or kiss their cheek when you greet them and you feel great to sit next to them on the bus or use the lift with them. You hang around in thin clothes even when the weather is cold and you delight in wearing damp jeans all day at the office after getting caught in the rain on your way in.

And that's really what you have to do to catch the happiness bug. Some people have it. Get close to them. Don't disinfect your life of happiness. Don't put up barriers to happiness. Delight in the fact that it radiates off people who have it and do everything you can to catch it from them.

This second strand of the programme is all about things you might be doing to immunise yourself or protect yourself from happiness. It's about how to change your behaviour so that you relish happiness, seek it out, love to get near to it, breathe it in from happy people and finally catch the bug.

Just like a cold happiness is everywhere and it's easy to catch unless you try hard not to.

But first you have to recognise the signs.

We can tell when someone has a cold because they sniff, sneeze, cough, and talk in a different voice if their throat is inflamed. And you can tell if someone is happy. They hold themselves differently, their facial expressions are different and their movements are different from those of unhappy people.

Try this. Sit somewhere busy like a cafe. Watch people as they enter, stand around, queue, choose a seat, check their phone or chat. Which of them is happy? How do you know?

A guy smiles sheepishly at a girl who's just entered. He's happy to see her. She kisses him briefly and her eyes are bright as she pulls away. She's happy to be close to him. A man chuckles at a phone message. He's happy. Three girls enter with lots of noise, speaking loudly to each other, giggling, arm in arm. They are happy to be together. These are clear signs.

But there are other signs we notice too. Look again at the girl with her boyfriend. Her back is straight, her arms are loose.

Look at him. He's looking straight into her eyes, his face is straight on to hers and his chin is level or slightly raised.

Look at the man with the phone. He knows he was chuckling out loud but he shows no embarrassment, he's put his phone away now and is smiling at the girl serving coffee as if nothing has happened.

Look at the three girls. They are touching each other's arms and one grabs her friend's hand as she goes to get money out of her purse to pay for their coffees. They are physically at ease and stand very close to each other. They are also taking up a lot of space as they move their arms around gesticulating, and they're making a lot of noise too. They are definitely announcing their presence to everyone in the cafe. 'Look at us, look at us! We're at the top of our game!'

Now study those who look unhappy. Notice their posture, facial expressions and the space they take up. They often try to make themselves smaller, even invisible. They fold their arms tight across themselves, their keep their heads lowered, try not to catch anyone's eye, they speak quietly or not at all, they instinctively gravitate towards a side or corner table, burying themselves silently in a book or gazing out of the window.

There are many other more subtle signs we notice about strangers that tell us about their level of happiness in general, or at least at that moment. Sometimes a few degrees one way or the other of the angle someone holds their head can tell you if they are depressed or just thoughtful. Where they look can suggest anxiety or just pensiveness. Facial colour can indicate the flush of excitement when getting good news or the pallor of disappointment and boredom. It is these tiny variations that actors study and copy when they train in a new part. Animals instinctively understand these signs and so do humans. 'I'm fine,' we say when we greet our colleagues each day, but the way we stand may be giving out a very different story.

Do this exercise. Sit somewhere you are likely to see strangers: a library or a coffee shop for example. Then, without taking much time to study them, see how easy you find it to answer 'yes', 'perhaps' or 'no' for the following statements:

I feel I could trust this person

I would be happy to sit next to this person at a dinner party/wedding

I would like to be part of this person's circle of friends

If this person had the qualifications and experience I would definitely interview them for a job.

Then see how easy it is to agree with the following judgements (for the same strangers or different ones):

This person is confident

This person is/will be an achiever

This person is happy/happier than me

By doing this you should realise how much we judge people by appearances. Not just clothes but every aspect of their body language and the way they interact with others and the space around them. And we don't just judge what they earn or do for a living or their age. We make huge judgements about how they feel, how they operate and how useful they would be in our networks.

