How to Develop Insight Into Your Own Life

This can be very easy, but may still take time. That's okay... more to discover!

A Think of places that inspire you in many different ways. If listening to music, watching chic flicks, reading books, watching the news or going out to watch the stars sounds inviting then find a time to to all that you like. Inform yourself on the going-ons of the world. Observe your and other people's daily routines. Write in a diary. Make lists if you like. Lists of good characteristics, of what you see in people, of good and bad moments, of your favorite foods, everything. Mental lists are just as good in this case as real ones if you would rather not write it down. Allow yourself to expand. Study and learn things about people, places and ideas from biographies, mysteries, fact books, personality quizzes, and conversations with older and wiser people. Consider participating in some leisurely activities... if you are younger, perhaps karate, sports, a religious group, community service, etc. Really anything you haven't tried that is legal and poses little risk is a good idea. Getting out and about will help you get the big picture. Sometimes taking REALLY good care of yourself helps. Bubble baths, manicures, styled hair, etc. can be great.

How to Be Happy

Everyone just wants to be happy. That's why people go on diets, spend too much money for clothes, or suck up to popular people - because they think it will make them happy! Happiness can be a "comfortable-good" or an "excited-good" or a "chilled-out-good" because it has many flavours and faces, depending on whom you are with, or what you are doing. However, if you get to know all different people, you will see what makes the happiest people happy.
Change your thought process.



If you catch yourself thinking that things aren't going to work out, then think again. Remember that most things work out better than you fear - so imagine that your fears are ungrounded and that success is ahead. Rather than thinking of the problems and getting desperate, imagine the best outcome and then work out what you need to do to make that happen. Follow your "inner guidance system." If the thoughts you are thinking are not giving you a good feeling, then think about something else that will make you feel good in that moment. Monitor your thoughts consistently throughout the day. Sometimes this may not be as easy as you think if you are stuck in a "negative" train of thought and your brain chemicals are getting fired up and forming an "anxiety or anger" pathway. Anxiety, fear and anger patterns can be interrupted by focusing on doing a math problem, counting backwards, counting in odd numbers, doing a sudoku puzzle, etc. - this will dissipate the rush of chemicals that are making you feel bad. Immediately then go back to picturing scenes/remembering things/imagining, planning stuff that makes you feel GOOD. See the world for what it really is. You have friends and family that love you. Learn How to be thankful. Think of all the things you have to be happy about. Relax, calm down, take things slower. No one has everything, and everyone has something of sorrow intermingled with gladness of life. The trick is to make the laughter outweigh the tears. We cannot change the past, but we can enjoy today, and look to the future. But if we are prepared to take credit for the past and accept that everything that happened in our life, good and bad, has made us the person we are - the battle is half won. Lighten up. Don't take yourself too seriously. Stress can cause many mental, physical, and spiritual problems in your life. One of the major causes of stress is worrying about things that are out of your control. Learn to recognize these things and if you can truly do nothing about them, then just let them go. Take time to laugh at yourself and the situations you find yourself in. Laughter is a powerful, positive medicine and the calmer and more peaceful you can take things, the happier your life will be. Be yourself. You can't please everybody. Don't let criticism worry you. Don’t compare yourself to other people – at work or in your personal life. In the first place, no one knows what other people are going through. More importantly, when you compare yourself to other people, you always tend to see yourself on the "short end". So this is never a good or helpful thing for you to do. One way to get in touch with yourself is through journaling. The goal is to open up completely to yourself and learn to be your best friend by knowing that the truth (to yourself) will set you free from fear! Practice self-acceptance no matter what. Never do something you're not comfortable with. You'll respect yourself for sticking to your guns, and that self-respect will make you happy. Make a scheduled time every day for relaxation. This is a good time to go over any therapy that you’re working on. Having a "relaxation" time or a "quiet time" every day strengthens you, allows the stress and tension in your life to evaporate, and keeps you more on a positive, even keel. Get a job you love. If you have a job you hate or dislike, seriously consider changing your job, or even changing careers. Having a job that makes you look forward to your day when you wake up in the morning is critical to a happy, fulfilled life. Making special time to enjoy interests, hobbies, and family, not only makes life happier, but helps us be more productive on the job. Develop a strong relationship with your family. That includes trust. If you are in an abusive family, you must find a way to stop the abuse that may include separation. If you want a stronger relationship with your family, you're going to need to be honest with them. Tell your family about your life and don't insult them - it hurts them just as much as it hurts you to be insulted. Choose the right companion Get involved with activities that reflect who you are, and get to know people who like the things you do. Don't rule out the Internet as a place to find a significant other, just get to know them over the phone or through a few months of emails before agreeing to a meeting in person. Choose your friends carefully. Nearly everyone needs someone who cares for them and treats them well. If you have friends who are treating you badly, then ditch them and find friends that do care about you. If you can't find any friends like that in your current circumstances, then look elsewhere. If you're feeling sad, there's nothing like going out with your friends to make you feel better. Surround yourself with friends who are positive, encouraging, and helpful. We all need this continuing, positive encouragement to make solid positive progress in life. Do what you can for those less fortunate than yourself. Volunteer at a hospital or be a part of a program, which take care of patients in some way. When you leave the hospital, you will be so much happier knowing that you've done something meaningful, something someone else can appreciate. Wish the best for others and mean it. It is so easy to be jealous and petty and forget to celebrate the good fortune of your coworkers, friends and family. Keep learning. Whether it is a new hobby or a new dance, just keep learning something that interests you. Just find a new interest and go for it!! It will give you something to keep you occupied, and a new outlook on life. Set goals. Live up to them. When you accomplish a goal, it's a great feeling. If you put all your failures down to other people, you put yourself in their power. Take responsibility for when things go wrong in your life. Be healthy. Give your body and mind what it most needs in order to function in an "optimal" way. "Optimal" in this case means being the healthiest you can be, and the most psychologically balanced you can be. Eat a healthy, balanced diet and ensure that you get all the vital vitamins and minerals that your body requires for its optimal biochemical functioning. Supplement your diet with the appropriate vitamins and minerals if necessary. Get plenty of exercise. This will prompt the production of the "feel good" hormones that make you feel happy (endorphins). Plus, there are all the other obvious fitness and disease fighting benefits, too numerous to mention here. Strive for long term goals vs. short term satisfaction. It is very easy to gain short term satisfaction, a quick high, a fast relief from your current problems. But it is what it is , a "short term" satisfaction, its effects die out very soon, leaving you again with this empty feeling. Set long term goals, set a goal which takes some time, some thought, some effort to achieve. This will make you continually work towards improving yourself bit by bit and will give you the satisfaction of bringing a permanent change in your life. A permanent revolution.




