“Happiness is an inside job.” — William Arthur Ward
ISSN 2277 – 5153 VOL VIII ISSUE 06 APRIL 2014 ` 100
Why
happiness is eluding you p44
d n i f o t w o h d n A s p e e k r i t fo
Editor’s insights
How happy do you want to be?
Manoj Khatri manoj.khatri@completewellbeing.com
infinitemanoj ManojKhatri
In the name of happiness, we’re chasing something counterfeit, something that only appears to be happiness
02 APRIL 2014 VOL VIII ISSUE 06
T
here was an old wise cat and a small kitten in an alleyway. The old cat saw the kitten chasing its tail and asked, “Why are you chasing your tail?” The kitten replied, “I’ve been attending cat philosophy school and I have learned that the most important thing for a cat is happiness, and that happiness is located in my tail. Therefore I am chasing it, and when I catch it, I shall be happy forever.” Laughing, the wise old cat replied, “My son, I wasn’t lucky enough to go to cat philosophy school, but as I’ve gone through life, I too have realised that the most important thing for a cat is happiness, and indeed that it is located in my tail. The difference I’ve found though is that whenever I chase a er it, it keeps running away from me, but when I go about my business and live my life, it just seems to follow a er me wherever I go.” This fable, o en shared by Dr Wayne Dyer, speaks of a profound truth: Happiness is our intrinsic nature. And yet we keep trying to find happiness out there. We seem to have forgotten that life cannot be lived someplace other than where we are at the moment. Neither can it be lived in the past or the future. In other words, we experience everything only here and now. And yet we are always planning to be happy—when we get this, be there, achieve that. In the name of happiness, we’re chasing something counterfeit, something that only appears to be happiness. Such happiness is ephemeral and unstable. It’s here this moment, gone the next. Happiness is with us all along. Like the cat’s tale, it follows us wherever we go. But there’s so much fog that clouds our perceptions, it is nearly impossible to believe this. In this month’s cover story, award-winning author Marnie McDermott will help you demist your mind so that you can get some glimpses into your very own rainbow of happiness. “The oversight of the happiness seekers is not realising that happiness is a state of being rather than an external experience. When people realise that they need to look within, and connect to themselves, happiness becomes a much more challenging concept and an even more challenging experience to find,” she writes. She goes on to describe the five kinds of happiness, of which four are fleeting and only one is enduring. As you will see when you read the cover story, it is we, ourselves, who are blocking our own happiness. And we alone can unblock it too. Like Abraham Lincoln once said, “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” How happy do you want to be?
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Complete Wellbeing
44 In the spotlight
24 I rely only on myself: Kangana Ranaut By Shama Bhagat
RESOLVE >>
DISCOVER >>
68 Helping children cope with the
62 The when, what and how much
Parenting
passing away of a loved one
By Judy Mandel
Self-help
84 Practical tips to cope with disappointment
By Sam EAB Russell
Food & nutrition
of correct nutrition
By Akshay Chopra
Sleep
64 Is it normal to dream? And what do dreams mean?
By Rich Silver
VOL VIII ISSUE 06 APRIL 2014 03
TRANSFORM >> Consciousness
76 The sun can teach you so much about love
By Vironika Tugaleva
80 Problems are only a bend in the road
34
DECIDE >>
By JP Vaswani
82 The empty boat By Osho
Career & workplace
34 Changes at workplace are opportunities for growth
By Jeff Davidson
40 Success coaches are a necessity, not a luxury
By Priya Kumar
EXPLORE >> Travel
92 Ananda Village: an experiment in happiness
By Sathya Saran
88 Try trekking atleast once By Mridula Dwivedi
82
UNLEARN >>
73
REGULARS >> 08 10 14 22 54 73 86 96 98
CW Talkback Events Happy happenings Write Notes Month Freshener Confession booth CW Select New kits on the block Reflections
