When Gal and I lived in Thailand and the humidity was extremely high, I never complained. I take a shower with such hot water that it is too hot for Gal. I have lived in Texas and loved it. I have lived in California (that was OK), Thailand and Singapore (loved it), and now I live in Brisbane, Australia, doing my best to forget the 3 miserable years in Melbourne, Australia, because I was so cold there.

There is a joke that says Melbourne has 4 seasons in one day, because the temperature changes dramatically every couple of hours. I found that to be true, but the only 4 temperatures I recognized were "cold", "very cold", "extremely cold" and "freezing cold". Maybe I have different temperature receptors. I just love the warmth and the heat, and it boosts my health and wellbeing.

Our emotional state is very much like the weather. Everyone has different receptors and a different optimal temperature. It is important to understand that we have different ways of reaching our optimal temperature.

In the same way we adjust our water temperature and volume in the shower, Gal and I use different ways of coping with situations in our lives. Gal prefers to talk about the situation and analyzing reasons and options, while I prefer doing things that will make me happy and distract me, at least for a while, until I calm down and consider the situation from a distance and come up with solutions. It is very important to note that both of us, although we use different methods, are trying to reach happiness within.

One-weather people

Happiness is a vague concept for many people. It strikes me as a problematic idea when people ask me if we, at Be Happy in LIFE, are always happy.

Unfortunately, some people think that constant happiness exists. I call them the "one-weather people". They are doomed to feel frustrated all their life, because having 100% of days with optimal temperatures is an unrealistic goal, like searching for a place that does not exist. Even our very sophisticated body does not have the same temperature constantly and needs mechanisms to monitor and bring the body back to the optimal temperature whenever we are sick, when it is hot or cold outside, when we are physically active, when we stand next to an oven, and the list goes on. Our body uses many functions to bring us to our optimal temperature.

We need to do the same emotionally.

Life is full of different kinds of "weather". The things that happen to us in life throw us off our optimal emotional "temperature" and we need to find ways to bounce back to a clear, sunny, warm, happy state.

Emotional winters

We often describe successful people as having the sun shining on them, leading them forward with its light and warmth. When I talk to my clients about successful people, they are convinced that successful people never experience emotional winters. I tell them that successful people do not go through more emotional summers than winters, but they know how to reserve some sunshine to keep them warm when winter comes.

Here is a partial list of examples of situations, circumstances, feelings and thoughts that can bring emotional winter to your life.

1. Loss of a loved one
2. Loss of a job
3. Jealousy
4. Uncertainty
5. Feeling of failure
6. Conflict with partner
7. Worries
8. Loneliness
9. Financial instability
10. Conflict with family member
11. Lack of income for basic needs
12. Sadness
13. Feeling ignored and unappreciated
14. Physical pain
15. Sickness
16. Rejection
17. Regrets or shame
18. Fear
19. Being under threat (of losing your job, for example)
20. Being bullied
21. Having to justify or defend yourself
22. Being bored
23. Being so tired it is hard to think and stay calm
24. Anxiety
25. Being criticized a lot
26. Having a new baby
27. Being around people who drain you from energy
28. Thinking of yourself as inferior
29. Not having enough time
30. Change

Each of the items on the list above can bring winter to your life and, like any winter, it can be drizzles, light showers, storms with hale and even heavy snow and ice. For each of these, you will have to use different mechanisms to make sure you can stay warm. For some, using an umbrella is enough, and for others, you will need gloves, long woolen underwear and a beanie to cover your head and face.

Emotional winters cannot be totally prevented, as they are mostly caused by circumstances beyond our control. Once they appear, every person needs enough skills to make sure their winter does not last too long.

Life is not about what happens to us but what we do about it
- Ronit Baras

Depression is Everlasting Winter

Everyone experiences winters. This is why in the medical world, the diagnosis of depression has a clear distinction between temporary and chronic depression. A depressed person is a person who has had too many winters over a certain period.

You are probably asking yourself, "How long is too long?" Well, a person is depressed when the sum of all their emotional summers is lower than that of all their winters.

Although the aim to have summer 365 days a year is not realistic, we can consider ourselves happy if we have managed to scare the rain and storms and to give more time and space to sunshine and heat - when we do not have to dress up with extra layers to protect ourselves and add more layers every year.

How to have an emotional summer

1. Go through self-assessment. Every day before going to bed, analyze your day and label it as a "summer day" or a "winter day". This is highly important to do with children to help them interpret their emotional state, pay attention to winters and make sure they are kept short. Once you have rated a month, aim to have one more summer day the following month.
2. Store rays of sunshine in the form of a success journal, talking about your successes, achievements, acts of kindness and everything good that has happened to you during the day. It is strange, but we tend to forget the good things. Whenever you see that winter is approaching, you can always look at your journal and scare it with some of the stored sunlight.
3. Make an effort to surround yourself with sunny people. Some people carry winter on their shoulders. As soon as they appear, it starts raining. Find the winter people - negative, complainers, victims, critics, gossips, superiors or inferiors. Find them and limit the time you spend with them.
4. Have a hobby. Hobbies bring lots of warmth into your life and every winter can be chased away by dedicating more time to your hobbies.
5. Set powerful, realistic goals and work towards achieving them. Success in achieving goals brings lots of satisfaction and a strong belief in your abilities. Every goal achieved is an amazing summer day and the memories and conviction in you ability can be stored for a rainy day. Like the story of the ant and he cricket, we need to collect grains of food on summer days to have enough during the winter. Each grain you collect helps.
6. Make sure you are in a physical contact with someone every day. Research on physical touch found out that people feel better when they have lots of physical touch, especially from those they love. Remember the rule: 12 hugs a day keeps the winter away".
7. At dinnertime, when you share your day with your family, count your blessings. Tell everyone how many good things happened to you today and what you appreciate in yourself and in others. Going to bed 3-4 hours later, you are more likely to mark the day as a "summer day".
8. Practice pride therapy. Remember, being proud is not boasting. You do not have to make anyone feel bad when you are proud of your achievements. If you have kids, that is easy - you can always tell them how much you are proud of them. Every pride has some self-pride in it, which adds to your feeling of summer.
9. Be kind to others. This is a great way to bring the sun. Research on kindness and volunteering discovered that giving is a wonderful way to receive and that people who help others are happier and more content than those who do not. Aim to be kind to someone once a day. Do not mix what you have to do with what you can choose to do from the kindness of your heart. Making dinner for your children or your partner is not a form of kindness, but making a special dinner with their favorite food is, especially when they really need it.
10. Make a list of 100 things that make you happy and use your list every day. Share your list with loved ones and they will help you. I call this list a bucket of sunshine. If you work this list every day, you can scare away even long, hard winters. No two lists ever look the same. Your list is a way for you to get to your optimal temperature your way.

Everyone has emotional winters. We differ by the methods we use to overcome them with the sunshine of our summers.

Life coaches are traders in sunshine. If you need help in bringing summer to your life, you can contact us at Be Happy in LIFE.

Until next time, I wish you many summers!
Ronit

You may want to read

• From the Life Coaching Deck (5): Making Money Addiction
• Exploring Happiness
• A Little Bit Unhappy

No love, no friendship, can cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark on it forever
- Francois Mocuriac

People are social creatures. They live in groups, they need the groups and they rely on the groups to survive. This creates some dependency that no one likes. Yes, some people need friends more than others do, but living on our own, not seeing or being in contact with the outside world, would bring an end to human kind.