Tips
If you have problems getting your feelings and opinions out, learn the techniques of self-assertion, rather than using anger or avoidance by bottling them all up inside. Take up a spiritual practice. Research shows that people who meditate have a somewhat detached approach to the problems of this life, and are calmer, happier and more contented than usual. Turning to that higher power, closing your eyes and thinking of artistic images, doing deep breathing, etc. Can give you a sense of peace. Try to make someone else happy and you will feel happy for achieving something! Research suggests that happy people have a simple mental strategy towards life. When they think about something good that happened to them, they explore how they personally contributed to that good feeling and feel happy about themselves.
Listen to the music that makes you feel good.
When you wake up, put on some uplifting / upbeat music. Be honest with yourself.
Is there something that is keeping you from being happy - an addiction, a bad habit, or insecurity? Do something about it! Smile! It's contagious and takes less effort than frowning. Stop stressing about money or things out of your control.
Get plenty of sleep every night. When you receive a compliment from others, accept it and say "thank you", with a smile.
Get healthy or stay healthy by eating right and exercising.
The true key to happiness is acceptance - learning to be happy with what you already have.
A lot of people know it but don't quite keep it in their minds. Never ever compare your life with that of the others.
Don't be too proud, don't get envious. Accept the gifts you received and stop wishing for something 'more special'.
Pay your bills on time, and be in the habit of keeping an orderly home.
Treat yourself to something special once in a while, not because you 'need' it, but just because you 'want' it. Fulfill your own desires once in a while.
Caring for and loving a pet is a great way to stay happy once you reach that goal.
If you have the time, energy, and stability to take on the responsibility of caring for a pet, you might consider this.
(Don't rush into this or adopt a pet for the wrong reasons! This is a long-term commitment, but is a great way to share your happiness).
Make new friends and talk to them about your problems. Listen to theirs, communicate. Get out of your house and hang out with friends. Even in the most terrible times, do not turn to alcohol or drugs, or anything else that is addictive, abusive to your health and others or is considered a bad habit.
Keep a "Thankful For..." Journal. Every day write down a few things that you are thankful for and then review what you have written in past entries. It's a great way to remind yourself to be thankful for what you have and to boost your mood!