Once you've looked at strangers, go on to the second part of the exercise. Apply what you learned to yourself.

Stand in front of a full length mirror. Close your eyes and relax. Visualise yourself standing in the queue at the coffee shop or waiting by the information desk in the library (wherever you carried out the first exercise). Now try to remember a real occasion when you were waiting, not too long ago. Were you in a rush, were you bored, what were you thinking about? Try to get right back into that moment. Let your body act out that moment too. Think about your arms, hands, posture, head. If you had a bag how were you holding it, loosely, clutching it in front of you or swinging it by your side? Were you leaning on the counter, tapping your foot, looking around for spare seats? Visualise yourself waiting in the coffee shop or library just the way you were on that occasion.

Now open your eyes slowly and look at yourself. Don't straighten up or re-arrange your features. Try to keep true to how you were at that time when you were waiting. Do you look happy? Do you look defensive, annoyed, worried, exhausted, bored or any of the other unhappy moods?

If you saw you in that queue would you want to know you? Think back to the statements you scored strangers on. Score yourself. Not on what you know about yourself, your values, your history but on what a stranger sees, someone who is not especially interested in you. Judge yourself only on external appearance and make no excuses. Don't say to yourself that you normally look different but that the time you were visualising was unusual. Just accept what you see in the mirror with as much detachment as you can. How do you rate?

Now straighten up. Really straight.

You might find you have to push your shoulders back a lot further than seems natural. Check by standing sideways that you really are straight. From your stomach pull yourself up to be as tall as you can without looking forced. Hold your head absolutely level. Feel the big space between your shoulders and your chin as your neck pulls up. Relax your arms and hands and leave them loosely by your side. Relax your facial muscles so that there is no shadow of a frown. Feel your scalp relax too. Stand with your feet slightly apart.

Now take in the proud-to-be-alive you. This is the you people should be seeing every day. This is the you that scores highly on all the positive judgements in the exercise above. This is the you who does not put happy people off. This is the you who looks like one of that group already.

So memorise the way you look now and the position of your body. Mentally and physically store how your muscles feel when you stand and look like this. Remember how your face feels when it is not frowning or yawing or looking bored. Because this is the you who can be happy. And this is the you who will attract other happy people into your world.

To catch the happiness bug you need to lay yourself open to it. That means getting close to happy people. But happy people will not want to get close to you if they read your body language as negative. So, look for happy people, sit near them, talk to them, shake their hands or touch their arm whenever is appropriate. Look them straight in the eyes. And stand or sit the way happy people do. Make sure your eyes are direct and alive. Keep your head up and your arms uncrossed. Practise positive happy body language and posture hundreds of times a day.

Being approachable, positive and not afraid to take up space is not only about interacting with happy people. You are teaching your brain to consider yourself happy. It's odd but true. If you 'pretend' to be happy well enough, you will actually start to feel happier.

But you have to be convincing and you have to be reliable. It's no good sitting straight and putting your arms out before you on the desk when you are talking to colleagues at work then sitting slumped on the sofa, your arms crossed and your legs twined around each other as you watch the TV in the evening. Like a good actor, you have to monitor your body minute by minute, adjusting continually. This will take a long time to become second nature. The older you are, the more entrenched are your 'natural' gestures and posture. So older people will take longer to change. In fact you may need to keep reminding yourself for years. But don't give up. It does get easier. And it has very positive benefits.

Because not looking happy is dangerous.

An animal in the wild that slinks away, cowering, says 'I am defeated'.

Is this what people see when they look at you? Rounded shoulders, arms protecting your soft centre, back against a hostile world, head held low, eyes downcast? Humans use exactly the same body language as many animals. In animals we see it, as they do, clear as day. In ourselves we make up stories for why these rules don't apply to us. But they do. A defeated animal is not happy, in fact it is probably near death. The signals you give out tell everyone about your sense of self-worth, your life force, your happiness. They even tell you about these things! So step one on this part of your happiness programme journey is to look the part, however much you have to act.