Friends and friendships are very important to all people, even to those who find it hard to admit, and what social skills we do not have naturally, we can develop.

In the past year, I have had many opportunities to talk and write about my successes. When I examined each of them, I realized that being a very social creature, loving people, understanding the way they function and using my good social skills were real assets to me.

Social skills - Nature or Nurture?

I have not always been a very friendly person. Not that I did not like company, but until the age of 16, I did not really understand the social rules I needed to live by. I had no friends, I got into frequent conflicts with the ones I did hang around with and I was lonely and miserable. My parents had no friends either, so I could not learn from them the right things to say and do around other people.

Then, I stopped reacting without thinking about the impact it has on my relationships and I learned that friendly people are happy people and that social skills can be learned.

Friend - a person known well to another and regarded with liking, affection and loyalty
- Collins English Dictionary

I only had a chance to read "How to win friends and influence people" by Dale Carnegie when I was 40 years old. It was not an easy read, but reading it triggered a mixture of happiness and sadness in me. Happiness that I had discovered all the things Dale Carnegie wrote in the book and sadness that circumstances had not brought this book into my life long before to save me the heartache and pain of discovering things the hard way.

I am sure there are many people who wonder, like I did, how life would have been if they knew the rules of social interaction. The more I think about it, the more I believe that it is parents' responsibility to teach their kids those skills. You cannot expect a disturbed 10-year-old or 14-year-old girl to go to the library, pick up Dale Carnegie's book and have the ability to implement it. I know many adults (too many, unfortunately) who read the book, or similar books, but that was not enough to teach them how to be friendly.

I have many clients that do not have a clue how to be friendly. They are lonely and prevent their families from being in social gatherings, because social interaction is a threat to them. Usually, they are unhappy and contribute greatly to the unhappiness of their entire family. When I talk to them about other people, they have strange interpretations for the way others behave. As social creatures, we learn to read behavior and people who are not friendly just cannot read others well enough. It is a cycle and its source is unknown. Is it the missing social skills that prevent them from hanging around others and therefore get little exposure to social interaction, or is it the lack of exposure that prevents them from developing their social skills and leads to avoiding people even more?

Some theories claim that social ability is genetic, while others consider it a learned skill. I tend to think it is a mixture of both and believe we need to focus on what we can do, rather than what we cannot do - every person can become a bit friendlier than he or she was in the past and therefore a bit happier than he or she would be otherwise.

Circle of friends

Although the number of friends is an indication to how friendly you are, it is also important to consider the level of friendship. One good way of realizing your social interaction is to do the circle of friends' activity.

Write your name in the middle, then write all those you consider friends and put them in the circle that matches how close are they to you. Consider their friendships in terms of how much you like them, how much they like you and how often you interact with them. The more close friends you have, the friendlier you are and the happier your life is.

The art of friendliness is the art of enjoying each other's company. If you like people, you want to spend more time with them. If they like you in return, they would like to spend more time with you. Liking each other means you are in a win-win situation - you both benefit from this interaction and your friendship will continue. If one of the sides is not happy with the relationship, it will bring friction, heartache and misery to both sides.

In any interaction, the goal is to benefit from the relationship and make sure the other person benefits from it too and would like to stay in this relationship. Our goal is to make the interaction pleasant to both sides.

Dale Carnegie talked about some basic techniques to win friends. He even thought they were fundamental to success in life through our ability to influence people. Read this list and examine your friendliness skills by rating your ability from 1-10.

• In your interaction with others, do not criticize. Criticism is the opposite of being friendly. It changes the balance between equal people to one considering himself/herself better. Do not confuse feedback with criticism. Criticism is always considering your point over the other.
• Do not condemn others for their actions and behavior. Again, this destroys the fine balance that is required in a pleasant interaction. When you condemn people, you are stating that there is right and wrong. This only proves you are not a close enough friend as you have no idea what would make this person behave the way he/she did.
• Do not complain. Complainers are not friendly by definition. The things they complain about are more important to them than the friendship and others do not like hanging around them for long. Complaining and being pleasant do not go hand in hand and the excuse that the complaint contributes to a better relationship does not convince anyone. Only a masochist will believe that in order to have a good relationship, they need to please the other person.
• Do not nag. Nagging is another way of criticizing, condemning and complaining. It is a sign you are not in an equal relationship. Nagging is a sign you think your opinion is superior and that you rather the other person do what you want even if it is done by force.

If you judge people, you have no time to love them
- Mother Teresa

• Give honest and sincere appreciation. The opposite of the first four behaviors that destroy the balance is to show and express appreciation. Say good things about your friend. Generally, saying good things about others (only if they are true) makes others consider you a friendly person that sees the good in others. Use praises at the beginning of your words and always be honest. If you are forced to show appreciation - it is not honest. If one person in your relationship demands appreciation, this changes the balance and forces one side to be dishonest, which is a sign of problems in the relationship.
• Avoid arguments. In any argument, there are two sides. Both of them are valid and no matter what happens, it will be a lose-lose interaction that no one would like to repeat. Argumentative people do not have many friends, because they are energy consumers and exhausting to spend time with. If you start an argument, consider the friendship and choose to lose the argument and not the friendship. If you feel you need to win an argument, you have already lost.
• Smile. People who smile seem very friendly. Smiling is a form of communication that attracts people. When you smile, it sends the other person an invitation to interact with you. When you frown, it labels you as a criticizing, complaining, unhappy person and makes others stay away from you. Friends subconsciously match your behavior. If you complain, they will tend to "play the game" with you, but when they are far away from you, they will feel uncomfortable with themselves and avoid hanging around with you.
• Use people's names. Everyone likes the sound of his or her name. I have seen people in networking events abuse this tip and when I hear my name for the third time in a short period, it turns me off. On the other hand, some people tend to talk to others without using their names at all. Remembering someone else's name is very important and it is better to ask, "Can you remind me of your name again?" than not to use the name at all (or to guess it incorrectly). With close friends, it is never an issue of remembering, but of making an effort to use it.

The best mirror is an old friend
- George Herbert

• Be a good listener and encourage others to talk about themselves. In every interaction, measure how long you speak and how long the other person speaks. The one who speaks less is considered friendlier. In an interaction with others, there should be an equal share of contribution. Although it is not easy to use a stopwatch, it is good to be aware of who takes over the conversation. Those who take over the conversation usually consider the topic more important than the friendship and chase people away.
• When talking, talk about terms that are appealing to the other person. If you insist on talking about things that are of interest to you and not the other person, you lose your audience immediately. If you use vocabulary that the other person uses, the conversation is much easier. If you insist that the conversations include things that are of interest to you and that your goal is to convert the listener to your point of view, consider the interaction lost. Interaction is similar to playing ball. If one person holds the ball tight, there is no game.
• Be genuinely interested in other people. When you do listen and encourage others to talk, make it genuine and sincere. To show interest in people, you need to ask questions. If the questions are not sincere and you just wait for the other person to finish so you can have a say too, this will be easily picked up by the other person, create a problem of trust between you and they will say to themselves, "She really didn't want to know the answer, so why bother?"
• Make the other person feel important and special and be honest with it. Carnegie talked about honesty a lot. He thought that using his tips without really meaning it defeats the purpose of building social skills. The mechanics of showing interest in others and making another person feel special cannot be cheated. Either you think the other is special and important or you do not. You cannot fake it. If you talk to the other person as if there is nothing special about them, there is always the question of "Then why do you spend time with me?" Ask yourself, "Why do I want to be in this person's company?" and use the answer to tell this person what is special about them that makes them attractive to you. Saying, "Well, I didn’t have anyone else to talk to", is not a friendly thing to say. Be careful not to badmouth others to make your friends feel special. If you do that, it is risky to be your friend, because one day you might talk like that about them.
• Show respect to others' ideas and never tell them they are wrong! Every relationship is based on mutual respect. When you tell someone they are wrong, you are tipping the balance. It is your right to think and do things differently, but it is not your right to judge. People do not like being in a judgmental relationship.
• When a person is upset, do not talk negatively, only talk about the positive. Friends are there to help each other. If you talk negatively, you are not creating rapport but dragging your friend down. Do your best not to judge, not to offer explanations for why they are upset or what they could have done better to not be in that place. If they are upset, they do not need your judgment on top of it.
• Do not try to change your friend. Instead, try to see things from their point of view. In any relationship, there are conflicts. No two people do, act, say and treat things exactly the same way, but that does not need to come between friends. If you think a friend has done something that you consider inappropriate, strange or unkind, try to put yourself in his or her shoes. Friendship does not give you the right to change the other person but to understand them.
• Be courteous. This is strongly linked to respect and keeping the trust between people. If you feel you need to use information you have of other people to gain power, you are not a good friend and it will be hard for your to build this trust again.