Mind & emotions
56 Distractions: what is the real reason behind them?
By Elli Boland
MANAGE >> Common ailments
30 Why Indians are more prone to heart disease
By AV Ganesh Kumar
59 Understanding dental hygiene By Rachana Doshi
Marriage & intimacy
70 Making your marriage work, even across the miles
By Sheela Preuitt
76
04 APRIL 2014 VOL VIII ISSUE 06
Complete Wellbeing
Events
» India Fiesta Latina International Dance artists and DJs are coming in from France, Poland, Singapore, Italy, New York, Peru, Sweden, London, Cyprus, Australia… to make this fest an unforgettable experience. Get ready to let your hair down and groove to rhythm of enticing beats. Venue: Hotel Leela Kempinski, Gurgaon. When: 11th – 13th April 2014 Price: `18,200 to `26,100 Contact: info@fiestalatina.in
» 21-day Health Holiday in Gokarna It takes 21 days to change a habit. This holiday will help you develop some good lifestyle habits and rid yourself of bad ones. It is designed for people with lifestyle diseases like diabetes, cholesterol, hypertension, asthma or weight problems. Activities include yoga, ayurveda, art therapy, swimming, beach meditations, laughter yoga and more. Venue: Swaswara, Gokarna. When: 8th – 29th June 2014
» Hill-station camping at
Price: `1,45,000 to `2,05,000
Purushwadi village
Contact: +91 4132622637, mysticasia.in@gmail.com
Experience the rural life, relish organic meals cooked in a villager’s household and experience village activities. You can also try your hand at pounding rice, plucking wheat, cooking with the village folk or chopping wood for the bonfire. Venue: Purushwadi village, Ahmednagar. When: 1st May 2014 Price: `1,000 to `2,100 Contact: www.grassroutes.co.in
Complete Wellbeing is not associated with any events listed here and does not endorse them. This information is provided only on an as-is basis; interested readers may verify the information directly with the event organisers. To have your event listed on this page, email us on listings@completewellbeing.com. Complete Wellbeing reserves the right to refuse publishing information about an event, without providing any reason whatsoever.
Complete Wellbeing
VOL VIII ISSUE 06 APRIL 2014 05
Manage
common ailments
The news is not so heartening According to AV Ganesh Kumar, a Mumbai-based cardiologist, you’re never too young to have a heart attack in India given our lifestyle, ethnicity and diet How common is the incidence of heart disease in young Indians? We don’t have concrete data, but over the past two decades it has certainly been growing. 15 years ago, when I was in King Edward Memorial hospital, we saw only one or two under40 patients per year with a cardiac problem. From there, we have come to a stage where I see at least 10 cases of cardiac-related events, and almost 3 – 5 angioplasties a month, in individuals under 45—most of them being men. That’s a huge shift. What’s the reason for such a big shift? There are a few hypotheses. First is the type of food we eat in India and the subcontinent at large, which is carb-rich. 30 years ago there were hardly any fast food restaurants and so we consumed fewer calories in those days. Kids too didn’t consume as much milk and sugar syrup-based foods. There’s a notable difference between the kind of food we ate growing up, and the food that our children eat today. Their dietary habits are unhealthy. Add to this poor lifestyles— they are less involved in sports and outdoor activities—and kids and teenagers around are overweight or obese. So the seeds of heart disease are sown in their early teens. The obesity that we see in India is worse as most of the fat accumulated is around the tummy [abdominal obes06 APRIL 2014 VOL VIII ISSUE 06
ity], which is directly responsible for heart disease. Even women, who generally tend to put on weight around the hips and thighs, are now acquiring apple-shaped obesity and further complications start developing once they hit menopause. And then there is sugar. The amount of pure refined sugar we eat is simply shocking. People have 6 – 7 cups of tea a day in this part of the world, and the tea is like sugar syrup. So you end up having more than 5 – 10 teaspoons of sugar a day. A recent study by the American College of Cardiology [ACC] has shown that consuming excess sugar is directly linked to heart disease. So the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] in America is planning to soon start warning people about the foods that are safe to consume and those that are not. What lifestyle and dietary changes do you recommend? As far as possible, we must cut down on our sugar intake. Secondly, we must change the way we cook our food. Our cooking is so elaborate that most of the nutrients are lost. We also heat our food a lot, which destroys vital nutrients like B12, pyridoxine and folic acid. If you look at a typical spread in Indian weddings or any buffet in a hotel, you will see a layer of oil floating over the food. Compared to us, Caucasians and Europeans eat more salads and they don’t fry their food as much as we do. We need to cook in a way that preserves nutrients and requires less oil. I mean, don’t burn the food. The third thing we can do is change our overall attitude towards life. In this day and age, everybody is working harder and for undefined hours. They also have to face the stress of travel, have EMIs to pay etc. Now, I agree that the previous generations had to face stress too, but the amount and type of stress has surely increased manifold. So try and take things a bit easy. Complete Wellbeing