Because if you look like a loser you are one. And losers are not happy people.

Later, after finishing this programme, if you get a day when you're feeling low, think for a moment what your posture is at that very moment. Have you got out of the habit of 'looking' happy? Straighten up immediately and relax your limbs. Hold up your head, push down your shoulders and remember how the happy you stands. It should improve your mood straight away.

 

 

 

 

 

A really simple way to start

The Happiness Programme is organised across four strands:

1. Really basic stuff
   
2. Catch the happiness bug
   
3. Build a stronghold
   
4. Enjoy the journey
   

Each strand has eight units, each exploring one aspect of improving your happiness and finishing with an exercise to do. You'll probably want to skip some of the exercises. But I urge you to do each one. If you don't want to do an exercise immediately, come back to it later. Give yourself those few minutes of thinking about yourself that each exercise demands. It won't be wasted time.

Here's the first unit of strand one.

Go outside

Most of us spend most of our lives indoors.

In the time scale of human existence this is a very recent change in our lifestyle. Whilst we must have built or found shelters early on, in our hunter-gatherer days, it is unlikely these were where we spent most of the day.

How would we have got food and water? We must have had to go outside to find it. And that probably took a lot of time. Whether we were on the lookout for berries and roots or we were tracking down animals or fish to kill, it must all have taken up most of our waking hours. Then, tired or frightened, we would have retreated back to our shelter to sleep. Cooking, eating and childbirth may have been mainly indoor activities. But otherwise I imagine humans led an outdoor existence.

With farming and the domestication of animals the indoor and outdoor worlds blurred. Farmers stored produce indoors and they often slept above the animals. There was a lot more reason to spend time indoors. Storage vessels could be crafted indoors, coverings could be woven indoors. We no longer had to walk all day to find enough berries to keep us alive. We farmed most of what we needed then stored it indoors.

Then more recently, with formal education, came the notion of keeping children inside for hours at a time, most of the year. It was no longer the norm to have a gaggle of trainees out learning to hunt or pick or farm with their parents.

Nowadays most of us work indoors. We still need to spend much of our waking day on activities that will allow us to survive but these activities are best done in offices, schools, hospitals and factories. Then we travel home inside a car or bus or train, get as close to our house as we can, and get inside for the rest of the evening.

For thousands upon thousands of years humans have lived outside for the greater part of their lives. We are a product of that lifestyle. It seems likely that our sudden change to being indoors will have repercussions. I believe a lack of being outdoors may influence our mood and sense of well-being.

Instinctively many of us seek the outdoors, whether hanging around a pool or trekking across hillsides, when we go on holiday. Especially, we are drawn to sunshine. Of course warmth is very comforting. But I think our search for sunshine goes further than that. I think being outside on a sunny day makes us feel good. It puts a smile on our faces. Not for any special reason. Just because we feel good in our skin. Because we feel happy.

Not all early people lived in climates where there was a lot of sunshine. Some lived in places like Britain where it must have been miserably cold quite a bit of the time. But I bet they felt happier when the spring came.

So the first step is simple. Get outside.

Get light, and if possible sunshine, on your skin especially your face and hands (which would have been the places least likely to have been covered against the cold in prehistory.)

You will have to reschedule your day. You should aim to get outside for at least half an hour every day, longer at weekends and much longer when the weather is good.

As the first step don't worry about where outside you are. Just get out. Go for a walk in the street outside the office every lunchtime. Or walk the dog before work. Sit outside to eat your sandwiches even if you have to wear a coat. Get off the bus a few stops early or just sit in the park either before or after work whenever there is more light.

The main thing is to get as much light on you as possible. See light as a nutrient. Think of it as essential to your health in the same way as you regard water. When you need water your body tells you through a sensation of thirst. But your body doesn't seem to have devised a way of letting you know you need light yet. The change to an indoor lifestyle is far too recent for that. So you have to be aware that you might need more daylight without your body giving you any signal.