I count myself in nothing else so happy as in a soul rememb'ring my good friends
- William Shakespeare

How to be friendly and happy

In some positions, you are in charge and need to lead others in doing things. It can be as a parent, as a manager or even within the scope of teamwork. People will follow and listen to those who lead with friendly behavior and will resent those who are not friendly.

1. Never point to other people's mistakes. If necessary, talk about the action, not the person. If there is a mistake that needs to be fixed, always make it look like it is not a big deal and it is easy to fix. If it is possible, talk about your own mistakes first. Always let the other person "save face". Shaming a person may make you feel strong, but it will attract resentment to you. A strong leader with no followers is not a leader.
2. If you do make a mistake, say, "My mistake, sorry". It makes you look human to those who work with you. Much like not making a fuss about the mistakes of others, make sure not to make a fuss about your own mistakes. Generally, focusing on mistakes is not a good social skill, so move on and talk about the good stuff.
3. Ask questions instead of giving orders. Use "Can you please bring me the letters" instead of "Bring me the letters, please". When it is asked as a question, it gives the other person the chance to say, "No, I can't right now. I am doing something else" instead of putting pressure on them to follow your orders even when they cannot.
4. Praise every improvement. Everyone likes to be praised and every time you praise, you are considered kind and friendly, as if you can read peoples' good motives and behavior. Give people a fine reputation to live up to.

The art of happiness is strongly related to our ability to connect with people and be friendly. Most of the big successes start with someone knowing someone who knows someone and the willingness to be friendly and help. I can tell you for sure that my successes have followed this pattern. Friends are like a big family and having a big family contributes to happiness.

Wishing you many friends and lots of happiness that comes with friendship,
Ronit

You may want to read

• Stronger Together
• Save Your Energy
• The Art of Misery (Advanced)

You see, as a child, I never learned to pay attention to my feelings. They seemed to be urges, strong impulses that repel me from doing something or being around others or attract me towards them. Considering emotions as a form of energy made a lot of sense to me and gave my feelings some credibility.

As I my emotional intelligence evolved, I learned that people with high EQ are very attractive, because they send good "vibes" to their environment and (surprise, surprise) the environment sends them good vibes right back, helping them live happy, healthy and successful lives.

Not everyone understands the connection between emotional ability, success and health, but it is necessary in order to control our destiny and our quality of life.

How to feel the vibes

Have you heard people say, "I'm getting bad vibes from this"? Well, they are. They absorb repelling energy. The problem with paying too much attention to the vibes is that you become dependent on them to direct you in life, because they do not come with an instruction manual. While some people have a natural ability to interpret their "gut feelings", others need to learn the techniques of reading them correctly.

Research on kinesthetic (feelings-oriented) people discovered that their way of making decisions, which is based on "gut feelings", is just as good as that of digital (facts-and-figures-oriented) people - everyone gets it right about at the same rate. The only difference between them was that the kinesthetic people could not explain their decisions, while the digital people could list the reasons, logic and process.

Every thought, conscious or subconscious, triggers a physical reaction. In his research with dogs, Pavlov discovered that the sound of the bell triggered their body to produce saliva. To understand the connection between our thoughts and our physical existence you do not have to go far. Just think of one of your sexual fantasies and notice how your body reacts to that thought. Yes, it is all in your mind - always has been and always will be!

Much like a sexual fantasy stimulates your body in a positive way and produces "happy" vibes, you can get negative vibes from problems, conflicts, sarcasm and judgment. At first, it changes your heart beat and then your overall energy. Stimulating vibes will make you motivated, courageous, cooperative and relaxed and repelling vibes will drain you from your energy.

If you get up in the morning tired and without motivation to face the day, it is usually because "you have no energy" from you. You will be surprised to know that it is not what happens to you that does it, but what you think about what happens to you. Perception is the only reality there is.

There is a theory that says there is only one feeling in the world - love. All the other feelings are either a form of love or a lack of it. If you think of energy, it is very similar. Everything good in life is love energy and all the rest is lack of it.

The problem we have in life is what people do to gain this energy. People without energy tend to choose things that boost their energy for a while, but drain it in the long term, like drugs, alcohol, TV and food. The worst way getting your energy up is trying to take it from someone else, believing that it is limited and in order for you to have more of it, someone else must have less. This is when you become a "dementor" (from Harry Potter).

In every relationship, there are "dementors" who drain you from your energy, "feeders" who pump you with renewed energy and "neutrals" whose presence neither gives nor takes away any energy.

The weird and wonderful thing about each of these types of people is that whatever they give, they also receive. When "feeders" give someone energy, their own energy grows even stronger. When "dementors" drain someone's energy, their own supply of energy is reduced too. And when "neutrals" have no effect on others, the interaction has no effect on them either.

People like hanging around "feeders", because it is easy and stimulating to be with them. Some people are "feeders" from birth. Most babies are "feeders". When you spend time with babies, no matter how hard things are, they can change your mood. The joy and happiness they bring just by being there can sustain a mother who is physically depleted from energy while trying to survive the trauma of giving birth. They create so much good energy their mother can even start thinking of having another baby.

I personally believe that this energy babies have from birth fades as they grow, because we do not teach them to keep feeding their energy. Instead, we bind them with our "dementing" lifestyle of stress, fear, failure, disappointment and judgment.

The good news is that it is possible to re-learn to be a "feeder". Here are some tips that can help everyone re-connect with his or her feeding energy - remember, the more you give, the more you get, so the more you have.

1. Learn the 10 behaviors of the "energy feeders" - understanding, smiling, encouraging, accepting, appreciative, grateful, interested in others, forgiving, supportive and kind. Practice them deliberately every day.
2. Learn the 10 behaviors of the "dementors" - angry, frustrated, critical, complaining, gossip, sarcastic, argumentative, sour-faced, jealous and fearful. Eliminate them from your life.
3. Look around you and find 3 people in your life you think are "feeders". First, ask yourself, "What are the things they do that make them so positive and great to be with?" Second, ask yourself, "Which of these things can I adopt (easily) and do just like them?" Third, try to spend more time with them and their energy will boost yours.
4. Look around you and find 3 people in your life you think are "dementors". First, ask yourself, "What are the things they do that make them energy drainers?" Second, ask yourself, "Is there anything I do that is similar and I should eliminate from my life?" Third, avoid hanging around them as much as you can. Hanging around people who drain your energy is a form of self-punishment and you deserve to be happy.

