Five Roads to Pursue Happiness: Soul Sculpting Project Part 1

 The Pursuit of Happiness. I spend a lot of time and effort doing it. How about you?

But just what is happiness? 

In high school I was fascinated with the topic.  Sometimes I found happiness was right at hand and other times it was nowhere in sight. I wanted to do more than pursue happiness, I wanted to live in it.

 So I decided to do a research project to try to figure it out. For part of the paper I took a survey of my friends’ definitions of happiness. The results?  The answers were all some form of positive emotion.  Joy, satisfaction, laughing, enjoying, delight, . . .  . That’s what I figured happiness was, too. Kind of like the T-shirt I  had with a big yellow smiley face on it.

But  the pursuit of happiness is more than the pursuit of positive emotions.There are a number of roads that lead to happiness.

My favorite road list is one from Dr. Martin Seligman.

Happiness is found in: P.E.R.M.A.

• P- Positive emotions (Feeling good, enjoying, . . . )

• E- Engagement (Full attention, when we are so caught up in an activity we lose track of time)

• R – Relationships (Connecting  well with others)

• M- Meaning  (Doing meaningful activities)

• A – Accomplishment (Succeeding at a job, completing a task, . . . )

For today’s Soul Sculpting project we’ll explore the first two roads Roads P and E. 

1st Road to Pursue Happiness

 P- Positive emotion

Emotions do not happen to us- we create our emotions. We can choose our emotions.

Two tools for creating emotions:

1. What is happening in our body
2. The story we tell ourselves about our situation

 I invite you to do a little exercise right now to create a new emotion. 

Body- Do something to change the way your body feels. 

 For example:

• Change your posture. Become more expansive. In less than 2 minutes the hormones in your body will change, lowering your cortisol and raising  your testosterone. 
• Get up and walk around with your head up and long strides.  Research shows that walking like this for 5 minutes raises the likelihood of positive emotions.
• Change your location. Get outside into nature. The sensory input we receive when we are in nature can increase our level of positive emotion.

Story- Tell yourself a different story about your situation

Re-frame your story to support the new emotion you want to create.

For Example:

• What is going well? What is hopeful?
• Imagine your best possible self in 2 years. What are you doing? 
• Invite God into your story telling. What story is God telling about your situation?

New stories influence our choice of emotions.

Paul’s Story

In the extreme discomfort of an ancient Roman prison, Paul used the words joy/rejoice 16 times in his brief letter to the Philippians. Paul considered the positive emotion of joy as a choice he/we could make. How did Paul choose joy? His ability to change his body was very limited. So Paul used story. (You can read the new story he told himself about his situation in the first chapter of his letter.) Paul’s new story turned bad into good, or at least good enough. Good enough to help him create the emotion of joy.

Toward the end of his letter, Paul gives the Philippians a list of topics to use for creating their own positive emotions stories. His topic list:  whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy. Phil. 4:8

2nd Road to Pursue Happiness

 E –  Engagement

Engagement activities are enjoyable and often challenging, requiring our full intention. In these activities we may lose track of time as we do them. Some of us have work which involves engagement activities, others of us find engagement activities in our leisure hobbies or volunteer work.

For me writing, studying, practicing music, construction projects for our house, and hiking can all be engagement activities.

What activities engage you?

Engagement exercise: Make a list of engagement activities that are calling to you.

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Soul Sculpting Project:  Two Roads to Pursue Happiness Today

1. Select a road. Road P -Positive Emotion or E- Engagement 
2. Take a minute to make a plan. How can you take that road to pursue happiness today?

Road P: Create a positive emotion: Change the way your body feels or tell a new story.

Road E: Do an activity that you enjoy and that requires your full attention.

 In our next Soul Sculpting Project we’ll continue our pursuit of happiness on Roads: R – Relationships, M – meaning  and A – Accomplishment.

Gratitude for the work of Martin Seligman and the many other scientists who have studied the topic of Happiness.