Joy Detectives!

One of the downsides to our busy lives is that we don’t often allow or encourage ourselves to pause to take in the goodness that abounds around us.  It’s there, in many forms.  Being open to it, resting in the presence of it, and allowing it to sink in to us makes us feel better.  It also inspires us to raise our “goodness” game, to take on the behaviors and attributes of those we appreciate.  But there is a third benefit, with deep long-lasting effect.  In Rick Hanson’s new book, Hardwiring Happiness, he explains how attending to the positive in our lives can literally change our brain function so that we have a greater sense of "confidence, ease, comfort, self-worth, and feeling cared about.”  This week we’ll work on becoming Joy Detectives, in particular, identifying the goodness in others, resting in a felt sense of it, taking it in.  And in so doing, we’ll begin to change our neural networks, helping ourselves become happier, kinder people.

We hope you will join us this week as we become Joy Detectives.