The reason we have a society at war is that we have more "dementors" than "feeders". Emotional energy is contagious. We just have to make sure the right energy spreads.

May you be surrounded by happiness,
Ronit

You may want to read

• Be Friendly, Be Happy
• The Art of Misery (Advanced)
• Anger Management: Be Prepared

The problem with feeling bad is not so much that we find something hard to deal with, but that we have been brought up not to feel bad, so we feel really bad about feeling bad. That, of course, makes everything worse, because now, we are feeling bad about ourselves and blocking ourselves from processing and letting go of the original bad feeling.

When I was growing up, I was often told that only girls cried. "Take it like a man", people said to me and to all of my friends who were boys. The girls were not supposed to take it like men, but they were instructed not to bother others with their feelings and to "show their happy face" like "a good girl" should. So happiness was clearly good and resentment, anxiety, regret and sorrow were bad.

When Ronit and I lost our baby, the most natural thing for us to do was go back home to our parents, siblings and high-school friends for emotional support. But instead, everyone ran away from us, and when they were around us, it was awkward. Our grief was too hard for them to bear and they had no idea how to handle it. So not only did we mourn our dead son, we also felt lonely and rejected, simply because the people around us were brought up to hide bad feelings.

So today, I am here to liberate you, and I hope that by liberating you, you will go on to liberate other people in your life, until everyone feels OK about feeling bad.

My favorite philosophy is Taoism, which advises us to follow the natural forces and flow of things around us and to keep ourselves balanced at all times. In Taoism, nature is so much stronger than us humans there is really no point resisting it, so everything that is natural must be accepted. Our job is to find a good way to use it.

Taoism recognizes 5 elements - Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water. Each element affects the others and all of them are needed for a balanced life. Favoring one of the elements (like favoring happiness) ultimately results in health problems. This is the foundation of Chinese medicine, kinesiology and other forms of healing.

The elements are also associated with the seasons. Spring is the wood season, a time of growth, movement, creation and change. It is always followed by summer, the fire season, a time when things ripen, strengthen and mature. Late summer is the earth season, a time when things are processed and converted, to be used later. Then always comes autumn, the metal season, a time of gathering, winding down and preparing for winter. Those who do not adapt to the change of seasons in autumn get sick or develop illnesses that will manifest themselves during winter. Finally comes winter, the water season, a time of closing, hiding and storage.

No matter how much we like the spring, it does not last forever and we eventually find ourselves in the summer. No matter how much we want to avoid it, winter always comes in nature, as does pain in our heart. But after winter, there is always spring again. In fact, preparing well for emotional winter and weathering it well makes for a wonderful spring.

According to Tearful Serenity: Crying Away the Stress, crying is our body's way of releasing stress chemicals and helping us relax. In fact, when you stress about being stressed, it makes matters worse and brings the tears out faster. The great thing about crying, though, is that without changing the stressful situation a bit, it somehow feels better and you feel relieved.

Of course, many emotions do not lead us to crying and many situations do not arouse strong enough emotions to bring out the tears, by the same principle still applies - dealing with our bad feeling is the best way to feeling good again. Pretending everything is OK only makes it worse. Criticizing yourself for feeling bad makes it worse still.

Timeline Therapy is based on the idea that at some point in our life, we had an experience that created a certain feeling or belief in us, such as "I'm not good enough". Since this often happens during childhood, we did not process that feeling or belief. Instead, we integrated it into our identity. Whenever something happens to us that seems like that original event, it reinforces our belief and strengthens our feeling. Throughout our life, we build a chain of these events and our bad feeling gets stronger and stronger.

In order to release a particular emotional burden, we can travel in our mind to the first time we ever felt that emotion or held that belief and experience from an adult perspective. Once we process the event and change how we interpret it, our feeling about it changes. We can then travel back to the present and other similar events along the way "pop" easily, leaving us with great relief and a different sense of who we are.

So you see, accepting all of our emotions as natural and processing them prevents us from getting stuck and limiting ourselves, sometimes for life.

Now, different people have different ways of coping with bad feelings. Some people cry, some need space, some talk through their issues and analyze them, some need to be cuddled, some meditate and some do an enjoyable activity or spend time with friends talking about "anything but". No matter how you choose to cope, find it out and do it.

And when others feel bad around you, remember that although they may cope differently from you, it is best to let them work through their issues than to make them feel bad about feeling bad. To be a good supporter, find out how they cope, encourage them to do it and help in any way you can.

Feeling better now?
Gal

You may want to read

• The Art of Misery (Advanced)
• Feelings are Things
• Switch

I am a fixer. I have been a fixer all my life. This means I see problems and things that could work better all the time and immediately come up with clever solutions for them. Waiting patiently for things to work and then praising them does not come naturally for me.

If you are a fixer like me, or if your kids "never do anything good/right" or always "give you a hard time", this post may really help you.

Always look on the bright side of life
- Monty Python in Life of Brian

Our 9-year-old daughter Noff spends way too much time watching TV, watching video clips on YouTube and playing computer games. Every day, we practically drag her from one of these activities, not kicking, but sometimes crying. Being busy with other things and having other kids in the house, we do not always pay close attention to what she does. As soon as our backs are turned, she sneaks back to watching or playing on the computer.

Our philosophy is that movies portray distorted views of life to kids. Being kids, they might accept these views as reality and adopt some very limiting beliefs about how people should behave. We also think that when you play against the computer, nobody really gets hurt when you win, so most computer games encourage competition, selfish focus, strict result orientation and disregard for others.

Tsoof recently did an assignment for school on the effects of playing violent video games. Before he did it, we had an idea about the connection between kids' behavior and the activities they engage in, but the stories of suicide, brutality, outrageous behavior and even murder he told us about literally scared us.

What is Noff going to turn into with all these movies and games she plays?

Well, some time ago, Noff was invited to a pool party. For the first time, there was a disabled girl there (let's call her Gaby). She could walk with great effort and needed support to get on the slide, climb out of the pool and just walk around. But the girls did not seem to mind. When we arrived, we saw Gaby, supported by two girls, walking towards us with her face lit up with joy. Throughout the day, despite the extra physical challenges, the girls kept her with them, wet and excited.

Not bad for TV-watching, computer-game-playing, accessory-chasing, modern-day girls.

A few days ago, I saw Noff climbing a chair and looking at the top of our fridge. When I asked what she was doing, she told me her teacher's whiteboard markers were no good anymore and the writing was too faded to see, so she was going to give the teacher some whiteboard markers.

My first thought was, "Hang on a second. The school should provide the teacher with supplies and the teacher should take care of these things herself", but then, I saw Noff's excited expression and realized the really important thing that was going on.

My little daughter was very sensitive. She did not care who was responsible for what. Her teacher had a hard time getting supplies and her classmates were having a hard time reading from the board.

She was also generous, independent and decisive. The money these markers cost was nothing compared to being helpful. She did not need help making that decision - it was clear. She also knew exactly where the markers were and left enough markers so we would not suffer.

Wow! I was blown away. All I had to do was shut up.

The next day, Noff came back from school beaming. She said, "When I gave the markers to Mrs. Daly, she gave me a big hug. She was so happy she used my markers all day and she looked at me and smiled when she wrote on the board and it worked".