The sound of music amok in the mind

The neurologist Oliver Sacks has been publishing books for nearly four decades. He may be best known for "Awakenings," which appeared in 1973 and was made into a 1990 film starring Robin Williams as Sacks. It concerned a group of patients long immobilized by sleeping sickness, then temporarily restored to movement and voice by an experimental drug whose neuro-benefits were short-lived. Balanced between clinical observation and emotional engagement, Sacks found the humanity at the story's heart, and his writing moved the way fiction moves, using scenes and dialogue and character development. "Awakenings" established Sacks's signature approach to reporting from the terrifying edge of human neurological experience. He could see that while brain damage left people radically transformed, it sometimes taught us all about the deeper dimensions of the soul, the spirit, the human will.
"Awakenings" was followed 12 years later by Sacks's first bestseller, "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat," a book of case histories about the often bizarre, harrowing impact of neurological catastrophe. It presented such diverse figures as an aging man with a shattered memory who believed himself to be 20 and the year to be 1945; a woman unable to sense where her body was in space; a distinguished musician who could no longer identify or properly use the everyday objects he saw. Sacks's territory was not simply the strangeness of behavior when brain and mind are ravaged. It was the way such manifestations teach us how the brain and mind work, and what we are capable of enduring, what we can make of an altered life.
Though occasionally publishing books about his own life and travels, such as the 2001 memoir "Uncle Tungsten" or the 1984 account of a serious leg injury that turned him from physician to patient ("A Leg to Stand On"), Sacks continued to publish fascinating volumes of case studies ("Seeing Voices" in 1989 and "An Anthropologist on Mars" in 1995). Now, with "Musicophilia," his 10th book, he brings the case study together with wide-ranging research, interviews, correspondence, philosophical consideration, and personal experience to produce an accessible, compelling study of the human passion for music, a propensity that "lies so deep in human nature that one must think of it as innate."
"We humans," Sacks says, "are a musical species no less than a linguistic one." Music seems hard-wired into our very being. It moves us, stirs us to action, sets us in motion, sticks in our memories and minds. As a neurologist, Sacks wonders about the intricate, complex mechanism by which all this happens in the brain, and "Musicophilia" certainly explores the cortical circuits by which music is perceived or created, making use of the latest technological and clinical findings
But the core of this book is what happens when things go wrong, when music triggers seizures or repeats ceaselessly and deafeningly in the mind or is heard as pure noise rather than as music. "Many of the patients or correspondents I describe in this book are conscious of musical misalignments of one sort or another. The 'musical' parts of their brains are not entirely at their service, and may indeed seem to have a will of their own." Most people imagine music playing in their heads, but some hallucinate music; some cannot sleep because of the soundtrack in their mind. "There may be a continuum here between the pathological and the normal," Sacks says. We all, sometime or other, teeter at the border. "This wonderful machinery - perhaps because it is so complex and highly developed - is vulnerable to various distortions, excesses, and breakdowns."
"Musicophilia" also looks at music's miraculously positive impact on damaged brains, as when people rendered otherwise mute by strokes or Alzheimer's can sing lyrics or when others stilled by advanced Parkinson's disease can move in response to music. "It is clear that music, above all else, can kick-start a damaged or inhibited motor system into action again." It can calm the tics and compulsions of people with Tourette's syndrome. It can allow victims of autism or Asperger's syndrome, normally so isolated by their symptoms, to find connection with others or to express otherwise repressed emotions.
Sacks, whose focus is typically on others, here makes frequent reference to his own experience with music. This lends "Musicophilia" a genuine intimacy and charm, as in his account of getting himself down a Norwegian mountain despite "tearing off the quadriceps tendon of my left leg, as well as doing some nerve damage to it," using a rowing motion to glide down the snowy surface to the imagined rhythm of "The Volga Boatmen's Song."
Sacks also refers to or reconnects with numerous patients described in his previous books, Rose R. from "Awakenings" and the autistic scientist Temple Grandin from "An Anthropologist on Mars," considering their familiar stories in light of the role of music. There is a sense of family here, Sacks bringing patients, himself, and his reader together within music's embrace as if we were all before the record player in his living room.