QUALITY AND QUANTITY: Living a longer AND more meaningful life
The Blue Zones, 9 Lessons for Living Longer by Dan Buettner was the framework for my blog this past year. The Blue Zones is more than just living longer (quantity), it’s also about living a meaningful life (quality). Before unveiling my next area of interest, I’d like to recap the Power Nine lessons we focused on over the past months:
Lesson 1 - Plant Slant - Avoid meat and processed foods. Here’s a great summer salad recipe to try!
Lesson 2 - Move Naturally - Be active without having to think about it.
Lesson 3 - Grapes of Life - Drink red wine (in moderation).
Lesson 4 - Loved Ones First - Make family a priority.
Lesson 5 - Belong - Participate in a spiritual community.
Lesson 6 - Downshift - Take time to relieve stress.
Lesson 7 - Hara Hachi Bu - Stop eating when you are 80% full.
Lesson 8 - Right Tribe - Like minded people.
Lesson 9 - Know Your Purpose - What is your reason for waking up in the morning?
These lessons are all about choices we make that will hopefully add more years to our life but also more meaning. I believe all people would like to create a rich and meaningful life, but very often human beings get trapped by the illusions of their own mind. Over the next months we’ll take a look at happiness. We’ll explore myths and truths about happiness and learn to tune into our thoughts, feelings and behaviors and learn basic strategies to help you develop a mindset known as psychological flexibility.
I believe all people would like to create a rich and meaningful life, but very often, human beings get trapped by the illusions of their own mind.
Using Russ Harris’ book, The Happiness Trap, How to Stop Struggling and Start Living, I’ll share six core principles of ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) and introduce you to ways to develop skills to enhance psychological flexibility. The goal is to help you live a meaningful life while learning how to handle the pain and struggle that inevitably presents itself along the way.
I look forward to sharing some tools I use with clients in my coaching practice and hope you’ll give them a try and/or reach out if you want to explore them together.
Reflection: Is it realistic to expect life to be all joy, fun, peace and contentment? What are some of the things you do to bring joy, fun, peace and contentment into your life? How do you respond and what do you do when unhappiness, boredom, chaos and discontent show up?
Action: Set aside 10 minutes each week to NOTICE and reflect on the range of emotions you felt this week. What are you feeling right now? Make time to identify where in your body each emotion shows up and try to describe the sensations associated with the emotion (i.e. anger - the location in your body when you feel anger may be your hands, heart and face. The sensations could be described as tight/clenching fists, pounding or racing heart, and a hot or burning sensation in your face). Spend time this week noticing your emotions and the sensations associated with that emotion.