I nearly burst with pride. Win-win!

Noff's design for an anti-bullying T-shirt drawn on the glass door of the porch

A couple of days later, our phone rang in the evening. Surprisingly, the caller was a girl from Noff's class. Feeling important, Noff roamed the house, phone in hand, and chatted happily with her friend, until suddenly, her tone changed, she walked to the whiteboard hanging in our dining room and stood there for a while, doing math exercises and explaining stuff.

When I asked her about the math on the board, she said, "At first, my friend just wanted to chat, but then she asked if I did my homework and when I said yes, she said she needed some help, so I helped her".

Most parents would be pleased their daughter was smart enough to know the answers, but what I got from this conversation was that Noff's friend did not feel threatened by her being smart. Calling another classmate for help with homework is risky business in today's bully-infested society, but Noff's friend felt she could trust her. She must be doing something to inspire that trust.

So instead of telling Noff to get off the computer or to turn the TV off, I told her how proud I was of her for being so considerate, helpful and free-thinking.

Then I told her to come and practice the flute…

I think we can help one another see the good things in our kids by sharing what we see with everyone else. I hope this post was the beginning of a long line of parents' stories of how great their kids are. If you have a story about your own kids, post it as a comment below.

If you have no good stories to tell about your kids, come back and read other people's stories for inspiration and pay close attention to your kids when you are around them. All children are good. All of them. We just need to know how to look.

Happy parenting,
Gal

You may want to read

• More Control – Less Power
• Ronit’s Parenting Bible: Role Model
• Quid Pro Quo (2)

The discussion about discipline covers many topics - the rights of the parents, the strictness of the discipline, the collaboration between parents (or lack thereof), the alignment of values between home and school (or lack thereof) - the list of philosophical discussions is very long. I have found out through my workshops that parents have only that much ability to discuss the philosophical issues of parenting and most of the time, they just ask, "Ronit, what can I actually do?"

In the first years of my work with parents, I worried about that. I said to myself that without understanding the philosophy behind things, they would not be able to manage the next challenge, but I was wrong, because parents can be awesome even if they cannot explain their theories and even if they do not have a deep understanding of the human mind. Some things just make sense to them and if they try them and they work, they just continue doing them successfully.

Today, I want to talk about a parenting technique that has worked for me like magic. It has helped me a lot not to get into arguments with my kids or with the kids I have coached.

I learned this technique from my dad - not from him being a role model of it, but from him being a role model of the opposite...

"No" parenting - creating conflict

My dad was a "no" dad during the first 14 years of my life. No matter what I asked him for, he always started with "no". That was very frustrating. He was not a "no" dad towards me in particular but towards my siblings too. That made it a bit easier (but not much). He did it to my older sister, who was the smart almighty one. He did it to my brother, who was the crown prince as one boy among 4 girls. He also did it to my youngest sister, who was the pride of the family and loveable by everyone, so I figured it was not against me.

I did not like his attitude at all. In fact, I hated it. Yes, just like other kids, I wanted things and some of them were because of jealousy, and yes, some of them were expensive and my parents could not afford to give them to me, but it did not take long for me to figure out that he was saying "no" to everything we wanted even when money was not involved. It was annoying, because there were times when we needed to avoid social exclusion and saying "no" made me think of him as cruel and inconsiderate.

For years, as a young kid, I did not argue. I cried and said, "I hate you!" Only later, in my teen years, I discovered that my youngest sister, who was 9 years younger than me, managed to get a lot more than I did. I understood he was just saying "no" as a starting position and if I stayed there and argued, I would get what I wanted most of the times, but then the conflicts started and we argued to death. At first, when I wanted something, I prepared for a "no", but later, when I want something, I had to prepare for an argument.

There were times I thought my dad was saying "no" as an invitation for an argument. I gave up asking him for things to avoid the arguments, because I had reached a point where the pain of the argument was stronger than the pleasure of getting what I wanted.

As a parent, you never ever want your kids to give up on asking you for things, because with that disability to ask you for things, you give up their trust in asking you for help.

At the age of 16, during the last term of Grade 10, I learned my dad was saying "no" because he did not know any other way. He said "no" even when he meant "yes". It just came out of his mouth automatically, because he had grown up like that and never stopped to question his parents' upbringing. I was not upset with him anymore, but I rarely asked him for help.

During that time, I swore I would find other ways to communicate with my own kids. It was so painful that I carved it in my heart to change. Many people say, "When I have my own kids, I will never do what my parents did to me", but I carved it deep enough to remember.

I came up with the idea of "yes" parenting while looking for alternatives to my dad's expressions. When I studied Special Education, I refined them even more. When my daughter was born, I discovered it worked brilliantly.

Try it. It is easy!

"Yes" parenting - no conflict

Sometimes, you will get into conflicts with your kids over things you disagree. Saying "no" to kids is not easy for parents. Some say, "I wish I could say yes to everything they want", but the truth is that kids sometimes want things that are not good for them and it is our job to teach them that. Being the captains of their ship, parents must sometimes take responsibility and say "no" to dangerous or excessive requests.

But then, there we have it - a conflict.

Parents hate conflicts. I know I do. I would prefer my kids to say Amen to everything I say to them and never argue. If I say "yes", they follow and if I say "no", they follow without questioning, but I only prefer it sometimes, when things are tough. Other times, I prefer they develop a strong emotional spine, question me, challenge me and express their needs and desires. I would rather raise leaders than followers and inspire creativity than obedience. I want my kids to keep asking me for things and building their trust in me, so that when they need help, they will come and ask for it too.

So this is what I do when my kids want something and I do not approve of it. I say "yes"!

When your kids want something and you start with "no", you immediately start a conflict, but if you start with "yes", and state your conditions in the following sentence, that will not become a conflict.

For example, instead of saying, "No, you can't watch TV now. You haven't finished your homework", which is a very negative statement with 3 pink elephants, you can say:

"Yes, you can watch TV after you have finished your homework"

Instead of saying, "No, you can't call your friend now. Can't you see we are preparing for dinner?" which is a negative statement that includes the words "no" and "can't" and a sarcastic phrase assuming your child should have noticed the dinner preparations, you can say:

"Yes, you can call your friend after dinner"

Instead of saying, "No, you can't get a new shirt. I work hard for that money and you don't appreciate it. If you pay for half of it, I'll know you appreciate my hard work", you can say:

"Yes, you can get a new shirt. I will pay half of the price and you can pay the other half"

Instead of saying, "No, you can't have dessert now. At our house, we have dessert at the end of dinner, after we finish eating what's on our plate and you haven't finished eating, so you can't have dessert", you can say:

"Yes, you can have dessert after you finish what's on your plate"

Instead of saying, "No, you can't sleep over at Shelly's house. You did not clean your room and you do not deserve to have a fun time at a friend's house" (followed, perhaps, by an hour's lecture on the importance of cleaning the room and you not being their servant), which only focuses on what kids are doing that does not make you happy, you can say:

"Yes, you can sleep over at Shelly's house when your room is clean"

Instead of focusing on negatives, creating a conflict and giving your kids the idea they can argue, you tell them how they can benefit from following the rules.

And if you are like my dad, who sometimes said "no" just to buy himself some time to think, you can still use "yes" to buy yourself time.

For example, let's say your son asks for an iPod. You understand there may be advantages to having an iPod, but you are not sure about it and need more time to think it through. Instead of saying, "No, you can't have an iPod", and giving a lecture about money and responsibility and social pressure and you working so hard, you can say, "Yes, I can see why you want an iPod. Give me some time to think about it".

