1. Ask yourself:  what would you change about your another person who is significant to you? Make a list.  (This may be a partner, family member, friend or colleague).
2. Pick one item off that list and the next time your selected person does the thing that bugs you, say nothing!
3. Let yourself cool down for 10-15 minutes before you say anything. While chilling, think of three things you love or appreciate about him or her.
4. Now take action based on the truth..... Based on one of the things you love - express your love with words of affection or offer an act of kindness.
5. Sit for a minute or two and evaluate how you feel after expressing love, kindness or affection.

From "Eliminate Emotional Pain"  by John Douillard    

According to Douillard, "the cause of all disease is when the mind and emotions overshadow the experience of the heart.

In others words, we begin to react to life through the filter of fear and anger rather than love and compassion.

Murmuration

Sophie and Liberty, independent filmmakers from London, were canoeing one day and captured a chance encounter  with one of nature's greatest, most fleeting, and most  beautiful phenomena--the murmuration of a large flock of starlings.   View the 2 minute spectacular unfoldment here.     

Murmuration is a survival technique used by starlings swirling around and shape shifting as they try to get inside the pack.  Each starling tries to exactly imitate the bird beside it.  Check out the look on the canoeists face at the end of the video.  That says it all.      

Tips for Increasing Joy! 

What does what and how you eat have to do with joy?  Sluggish digestion and poor assimilation profoundly affects your everyday emotional and mental experiences and the perceptions that filter experience.  When digestion is not optimal, physical and emotional toxins clog the body's channels and block the flow of vital energy life force in the body. Here are some tips from Maharishi Ayurveda to support healthful physical and emotional digestion.

• Eat food that is easy to digest-watery vegetable soups are good this time of the year.
• Eat foods that are spiced according to the dosha you need to balance. [take the dosha assessment quiz and choose dosha balancing tips] 
• Eat your biggest meal at mid-day, when the digestive fire is at its peak.
• Prepare your meals with love and eat  in a pleasant atmosphere and with others who are uplifting.
• Do not overeat which can be a major cause of feeling low.
• Stimulate digestion by eating a little fresh ginger before meals or cooking with fresh ginger.
• Avoid eating dead and unintelligent foods--leftovers, processed foods, aged or preserved foods, heavy foods or too many sweets. 
• Do a daily abhyanga [warm oil massage] to ease emotions and release toxins. 
• Raw honey, in moderation, enhances digestion and helps with Kapha imbalance.
• Seek the stimulation of new sights, sounds and people. Enjoy variety in life. 
• Meditate daily 

Ayurveda describes the nature of a happy and unhappy life:   

Sukhayu (Happy) is the life with mental and physical satisfaction, good power of thinking, physical strength, healthy body, satisfaction in life, energy.    

Dukhayu (Unhappy) is the life full of mental tensions, diseased body, dissatisfaction in life.

According to Ayurveda, happiness implies feeding our body and mind with good food and education, entertaining healthy relationships with friends and family but also feeding our soul with righteousness. The Vedas (Sacred Texts of Hinduism) say that one can achieve happiness and health only by spiritual practice.

Ayurveda summons us to a kind of life style that leads us to better living and a long life.

A 20 year study in the British Medical Journal collected data from a network of 4739 individuals. The findings?  Happiness spreads through social networks of family members, friends and neighbors.   

According to the study, you are 15 % more likely to be happy if someone you directly know is happy, 10 %, if the friend of a friend is happy, and six % if a friend of a friend of a friend is happy.  

Basically,  happiness is contagious! Happiness spreads quickly like a chain reaction and is self-sustaining.

  "Happiness is a continuation of happenings which are not resisted."

Deepak Chopra