Actually we might be getting a signal but just not reading it properly yet. That signal might be depression.

So, start by thinking through how you will get outside more during the daylight. Make a definite commitment right now to this first important step. On a sunny day that might sound simple. But it's very easy to go for days without getting more than a few minutes of sunlight on your skin during bad weather.

Once you value light you will start to look for opportunities to get outside more often. This is your mind working healthily. If light is vital to well-being then getting as much of it as you can is a survival skill, just like earning more money or eating enough food.

Note down in your diary how long you are outside in the daylight each day. Try to increase the amount but at least ensure you get outside for thirty minutes. Later on, when you've completed the happiness project, there might be days when you feel lower than normal. On such days look back at your happiness project diary and notice how much time you were spending outdoors. Ask yourself if you have started to shorten this time. If you have then that's the first thing to tackle to get you back on track.

So. Simple isn't it? Make sure you get enough light every day. That's the first exercise. It certainly helped me feel better one winter. It should make you feel good too.

Push the bell and come on in

Getting started, or perhaps not, on the happiness programme

You know that feeling, when you find yourself standing at the threshold of somewhere new. Your finger is just about to push the bell. You know that means you'll walk inside soon and in some small way your life will be different. Whether it's starting a new job or meeting new people or studying something different, you know that if you press the bell you will change. So, just in that moment, you feel uneasy. Do you need this? Is it worth the effort? Should you just turn round and go home? Change can be tiring. And it's not always good.

Well, you can leave now. Because you're right to feel uneasy. Things will change.

It could be that you default to mild unhappiness because that's where you feel comfortable. That's where you feel at home.

Sounds a crazy thing to say?

Perhaps a state of anxiety or depression is your own special nest. It's the place you can return to from a frightening world, the place you know well, where you don't have to try, don't have to put on a mask, don't have to give one impression but feel a fraud because inside you are not that person. Back in your comfy sad nest you can truly relax. You feel as if you are back in Mummy's arms, home, safe, in a world where everything is familiar, where you are welcomed. You are unhappy. It's what you grew up with, it's what you know.

We all pick up a notion of what is acceptable or normal from our mother, father and siblings. Perhaps you picked up unhappiness. Perhaps being a bit down was just the way it was at home. Or perhaps showing happiness was frowned upon. Perhaps smiling broadly and saying 'I feel really good today' was never something that happened in your house.

Think back. How often did your father laugh?

Not laugh at you for doing something silly or incompetent. This laugh is common among parents, especially when friends are around. It says, 'Ha ha isn't she a funny little thing...compared with me, my friends, who am thoroughly grown up, competent, in control of myself and others'. Not laugh at his colleagues or boss at work because they had done something that would fail. No. How often did he laugh from sheer happiness? That laugh we see on TV advertising where all's right with the world. That unconditional open laugh that delights in something good that's happening.

How often did your mother laugh? That big relaxed open-faced mirth that would not be hidden? Not laugh at herself when she'd done something she felt showed her as foolish. But just laugh because life was good and she couldn't help but show it.

Think back. Picture your father when you were ten years old. What is his expression? Worry, a frown, uneasy, condescending, approving, proud? Is he laughing?

Think back. Picture your mother when you were ten years old. What is her expression? Worry, a frown, uneasy, tired, in a hurry, reprimanding, proud? Is she laughing?

It is not as though smiles and laughs are unknown at home. It's just that very often they carry a message which is different from happiness.

Take smiling, that half-way house to laughter. We learn that you get a smile if you say 'please', get good test results or help out at home. The smile is not a sign of happiness, it's more a sort of code for approval. In fact even when parents say, 'that makes me happy', it's often more a form of teaching, giving you approval for doing the right thing. Teaching is a big part of parenting and displaying the outward signs of happiness is a useful tool. But if a smile is always linked to learning a lesson or doing well on a task then we learn that happiness is just what happens to people when other people do what they want.