Or your daughter asks to go to a party and you want her to have a social life, but you are a bit concerned about what might happen at that party and you need more time to think about it. Instead of saying, "No, you can't go to that party", you can say, "Yes, I understand why you want to go to that party. I still need time to think about it, so how about we discuss it again tomorrow?" and then you have 24 hours to think of ways to make sure your precious girl is safe at the party.

The "no" parenting style creates many conflicts and makes living in the same house difficult both for the parents and their kids. Swap it with "yes" and notice how things become much more flowing and calm.

Happy parenting,
Ronit

You may want to read

• Troubled Teens: Scary Times
• Troubled Teens: Confusing Years
• More Control – Less Power

"I feel like I have no control over my life", she said to me, "It's as if part of me says 'go left' and the other side says 'go right'. For some reason, neither is the direction I want to go and I'm stuck! I can't get the two sides of me to communicate with each other".

I smiled. It sounded familiar.

"Sometimes, I wake up with energy and motivation that lasts for three days. There is a voice inside of me that keeps telling me it can be like this forever. I've tried shutting it out, but I don't know how to", she kept telling me about her frustration.

I listened to her and thought to myself, "She is ready for the sailing story".

I hope you are ready too.

Three players in the game of life

If you have ever felt helpless, defeated and unhappy, just like the captain of the "I" ship, welcome to the real world! We are all sailing on the ocean of life. We sail every day, with every decision and choice we make or reject. The water and the weather are unpredictable and to our aid come three important characters:

• The Captain is our conscious mind - our ability to analyze and reason
• The parrot Max is the little voice in our head - our self talk, telling what we think
• The crew is our subconscious mind - our hidden motives, feelings and ability to act quickly and intuitively

Understanding the "Self" - Captain and Crew

When you are unhappy, it means your captain decides to sail to the "right" and your crew sails to the "left". Your conscious and subconscious minds are not communicating.

Theories about human behavior claim that the conscious and subconscious have different roles in maintaining the ship's health, wealth and wellbeing. Captains change over the years and their role is to direct the ship. Crew members are there from day one and their role is to protect the ship from any harm and keep it safe.

Unfortunately, the crew holds more than 90% of the decision making while captains, highly influenced by Max and external sources like media and what happened in the past, hold less than 10% of the decision making.

The Crew can only communicate with their ship's captain. The captain holds the key to the internal communication system with the crew and no one else can talk to the crew except the captain. The crew cannot communicate with anyone else but their captain and cannot be influenced by any other captain. Therefore, whenever you say, "Someone else made me do that", you are cheating yourself. No one can make you do anything. Your "captain" gave an order and your "crew" chose to obey. Do not blame anyone else for your ship's condition and do not expect anyone else to come and fix your ship. Life is continuous sailing journey and only you can take care of the condition of your ship.

Generally, Crew members do not like changes. They need to go through lots of convincing for them to change course. Even if you experience lots of pain from a course that is not healthy for you, like health problem, financial difficulties or relationship breakdowns and the captain thinks he knows why and wants to change it, the crew members will hold on to their plan and they will win.

Every time the captain wants a change as a result of jealousy, like a big house just like the Jones's, to be slim like Barbie or wealthy like Richard Branson, the crew thinks the captain is not keeping the benefit of the ship as a high priority and they reject the change of course.

Whenever the captain wants a change to please another ship, the crew members treat this situation as a threat. They say, "The Captain is not in his normal mind, he is under pressure, we need to protect him from himself. All engines stop, shields up, red alert!" This is when the ship is stuck and not moving anywhere and every ship that gets too close is fired upon.

Crew members do not accept any touch up orders. They think that when the ship's timber is rotten, there is no point covering it up with a coat of paint. It needs a carpenter. So watch what you are trying to do. If it is temporary relief, your crew will undermine your efforts and may even throw you overboard.

Crew members do not like negative orders. In fact, the crew will do the opposite of a negative command. If the captain says, "I do not want a fat ship", the crew says, "Fat ship! Aye, aye, Captain" and puts some more weight on the ship. Captains must learn to say what they want and avoid what they do not want. It will keep the ship in a much better shape. Beautiful, healthy, wealthy ships have captains who are clear about what they want and look forward to a positive future.

The crew needs a lot of convincing. If your will is not strong, they will question it until you give up. A persistent captain is the only captain who can make them accept a new course. Most captains will hold a will for 3 days (starting a diet, making an effort to change attitude or reading a book and trying to implement its suggestions). As soon as they let go, the crew sees that as a sign their will is not strong enough and reverses the changes.

If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable
- Seneca

The crew only works with goals. The problem that most captains have is that sailing without knowing where. Research about goals found that only 10% of people live life with a sense of direction by setting themselves goals, while the rest float aimlessly.

The Roman philosopher Seneca said that people must know where they are going if they want to be able to use the circumstances to their advantage. You see, if you know where you are sailing to, instead of drifting during a storm, you can direct your sails so the wind will get to your destination faster. Life offers a variety of sun, wind and rain. Successful people do not have less of them. They just use them to their advantage.

Crew members never accept vague goal. If the Captain says, "Let's sail there", they crew will ask where exactly "there" is. And if the captain does not know for sure, the command is rejected immediately. The more specific the coordinates are, the more likely the crew is to follow your order. Saying "I want to look good" is not specific and so it is immediately classified as "wishful thinking" (over a long period, this creates a life of "wishful sinking").

If you want to find a partner, be specific about what the desired character of this partner, their looks and their areas of interest. If you want to achieve a career goal, be specific about the kind of work you are looking for, what the boss should be like, how much you want to be paid and how long you are willing to commute. If you want to achieve a financial goal, be specific about how much money you want, what you want it for and how long it will take you to get it.

Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star
- W. Clement Stone

Captains do not like being specific. They are afraid they might not get to the exact same coordinated they have set for themselves. Vague goals are a cop out. They allow for the possibility of not achieving.

Crew members work with dates and calendars. Captains, for the same reason, prefer to be vague. They do not like to commit to a date and a time. They prefer to say, "One day I will travel the world", "Someday I will be healthy", "In the future, I will have enough money to…" which guarantees they will never get anywhere. These aspirations will be treated again as wishful thinking. Healthy, beautiful, wealthy, happy ships work with dates and calendars. They probably do not get to the destination exactly at the intended time, but getting there a day or even a month later is better than not getting there at all.

The crew does not take orders from any other captain but only from the captain of the ship they are on. So if you hear yourself saying, "My wife made me", "I didn't do it because of the kids" or "Having a family doesn't give me enough time", you are excusing yourself from achieving. No one can make you do something without your consent. Your crew did not accept any orders from your wife, kids or family without it going through your captain. On a healthy, beautiful, successful ship, the captain does not use excuses or blame to justify his failures but takes responsibility for his decisions.

Everyone has a parrot on their shoulder. Max is there to reflect our thoughts. Max has no filters - he tells us everything we think and believe, whether it is a good thing or not. Max will tell us we are losers if this is what we think and Max will tell us we are powerful beyond measure if this is what we think. He is a parrot, with no mind of his own. He reflects our fears, our motivation, our desires and he is constantly talking, even when we are not listening. On an easy sail, Max tells us we are capable, healthy, happy, loving, friendly, strong, courageous and wealthy. On a rough sail, Max tells us we are weak, unable, small, helpless, afraid, selfish, gutless and poor. Successful people control Max by controlling what they think.