The last thing is that we must pay closer a ention to how our vegetables are being grown. Nowadays many of us take pride in declaring ourselves as vegetarians. But do we think about the fertilisers and sprays used in growing these vegetables? Yes, they are linked to cancer but did you know that they can also be a cause of heart disease? I can already see how the concept of ‘contaminated vegetarianism’ will come into the spotlight in the coming years. Smoking too has an impact but I don’t think it is responsible for the spurt in cardiac cases we are seeing now, as people smoked even 30 years ago. Changes in diet and increase in stress levels are to blame. At what age should a person start geĴing routine cardiac checkups done? If your family has a history of heart trouble, for example either of the parents have had a cardiac event before the age of 55 or you are a smoker, obese, hypertensive or diabetic, you should start going for cardiac checkups from your mid-20s. If there are no risk factors at all, for example, you are a non-smoker or there are no cardiac ailments in the family, then you can start going for annual checkups after the age of 30. And what should a cardiac check-up involve? Typically, if there is a family history of cardiac events, we check the cholesterol values. In addition to the routine lipid profile, HDL, LDL, VLDL, triglycerides, blood sugar levels, ECG, etc, it is important to get some other tests done too. They are Lipoprotein[a], hs C-reactive protein and homocysteine levels. Lipoprotein[a] is a type of cholesterol that is extremely atherogenic, which means it is responsible for causing fa y deposits in the arteries, leading to blockages and heart diseases. It is also responsible for causing diseases in the family… so people with high Lipoprotein[a] levels will require early Complete Wellbeing
drug intervention, like statins, which reduce cholesterol levels. Though there is no proven treatment for reducing Lipoprotein[a], taking cholesterol-lowering drugs from a younger age can work well as primary prevention to prevent a cardiac event from occurring in the future. Secondary prevention is when you are already a heart patient and we prevent the occurrence of another cardiac event. These measures can postpone an event by one or two decades, or even completely prevent it. When are exercise and dietary changes enough? And when are cholesterol-lowering medications needed? Well, this can only be decided by your physician, but there are few new guidelines issued about five months ago by American Heart Association and ACC regarding who should be put on cholesterol-lowering drugs. They were recommended for the following groups: >> All diabetics between the ages of 40 and 75. >> Anybody with LDL Cholesterol of more than 190 mg per deciliter of blood. >> Established heart patients who have undergone an angioplasty or a bypass or who have had any other event, even with normal cholesterol levels. VOL VIII ISSUE 06 APRIL 2014 07
>>
AV Ganesh Kumar MD, DNB [med], DM [cardiology], DNB [cardiology] FACC is Head, Dept of Cardiology at Dr LH Hiranandani Hospital.
People who have a cardiovascular risk score of 7.5% or more. This is calculated by the cardiologist with the help of overall parameters like cholesterol, blood pressure values, age, smoking status etc This predicts the individual’s chances of having a cardio-vascular event in the next 10 years.
The thing is, these guidelines are meant for the Caucasian population in America. There are no such guidelines for India. And the disease burden we see in young Indians is not the same as native Americans or Europeans. Even the younger cardiac patients in those countries are mostly Asians. So the occurrence of cardiac events may have something to do with our ethnicity and lifestyle. Chicago-based Professor Enaz, who has done extensive research in lipidology over the last two decades, suggests that we should double the risk score for native Indians and start early drug intervention to reduce cholesterol values. What about edible oils? How safe are they? Reusing oil is a strict no for cooking. And transfats are the worst—these are found in vanaspati, dalda and oil that has been used for frying but is reused. Most bakery items and processed foods contain transfats too.
