Happy for No Reason: Take Ownership of Your Happiness

Have you ever come upon a book with a title that was so ridiculous you wouldn’t consider reading it?  That was my first inclination when I received an email message about Happy for No Reason by Marci Shimoff.  So why did I end up buy this book?  The email message was a bulk mailing from Dr. Judith Orloff, intuitive energy psychiatrist, author of many great books including her latest, Emotional Freedom.  Having read Dr. Orloff’s previous books, and having been impressed by her views on positive energy and other techniques for sensitive and intense people, I was willing to read Happy for No Reason.

The subtitle of the book, “7 Steps to Being Happy from the Inside Out,” intrigued me because it suggested that I could be in control of my own happiness.  I decided to purchase two copies so that I could write in the margins of one and encourage my husband to read the other one.  That was a great decision because I have seen both subtle and significant changes in the way we relate to otherwise stressful situations.  

Last week, my husband had a medical procedure that required outpatient treatment in the hospital.  This was a planned procedure that was supposed to take about 2 1/2 hours from beginning to end.  However, due to someone dropping the ball and not providing my husband with an antibiotic prior to the procedure, once he was wheeled into the room for surgery, the doctor noticed the error and sent him back to short stay to receive 2 hours of intraveneous antibiotics.  As if that wasn’t enough, once he was brought back for surgery, the doctor wasn’t able to complete the procedure because his blood clotting level hadn’t been correctly monitored so that if she completed the procedure, my husband wouldn’t have been able to clot quickly enough.  All of these issues could have been taken care of prior to our coming to short stay, so not only did the 2 1/2 hours become a 6 hour experience, my husband also has to return again next year to complete the procedure.

I share this story because at no time were we angry, nor did we harass the nurses who had nothing to do with the issues we faced.  The nurses kept telling us how sorry they were, and that they were amazed by how nice we were.  My husband and I were thinking that it was unfortunate to have had to deal with this situation, but due to having practiced the Happy for No Reason strategies, we weren’t going to get ourselves upset nor upset the people who were trying to help us.  I truly believe that in the past we would have spent those additional hours ruminating, making ourselves more and more miserable.  Now, however, my husband is going to meet with his doctor to see what went wrong, just for clarification for the next time he has this procedure.

Chapter 3 is called “The Foundation – Take Ownership of Your Happiness,” and that is what we are trying to do.  The author talks about how complaining is a nasty habit that can cause emotional and physical harm to the complainer.  And who really wants to spend much time with a complainer?  I am trying to be mindful of my reactions, and I am attempting to limit the whining response.  

Parents contact me on a regular basis to get information on how to advocate for their gifted children whose academic needs aren’t being adequately met.  I am now more aware of the impact their complaining has had on their personal happiness as well as on the happiness of their children.  Many of these sensitive and intense children are complaining about their discontent at school, and in turn, many of them are hearing their parents also complain about teachers and the educational system.  Do these kids deserve to receive an appropriate education?  Absolutely!  They also deserve to be taught coping strategies and strategies of the autonomous learner to get their needs met.  Their complaining, and the complaining of their parents sets all of them up for anxiety, depression, and a sent of hopelessness.  

The titles of the following chapters will give you an idea of the strategies that are the focus of this book:

Chapter 1: Happy for No Reason…Really?

Chapter 2: Practicing Happiness

Chapter 3: The Foundation — Take Ownership of Your Happiness

Chapter 4: The Pillar of the Mind — Don’t Believe Everything You Think

Chapter 5: The Pillar of the Heart — Let Love Lead

Chapter 6: The Pillar of the Body — Make Your Cells Happy

Chapter 7: The Pillar of the Soul — Plug Yourself In to Spirit

Chapter 8: The Roof — Live a Life Inspired by Purpose

Chapter 9: The Garden — Cultivate Nourishing Relationships

Chapter 10: The Happy for No Reason Plan for Life

If, as Marci Shimoff says, emotion is contagious, we might as well chose to spread the happiness germ!  I recommend this book to parents and teachers who are the models for bright, sensitive, and intense children.  They deserve to be surrounded by adults who spread happiness rather than the angst of complaining.

Getting to the Heart of Giftedness: Living with Intensity

Always searching for the perfect books for my gifted education classes, I have come upon a new book I will certainly require for my fall course, Social and Psychological Foundations of Gifted Education.  That book, Living with Intensity, is edited by by Susan Daniels and Michael Piechowski and includes chapters from experts in the field of gifted education.

The authors have divided Living with Intensity into the following sections:

Part One: Kazimierz Dabrowski, Overexcitability, Giftedness, and Developmental Potential

Part Two: Understanding Intensity: Practical Applications for Parents, Teachers, and Counselors

Part Three: Still Gifted After All These Years — Lifespan Intensity and Gifted Adults

Part Four: Current Research and Future Directions

My first posting was June 1, 2008, and the topic was “Bright, Sensitive, Intense“.  I have been interested in the “amplified ways of being” of gifted children, and Living with Intensity goes a long way to explain these amplified ways.  If you are a gifted adult, or a parent or teacher of a gifted child, this book is a must read!

Moving Toward a Growth Mindset

More than a month has gone by since I have had both the time and inspiration to create a new post. My latest inspiration is Carol Dweck’s book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.

My colleague Mark Szymanski and I have created a visual representation of the Positive Identity Development Process of gifted people (you can find it on our website: teachwithintention.net). At the first level, we begin with four of the commonly misunderstood innate aspects of many gifted people: the amplified ways of being. This includes sensitivity, introversion/extroversion, perfectionism, and curiosity. The next level of this model focuses on the Habits of Mind as proposed by Art Costa and Bena Kallik. And the final portion of our model includes three aspects of a life-long learner: information seeking, problem solving, and creative producing.

While reading Dweck’s book, it became obvious that in my workshops, I needed to add her concepts of the fixed mindset and growth mindset prior to talking about the Habits of Mind. As parents and teachers, we need to be aware of our own mindsets and the model we are providing for children. Dweck proposes that the growth mindset enables children and adults to fulfill their potential while the fixed mindset can cause people to plateau and never realize that potential. Some key findings of her research include:

Fixed Mindset: Intelligence is static. This might cause a gifted child to put little effort into their school work because that effort would make them seem as though they aren’t really gifted. After all, if they are that smart, why should they have to work hard?

Growth Mindset: Intelligence can be developed. Gifted children with this mindset are fortunate because they have a great desire to learn, and they see that their effort impacts their ability.

I appreciate that Dweck shows us examples of her own aspects of a fixed mindset and how she works hard to move her thinking to a growth mindset. For parents and teachers of gifted students, Dweck’s research in the area of praise is particularly important. She cautions us to praise effort rather than intelligence if we want to prevent fixed mindsets.

This book is a MUST for any parent or teacher, but it is vital for those of us who live with or teach children who are bright, sensitive, and intense. Our children deserve adults who can model a desire to learn, a willingness to embrace challenges, and an ability to be persistent in the face of obstacles. There is a greater chance that these wonderful children will develop positive identities if they are encouraged to embrace a growth mindset.