The Language Of Happiness

Let’s do a very, very simple experiment: can you please have a look at the text below and tell me what you understand from it? Take your time. Chances are that, if you’re not Korean – or studied Hangul – all you got from the text above is just a collection of random noodles. Or, … Read more

7 Things I Learned From My 5 Year Old Girl

A few weeks ago it was Bianca’s 5th birthday. As always, each year I write a post about what I learned from her during the last year. If you want to read the previous posts, here they are, in order for one, two, three and four year anniversaries. 1. Diplomacy Is Easy Last year Bianca’s … Read more

27 Ways You Can Develop Bounce Back Muscles In Difficult Times

This is a guest post by my friend Tess Marshall, @theboldlife. Loss, suffering and tragedy are painful, unavoidable experiences, and part of the human condition. We can’t prevent them, but we can approach life’s biggest challenges with openness and optimism. Prior to a personal tragedy, we may not know who we are, what we feel, … Read more

Depression – How To Un-Handle It

That’s a delicate topic, I admit. Depression is one of the most delicate topics in the world, because it involves sharing the deepest parts of your being. And because it brings to the light feelings of shame, guilt and sadness. I never met any human being who was comfortable to those feelings…

For me, depression, despite its medical definition, is more of a state of rejection, of meaningless time and a lack of value. A state of withdrawal and surrender, a state of worthless actions and a wish to put an end to everything. Depression is just an enormous hole filled with lack of self-esteem and respect, lack of trust in you and anything. I’m not a doctor, and even if I do like to manage multiple skills I don’t intend to become a regular one, so take these definitions as my own personal view of depression and not as a medical approach.

Because I don’t put depression on the doctor’s plate, by the way. I take depression as a sign of imbalance in your whole being. It is not an illness, it is just the fact that some parts of yourslef are in need to take a break. To let go of the pressure. Maybe you asked to much. Maybe somebody else asked too much of you. Maybe you feel anger because you can’t get what you want, or because you had it once and now you lost it. Maybe you just need to rest for a while and your environment can’t let you do that. Whatever the form, the substance is the same: repressed, fermented emotions that are exploding inside and are looking for a way out.

Avoiding The Inevitable

Letting it out is the best thing you can do. Just be aware of the danger that this flow of emotions could take with it, though: it’s like a river that can take your house if you’re not paying attention. But you can’t stop it. That’s the biggest and most hurting mistake I’ve made. You can’t resist it and you can’t escape it. You must let it go, otherwise it will eventually overflow you by accumulation.

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Happy birthday, Diana!

Today is my wife’s birthday. We’re both Scorpio so our birthdays are really close. I write this without really planning – one of the things Diana taught me being to enjoy life without too much planning. But that’s not the only thing that she taught me. There are plenty of other things she taught me … Read more

It’s Not About Them, It’s About You

One of the most important parts of our lives is social interaction. Is the way we act and, most of the time, react to other people. And, from my personal experience, is the part which can create most of our bitterness and sadness, which can carve the deepest guilts and seeds the most ferocious fears in our life. And why is that? Because most of the time it’s about them. The others. Peoples who hurts us, who makes us suffer, who break our hearts and our wings.

Well, guess what? It’s not about them, it’s about you.

In this post I’ll share my personal experiences about social interactions. I’ll also try to synthesize some simple ways in which you can try to avoid all the negative manifestations that relationships can create.

The lesson

The first, the most important, and, to be honest, the only lesson I’ve learned from social interaction is: it’s not about them, it’s about you. It took me a lot of time to learn this and also some paynful experiences. I’ve been through a lot of denial and defensive attitudes, I’ve cast tons of guilt to other persons in my life and tried to escape all the abusive situations in which i’ve been put. But in the end, I learned that this is the only healthy way to deal with others. Understanding that you are the person responsible for everything is happenng to you it’s the cornerstone of a fulfilling social life.

Because you actually have the power to attract, maintain and seed all the positive interactions you need. But the reverse of this meddal is that you also have the power to attract all the negative, consuming or humiliating relationships into your life. Although is hard to accept that, this is the truth. You may think that you’re not responsible for the stinky job you have, for the broken marriage or for the complete emptiness of your life, but it’s true.

The only person who can live your life is yourself. Nobody else, just you. Blaming others for your current situation puts you in a surrendering situation. It actually takes your life out of your hands and put it in their hands. Making them responsible for your life actually empowers them. It’s like going to a person you don’t like and saying:

Please, make me miserable! I’m so bored and irresponsible that I need somebody to blame for that! Would you be my blaming mate? I’ll even call you my husband, my wife, my girlfriend, my parent or my kid? How about that? We can have a deal on that one? Coz I really, really need a blaming mate and I think you’d be perfect for that: you want to control everything, you’re insecure, dominating, my god, you got them all? So, can we get married now?

Although you smiled reading this, you did exactly that at least once in your life. We all did it. We put the blame for our broken marriage on our parents shoulders, on our so-called friends, on the dentist with whom she ran, on the stripper whit whom he quit, on her, on him, on the other guy, on everybody. On everybody except us. Why? Because it’s simpler. It’s easier and relieves the pain for the moment. We feel better, get over it for now, and try to have a life. Until next time, when we do exactly the same mistake, and blame exactly the same person.

You may ask now: but what’s the mistake? My situation was so special, I had a bad childhood, I grew up in a poor family, I had an abusive parent, I had a difficult time in school… In fact, although they seem different, all the situations comes to only one: the choice. You have the power to make a choice. And, despite your expectations, this is the easiest choice you can make: you can chose to react to the person, or you can chose to act. You can chose to stay happy when somebody is hurting you, or you can chose to be sad. You can chose to feel humiliation or you can choose to manifest power. You can control everything. You have the power to create whatever response you want in your interactions. Of course, you won’t be able to do this instantly. Or if you are able, I bet you stoped reading this post from the first paragraph, because you’re already past this, and you learned the most important, valuable, and, to be honest, the only lesson about relationships: it’s not about them, it’s about you.

But if you are still reading, that means you can use some advice. Let’s see how we can stop the process of reaction and start acting, moving the power flow towards us and harmonizing our social life.

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Keep your soul in good shape: managing your psychological calories

You know the story of the 3 mice groups? I guess not. It’s a very interesting one and I thought it would be a very good start point for this post… So, without further ado: a group of researches in psychological behavior took 3 identical groups of mice, and put them in 3 separate cages, … Read more

Training For Happiness

For me, happiness is one of the most mysterious yet over-hyped word in this universe. Everybody talks about happiness. It’s everywhere: in music, in movies, in art or in spiritual techniques. Some of us are taking it for granted, some of us are making a job from talking about it, and some of us are … Read more