save his life and society makes me a hero. But our family physicians who prevent heart disease in many more patients with the advice they give, go unrecognised. The patient doesn’t even realise that his physician may have prevented a coronary artery disease from occurring. I too prevent heart disease in about half the patients I see, if they heed my advice—but they don’t acknowledge it. We as a society do not give importance to prevention. I’ve seen patients who, if prescribed a pill, will go and crosscheck with their family, neighbours, friends or colleagues if they should actually be taking the pill. Sometimes they come back and ask for the dose to be reduced. Today everybody thinks they are cardiologists and dieticians and I am not blaming them—with the incidence of heart diseases going up, everybody has some knowledge of it. But the prevention regime provided by the physician needs to be followed and the mindset of questioning medical advice needs to change. Are there people who opt for cardiac health checkups even if they don’t have any symptoms or risk factors? That is seen only among the elite and affluent class. And yes, if there are promotional packages offered, people grab the chance to get themselves checked. The middle and lower-income class feel that spending money on health is a burden. So even if they go for checkups, they opt for small centres, which are ill-equipped and so don’t give them accurate results. Do you think the media is creating more panic about heart diseases in the young? The media memory is short–lived. What is read in the newspaper is forgotten in a day or two. More than the media, a person panics when a colleague of the same
CORONARY HEART DISEASE IS THE MOST PREDICTABLE AND PREVENTABLE ONE YET WE, AS A SOCIETY, DO NOT GIVE MUCH IMPORTANCE TO PREVENTION Is it possible to prevent heart disease? What is the role of the doctor in the same? I will say that coronary heart disease, among all serious diseases, is the most predictable and preventable disease. When a person comes in crashing with a heart attack to the emergency room, I rush and do an angioplasty on him. I 08 APRIL 2014 VOL VIII ISSUE 06
age suddenly has a cardiac episode. That’s the time there is a panic in that office, and I would say that it is not a bad thing. If a person has chest pains they should always get themselves checked by a cardiologist or a physician. If it’s a panic episode, it will be addressed accordingly, but some cases of chest pains will inevitably turn out to be actual cases. What is absurd is that when younger people have cardiac pain, they assume it to be gas or acidity and Complete Wellbeing
sit on it until it’s too late. People think, “I am young, how can it happen to me?”—and this kind of denial is deep-rooted. To a certain extent it has to do with our economy. I have tried asking people why they didn’t come in the night, they don’t answer. But I sense that if they are insured or if their company takes care of expenses, they are more likely to come forward. A patient who was operated upon for an angioplasty kept cribbing about his health even two years after the surgery. He was consulting the family physician in the same hospital as mine, who noticed that the man was very unhappy about having to go through the angioplasty. So the doctor asked him if this life-saving surgery had been
What are your views on marathon running? If you are very well-trained and athletic, you can do marathons but don’t get out of your chair 15 days before the date of the marathon and decide that you will run because your colleague is running. I am a critic of marathons and I think it has become a fad now. To me, marathon running is not meant for two-legged animals. We have evolved in a way that our bodies are no longer suited to running. Every Mumbai Marathon has at least one
WHAT IS ABSURD IS THAT WHEN YOUNGER PEOPLE HAVE CARDIAC PAIN, THEY ASSUME IT TO BE GAS OR ACIDITY AND SIT ON IT UNTIL IT’S TOO LATE performed on him free of cost, would he still be cribbing today? The man didn’t answer then, but he came back next day saying that what was really pinching him is that the surgery had wiped off his savings, and he had hardly considered that it had saved his life. And he never cribbed after that. But I’m sure he’s not the only one who thinks that way. What is the effect of alcohol consumption on heart health? And what do you recommend to those who like to drink? There is some confusion in patients about alcohol because you frequently see reports that state that alcohol is good for the heart. However I would like to clarify here that there are a lot of studies conducted in India, including the All India Institute of Medical Sciences that show that alcohol consumption is not good for Indians. In India, most people drink whiskey, and the pa ern of drinking is such that they drink a lot on a particular day and then don’t drink any alcohol for the next 5 – 6 days. This is binge drinking. The person may say he is a social drinker, but they don’t realise that they are actually consuming a lot of calories in the form of alcohol and also eating fa y food with it. And this is seen across classes. If you have to choose an alcoholic drink, you could have a glass of wine [150ml]. But that does not mean that wine should be had everyday simply because it has health benefits. Or people who don’t drink alcohol should now start having wine. That is never recommended. Complete Wellbeing
person dying and for that family, it’s a permanent loss. Just this past January, a guy training for the marathon went to the neurologist with jaw pain. He was brought to me and we found a critical 90% blockage in his arteries. Had he run the marathon five days later, it could have been fatal. Marathon running is not everybody’s cup of tea, and especially not of young, unfit Indians. There is an article in New England Journal of Medicine that says that the incidence of deaths is low in the more than million marathon runners they have accounted for. But those deaths are due to abnormal congenital heart diseases [like hypertrophic cardiomyopathy etc] and not the kind that occur due to blocked coronary arteries that we see in here India every year. The issues people face after the marathons are not reported either. My advice: get in shape first before running marathons. To subscribe to Complete Wellbeing, send ‘CW SUB’ to 07738387787