Max will say things he has heard from your family, friends, teachers and other people you have known over the years. He will say things you have heard on TV or read in the paper or will draw conclusions from things that happened in the past. You cannot shut him up nor blame him for his incessant talk. Remember, Max is there all the time and can be very useful to you. When you are all by yourself thinking you may not survive, Max whispers, "Tomorrow everything will be OK" (which he probably heard in a movie or in a motivation book). To control what Max says, control what you think.

Now that you know all there is to know about sailing in the sea of life, take control and find a way to establish a new relationship between your captain and your crew, so that your ship takes the best course it can. Every frustration in life is a conflict between conscious and subconscious, but with the right techniques, this can be changed.

Happy sailing!
Ronit

P.S. On the 25^th of July, I am running the parenting workshop "Happy Parents Raise Happy Kids" in Brisbane. If your will to be a great parent is strong, tell your crew to register and attend. If you know any other parents who would benefit from this workshop, be a friend and let them know too.

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Misery is exactly the opposite - every little event can create misery in an instant. One word another person says or one thing not going according to expectations can easily last right until the next misfortune or unpleasantness. This is a never-ending cycle that requires courage and commitment to change.

Misery and happiness are in constant battle. The winner is the one controlling your life. Essentially, if you are miserable (dissatisfied, unhappy) about 70% of your life, you have only 30% left for happiness.

In The Art of Misery, I gave 10 lessons in misery with clear instructions on how to pass each test and gradually move on to the next level. Although I wrote that only those who completed the program would be entitled to the certificate, I have discovered it is enough for people to master some of the lessons to declare themselves eligible.

Just a quick reminder of the first 10 lesson in The Art of Misery (Level 1):

1. Long for the past
2. Use the past as the best excuse for all problems
3. Be negative
4. Please others
5. Have a huge "one day" file
6. Resist change
7. Be jealous
8. Wish for luck
9. Take your time
10. Blame others

In the last two years, I have had many requests to extend the misery course and I believe the time has finally come. After two years of practicing and holding your misery certificate, you are ready for the next level. Today, in the second part of the Misery Mastery "training program", I will improve, refine and help you upgrade your skills. I will add 10 more things you can do if being just miserable is not enough and you really, really want to be extremely miserable.

Advanced Misery Mastery

Welcome to Be Miserable in LIFE's Misery Mastery course. When you have successfully qualified through just another 10 steps, you will be able to upgrade the very popular, highly sought-after and totally depressing title of Advanced Misery Master.

More than before, presenting your title will immediately grant you access to unlimited compassion and sympathy from everyone around you, as well as their complete admiration for your achievement. The advanced title will give you the freedom to complain, be angry, make endless excuses for things not happening in our life, blame others and feel sorry for yourself.

Good luck (according to Lesson 8, which you have mastered, luck is all you need)!

1. Be Self Centered

Masters of misery think the whole world revolves around them. They think everyone thinks about them all the time and everything other people do is related to them somehow. They seek appreciation and consideration from others and find it totally acceptable that people will do things against their own best interest as long as it fits their needs.

Although we are very important, understanding that everyone does the best he or she can is necessary to living a happy life. Feeling you are the center of the universe will conflict with others thinking they are the center, because we can't all be the center of the universe, now can we?

If you continually think of yourself and what others should do, say or be to make it easy for you to maintain this position, you have qualified through Step 1 of your Advanced Misery Mastery.

2. Get No Sleep

Advanced masters of misery do not find any correlation between their thinking, success or happiness and their sleep. They steal time from themselves and sleep just a little, especially when they need to concentrate the next day on work or study. They are so unaware of the value of a good night's sleep they ignore their own contribution to making their sleep difficult and proudly brag about going to sleep 4 hours at night after spending time watching TV, playing computer games or just knocking themselves out with alcohol.

Although fun is essential, it is important to understand that the natural cycle is 24 hours in each day, of which 8 hours should be dedicated to rest. To remain calm, to maintain a clear mind, to be able to concentrate and to function properly, we need to rest.

If you steal time for yourself and do not rest for about 8 hours a day and that keeps you angry, agitated or just unable to function, well done! You have passed Step 2 of your Advanced Misery Mastery.

3. Have No Goals

Miserable people do not have goals. In fact, 90% of people do not have goals, which makes you the majority and can help you feel you part of a nice big herd. People with no goals do not achieve things nor are they willing to make an effort to reach any goals.

By contract, successful people all have goals. A research done on financial success has found that millionaires have goals they revisit twice a day while multimillionaires have goals they revisit three times a day.

If you are aimlessly cruising through life with no direction, afraid to want things in case you may not get them, you are well on your way to great misery. If you see no value in goal setting, you have just completed Step 3 of your Advanced Misery Mastery. Well done! Keep up the good work!

4. Believe in "My Way or the Highway"

The "my way of the highway" mentality is a sure bet if you want to be miserable. People with this attitude have a clear definition of what is right and what is wrong and they make sure everyone knows that. They are not accepting towards others' idea, thoughts, feelings and attitudes and are frustrated most of the time that people do not understand what is right and what is wrong. This frustration is a good way to be miserable and the more, the better.

"My way or the highway" leads to many misunderstandings and conflicts. People with this attitude are very frustrated and find it hard to understand that other people have different value systems. Every time they meet someone who does not think, feel, believe or do exactly what they think should be done, they have a conflict and develop hard feelings towards that person. This attitude lacks essential social skills, which is why it will make you very isolated and, well, even more miserable.

If you find out you have a clear view of what is right and wrong, if you tell others about it many times, if you do not have enough friends and you feel isolated, if you often use the phrases "you should" and "you have to", if you are frustrated a lot, excellent! This will feed your feeling miserable and make sure you will stay that way for a long time. You have just completed Step 4 of your Advanced Misery Mastery.

5. Be a Control Freak

One of the easiest ways to be miserable is by being a control freak. Miserable people want to control their world. They find strength in controlling their world and others and are afraid of change (which you have completed in Step 6 of Level 1). Control freaks tell everyone else what they need to do and think in order to feel secure in their life. They stick to routines and cannot risk something or somebody getting out of control. This is why they do not progress and get into lots of conflicts with others who do not like to be controlled and be miserable like them.

Controlling life is a desire we all have. It is almost like playing God and trying to predict what will happen. Sure, it can give us lots of stability, but it is important to control what we can, let go of what we cannot and distinguish between them to spread our energy well.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the thing I can
and the wisdom to know the difference
- Reinhold Niebuhr

If you find yourself stressing over things that are beyond your ability to control and you keep grinding your mind with "If only…" and do not accept that there is something amazing about the surprises in life, then you are really progressing. You have just passed Step 5 of your Advanced Misery Mastery.

6. Gossip

Miserable people love to gossip about others. They want to know what happens with other people and really like the juicy parts where other people make mistakes, fail and feel bad. In every social gathering, they constantly ask about others and like to pass this information on (many times with creative additions of their own that will make it more interesting for others to listen and preferably pass it on to others). They are the center of the information and like to say things about others that show them in a bad light. Unlike the "Be Jealous" lesson (#7 in Misery Mastery Level 1), the gossipers take it one step forward and declare war on the people they envy.

Gossiping is a result of low self esteem. It is usually a sign that the person who gossips thinks that in order to feel better, he or she needs others to look worse. Their self image is not strong enough and they believe there is an imaginary war on being good, successful and happy and if someone else has more of it, they have less.