And it's common for us all to use laughter to cover up unpleasant feelings in company (and even in private, in our own inner conversations). We 'laugh off' disappointment and failure so that people around us, or even we ourselves, will not feel our pain. As children we see through this. Laughter becomes a signal of lack of achievement. We learn to distrust laughter.

And we use laughter to judge others when we feel they are 'getting above themselves' (heaven forbid!) This laughter is a sort of aggression. When we hear a parent laughing in this situation we do not hear happiness, we hear disappointment, envy, jealousy, irritation and anger.

In contrast, note how much worry we experience at home. Parents illustrate through frowns that life is a serious business. They are tired, frustrated, rushed off their feet, unsure of the future, struggling to cope with the bills. They might not spell all of these things out but the worry of it all pervades the home. Worry is fine. Perhaps even worry is expected of a person who takes their responsibilities seriously and does the right thing by the family. So we learn to look and feel just a bit worried. To be more open about the negative than the positive. Being happy is frivolous. It's unthinking. It's OK for children but you need to grow out of it.

Well we all want to grow up and have the power our parents have. So, no surprise if most of us start to adopt a general demeanour of worry and keep happiness concealed or just for when we 'let ourselves go' at parties with teenage friends, when we're in love, on a funfair ride, splashing around in a pool in the sunshine.

Happiness becomes a foreign thing. Worry, anxiety or mild depression becomes the thing we know, even aspire to. It becomes comfortable. It feels like home. It feels right. It feels good. It is the adult way.

So. Think for a moment. Do you really want to be happy? Well, yes of course you do. But be prepared for a struggle with yourself over making it a normal part of your life. Unhappiness is possibly a deeply-rooted habit which, like all habits, will take a lot of effort to change.

We tend to think of happiness as the most natural thing in the world. But we've come a long way from the directness implied by that word 'natural'. Laughter indicates aggression or a sense of failure. A smile means approval. The outward signals of happiness have become corrupted. Little wonder if we find simple happiness hard to feel.

Start to break the unhappiness habit.

Acknowledge your parents did the best they could (after all, where did they learn their parenting skills?) And if you are a parent, work hard to show direct simple happiness through smiling and laughter whenever you can. Don't ration it or save it up for the weekend or the holidays. Show it every day you feel it. Let moments of your own happiness radiate out to everyone around you even if these moments are rare right now. Be a smiley mum or a jolly dad.

Expect life to be good to you. Stop that frown in its tracks. Make frowning foreign, odd, uncomfortable. Whenever you can, pause, take stock. Are you frowning, looking anxious, feeling rushed off your feet? Stop. Really, what's the rush? Or are you frowning because life is serious, the bills are mounting up, the country's run by idiots? Stop. There will always be bills and politicians will always make mistakes.

Here's the very first exercise of this programme. Do it before you even start reading the rest of the book.

Relax and think about the things that make you smile.

The sun is shining. This coffee tastes good. Simple, straightforward things. Things that bring an unsophisticated childish delight.

Now, smile.

It's OK to find life pleasant. It's cool to laugh. Even at work.

So, before you begin this programme, wave goodbye to Mummy and Daddy.

Now press that doorbell and come on in!

 

 

 

The Happiness Programme

Hi, I'm Joni.  I'm the author of The Happiness Programme.

If you want to know how to make your life happier, I think you will find this blog interesting.

The Happiness Programme is a course to help people who are down or depressed to get back up there and enjoy life again.  I'm not a therapist.  This programme is based simply on my own journey.

The programme is a set of simple exercises to help you refocus on what brings happiness and to change habits that lead to sadness.  It's not magic.  It takes time and energy.  But if it changes your life for the better, then it's worth it.

I work full-time so I don't have a lot of time for posting.  But I'll give you the steps of the programme, one by one, over the next few weeks. You can do each exercise as I post it or you can wait till you get a better idea of what's involved, then go back to the first posts and start the programme then. 

Let me know what you think.

Joni