Happiness Heals

The first step toward finding your own happiness is gratitude. If you develop and heighten your powers of appreciation by focusing on the beauty in your life instead of the imperfections, you will be halfway there. 

Your efforts will be rewarded. Statistics show that people who are happy live longer – they gain both years in their life and life in their years. Their increased longevity results from reducing stress levels and the accompanying stress hormones. These hormones are a vital part of our ‘fight or flight’ defence system and are designed to be dissipated through intense physical exertion. However, modern life induces stresses and generates hormones that have no natural outlet. These hormones interfere with our eating and sleeping patterns and weaken our immune system. Increased tensions also have a corrosive effect on relationships. When our immune system is compromised we invite cancerous developments or opportunistic infections.

Focusing on beauty and gratitude is not to ignore imperfections and pretend they’re not there. Rather it is a deliberate choice to meet our situation with serenity and not to be demeaned by them. Taking positive action to address imperfections is also good for our self esteem. Incremental improvements are cumulative. Over time they help us to become the people we want to be.

In the organisational setting it is also vital to adopt an attitude of gratitude. There is no greater contribution a leader can make with her team than to grow its capability. Frequent expressions of gratitude show appreciation of other’s efforts and encourage them to repeat their winning ways. Happy teams perform better and last longer. Again we add years to life and life to years.  When the organisation as a whole celebrates its successes it helps build that collective sense of purpose and builds its culture. Another vital dimension is that the organisation celebrates widely with its customers, its suppliers and its host community. In the same way that the individual needs to know he or she is valued for themselves within their environment, so too it is important for the cohesion of the organisation that it knows its contribution to its stakeholders. This builds community and strengthens its sense of itself and its purpose.

Ian Drury overcame his incapacity from Polio to make a great contribution to the music of his day. His classic ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’ is both a two fingered jab to his physical reality and a celebration of life. No matter what our circumstances, it is always more productive to focus on health affirming situations than to feel self pity around failure or oppressed by seemingly unobtainable targets for which you feel no responsibility.

What area of your life needs to be acknowledged and celebrated? Is your organisation appreciative of the community which hosts it, or does it consider the employment it provides to be a gift for which the community should be grateful? What is the driving sense of purpose that will bring happiness and healing into your life and add life to your years?