If you find yourself asking about others in a tone that wants to hear the bad, embarrassing things that happen to them, if you talk about people behind their back and present them in a bad light, if you envy others and think they must have some "dark spot" in their life to ease your jealousy, you have just completed Lesson 6 of your Advanced Misery Mastery.

7. Do Not Forgive

For miserable people, forgiving is the skill of the enemy - the happy people. Miserable people do not like to let go of grudges and can talk about things people did years ago as an excuse to be angry at them all over again. They highlight other people's mistakes and like playing the guilt trip on other.

If you want to master this misery skill, go over all the wrongs that have been done to you in your life. Make sure you believe they were done on purpose in order to hurt you and make sure the offenders will never get away from being blamed for what they have done. You can practice carving them to pieces in your mind so they will never disappear until the day you die.

Forgiving is the key that releases all the anger and fear in our life. Practicing forgiveness is an art in itself. When we forgive others, we set them free and set ourselves free from carrying them and their actions with us.

If you have a huge list of people that you have met in life that you hold a grudge against, make sure to add more people into that list. You can take everything they have done personally and believe they have done it against you and that it was so awful it was unforgivable. If you have lots and lots of unforgivable things done against you, you are winning your way up the scale of your Advanced Misery Mastery.

8. Be a Perfectionist

Perfectionists are people who have the exact character trait that helps them maintain their miserable title. Like the control freaks, their perfectionism is a way to control their world, but unlike the control freaks, they need to control everything 100%. They have high expectations from themselves and others and if things do not happen exactly the way they expected, they are very unhappy and miserable. They are not forgiving towards themselves and others and have rules that never compromise on anything. They have to be the best and do not tolerate mistakes. Again, much like people with the "my way or the highway" attitude, frustration is their fuel and they have lots of it to keep them going until the day they die.

Perfectionism is a mindset that cannot live together with happiness. The notion of being perfect and expecting 100% from self and others makes it hard to be satisfied, which is one important lesson in the art of happiness. Again, like the control freaks and the "highway" attitude, their perfectionism gets them into lots of relationship conflicts at work, at home and with their social circle. People find it hard to be around them and it makes them isolated.

If you find yourself frustrated with things you have done and think that 80% success is no success at all, if you ask your kids "Why did you only get 98% on your exam?" or focus only on faults, if you think that people who do not do things 100% are lazy, unworthy and lower than you, it means you can easily pass the perfectionist exam of your Advanced Misery Mastery.

9. Catastrophize

Catastrophizers are fortune tellers. They take everything and look for possible consequences. The better they are, the more horrible, chaotic and disastrous consequences they find. Their lack of perspective is highly developed and they can take a small thing and make a very big fuss over it. They always foresee negative outcomes and feel everything is a matter of life and death. Murphy's law is their bible and they believe that if anything can go wrong, it will. They see themselves as prophets of the kind that warns people about sickness, failures and accidents and they tell everyone what is about to go wrong with what they do.

Catastrophizing is the source of anxiety. People take themselves in their mind to a very negative potential future and live their life in constant fear. Catastrophizing feeds their low self esteem because it supports the belief they are helpless. It also kills any motivation they may have.

If you are able to predict a negative future, if you tell others what bad is going to happen to them, if you take every little thing and make a big deal out of it (like taking one of your kids' C in the report card and making life hell for them in fear they might grow up to be losers), this is solid proof you lack perspective and are entitled to pass the 9^th step of your Advanced Misery Mastery.

10. Worry

Worriers are real heroes. Their talent is the inability to predict the future while continually thinking about it. They are skillful in the "Yes, but what if…" game and can play it for a long time (most of the time until circumstances make the choice for them). They can worry about every tiny thing and if there is nothing on their mind, they are worried about that too.

In our body, the fight or flight response is supposed to work as a defense mechanism. In a dangerous situation, the body produces chemicals to make us alert and quick on our feet. Worrying triggers this mechanism and worrying for a long time exhausts the body and makes the warrior tired and edgy. Worrying is a state of alertness that the body cannot handle for long. If you want to understand this fully, try not to sleep for two days and notice how your performance drops. Worrying for long enough can cause depression.

If you just do not know what will happen and you want to know it so badly it makes you try in your mind endless options, if you can keep yourself worried about insignificant things, which you will not remember in a year, a month or even tomorrow, if you are worried you do not have anything to worry about, you are doing great and you have just completed the final part of your Advanced Misery Mastery.

Congratulations! You are officially an Advanced Misery Master.

Miserable Certificate

Please click the certificate above, print it and use it whenever you need. Be aware, you can use it for 30 minutes at a time, after which it will self-destruct and you will need to get on with your life (or find something else to be miserable about).

Since you are now at the advanced level, print two copies of the certificate. You may hand out one copy to others to encourage their misery and keep one for yourself. Remember, misery loves company.

Be miserable, if it makes you happy
- Andrew Matthews

Happy misery!
Ronit

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One of these teachers went through every part of my life coaching program, became a counselor and is now doing her PhD in mental health. And, just like me, she sees teaching as a mission.

I coach many people and every person responds differently and takes different things from their experience. So why did Tanya choose to have a funeral with her students?

About two years ago, we worked on finding her direction in life and taking full control over her thoughts. Tanya told me she had lots of negative, judgmental thoughts and was full of regrets.

We tried to eliminate those thoughts for a while, but that was not very successful, so I asked her to write them down. She told me she was afraid someone would read them. She wanted to get rid of the thoughts without being exposed. We talked about that and came up with a solution: she would write her "bad" thoughts in a foreign language. So she did that.

One evening, when Tanya came for a session, we sat on my balcony and I put a big empty can on the table.

"What's this?" she asked.

"We're having a funeral", I said.

"A funeral?" she asked, very surprised.

"Yes, a funeral. It's a good funeral, though", I said, trying to sound positive.

"Who's dead?" she asked.

"No one yet", I smiled knowingly.

"Who are we going to kill, then?" Tanya asked.

"The demons in your mind", I said and lit a fire inside the can.

"Cool!" she said, holding her coaching folder in one hand and her "bad thought" notes in the other. She set them on the table and realized what we were going to do.

"Oh, I get it", she said with the sound of excitement in her voice, "We're going to cremate my bad thoughts, aren't we?"

We spent the next hour or so throwing the bad thoughts that were written on her notes into the fire inside the can. It looked beautiful.

Tanya had great fun burning her notes. She tore some of them into little pieces and put each one into the can separately. She told me about some of the thoughts she was getting rid of, but said she did not want to hear herself repeating most of them and just cast them into the fire without a word.

We never bothered to spread the ashes.

You see, whereas most funerals are unplanned, this one can be done even if you do not have a garden patch at the far corner of your house. And feel free to bury (or burn) anything you like (actually, anything you do not like)!

Have fun!
Ronit

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After the first call, I was very happy, and since I am not a strong believer in coincidence, I said to myself that the universe was trying to tell me something after the second call. Translating from "universe" language to "Ronit" language, this meant I needed to write about that funeral - one of the most wonderful funerals everyone should take part in.

Two teachers, one a primary school teacher and the other a high school teacher, each took a group of students to the far corner of their own schools and had the most uplifting funeral of their lives.

I am sure your can find a far corner in your house and I wish you a wonderful funeral. May your home be positive and full of action forever.

Join me on Friday and I will tell you about another funeral I had with the very same high school teacher on my balcony.

Happy parenting,
Ronit

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