7th April 2014 is World Health Day
VOL VIII ISSUE 06 APRIL 2014 09
Discover
food & nutrition
EAT RIGHT and at the
RIGHT TIME When to eat is as important as what you
By Akshay Chopra
10 APRIL 2014 VOL VIII ISSUE 06
Complete Wellbeing
WHEN IT COMES TO EATING, most of us know what is wrong: Avoid junk food, don’t eat anything baked or fried, don’t eat heavy at night and so on. But when you ask people what are the right foods and how they should be eating them, they have little clue. Here are two principles that are the foundation of healthy eating and following them will radically change the way you eat. Nutrient timing This is an important concept that is neglected by most people with health or weight issues. It is not only important ‘how much’ and ‘what’ to eat, but also what to eat ‘when’. Our grandparents followed the nutrient timing principle without ever being conscious of it. And we are aware of some basics too. For instance, we all know that breakfast is the first and most important meal of the day, but in today’s fast-paced world, we o en just eat anything we can lay our hands on in the morning or, worse, we skip breakfast altogether. Then there is ‘brunch’—used as a style statement, it is actually detrimental to your health. Ideally, you should be having your first meal within 60 – 90 minutes a er you wake up. The first one hour we must take in healthy antioxidants [They are best absorbed on an empty stomach]. Because you have been starving your body of macro nutrients such as carbohydrates since the previous night’s dinner, you need to fuel your body properly in the morning. Too long a gap between waking up and breakfast will lead your body to catabolise or break down your muscles for energy. Likewise, if the gap between breakfast and lunch is a long one, it will lead to cravings. To keep them at bay, you need to have a healthy, high-protein, low-glycaemic index, lowcarbohydrate, optimum-fat and fibre-rich snack. If that seems like too many variables to take care of, don’t worry. A small bowl of sprouts with veggies and chicken/cottage cheese or a whole grain sandwich Complete Wellbeing
with vegetables and chicken/cottage cheese is all you need. The best time to have your lunch is between 12:30pm and 2:30pm, but you can have it later if you adjust your day accordingly. If you work out, you need a protein and carbohydrate-rich meal at least 30 to 45 minutes before your session. A er your workout, there is period of 45 minutes called the anabolic window in which the body is most receptive to nutrient absorption. A liquid protein and carbohydrate meal, for e.g. whey protein in water is the best thing to have in that window. When it comes to dinner, keep it light and try to have a gap of at least three hours between dinner and bedtime.
Nutrient intake We discussed the optimal times for nutrient intake. Now let us look at what foods we should be eating at those times. Once you get up in the morning, the first thing you need is not tea or fruits, as some dieticians believe, but water. And, not water with lemon or honey added, but plain water. Once you’re done washing up in the morning, have a green/ white/black tea or black coffee with lemon or a vitamin C tablet. The antioxidants from both will be fully absorbed on an empty stomach. As part of your first meal, having a fruit isn’t a great idea. For Akshay Chopra is an officer
in the Indian Air Force in the flying branch. He is also a certified fitness professional. He offers free consultation on fitness through his website www.akshaychopra. com. He is author of Why my Mom Never Went on a Diet.
that matter, any form of high-GI [glycaemic index] food isn’t good to eat first thing in the morning as your body is deprived of carbohydrates a er a night’s sleep. So any form of simple carbohydrates will spike your blood sugar levels, raising your insulin levels in turn, mistakenly signalling to the brain that you’re starving, so the carbohydrates consumed then will be stored as fat instead of being used for energy. The sharp rise in blood sugar will also later lead to a crash at an equally fast rate making you feel hungry and give you cravings soon a er you’ve had your meal. A good breakfast should comprise of high protein as research has shown that proteins in a meal not only curb the sharp rise in blood sugar but also keeps you satiated for longer, thus preventing food cravings and hunger pangs. A low GI carbohydrate source such as oats, multi-grain breads and poha [flattened rice] along with protein-rich foods such as eggs, cottage cheese and milk are the best option. Add some nuts to it and you have one of the healthiest breakfasts possible. As mentioned earlier, you can have sprouts or a multi-grain sandwich as a snack between breakfast and lunch. For lunch, have a homecooked meal and make a habit of eating a bowl of curd or drinking a glass of buttermilk along with it. Before your workout, if you’re doing a session of weight-training or HIIT [high intensity interval training], then a fruit with black coffee and a vitamin C tablet is all you need. For dinner, avoid carbs and have lots of proteins, salads and soups. These suggestions are for an average person and your mileage may vary. But when you follow them, you will see and feel a profound difference in your body within a very short span of time. These are not faddish recommendations but is solid advice that can be the basis of healthy eating for life.
VOL VIII ISSUE 06 APRIL 2014 11
Resolve parenting
Kids may not fully comprehend what it means when a loved one dies, but they have a right to grieve and to be gradually taught what death is
By Judy Mandel
A personal story
Help the little ones grieve
DEATH IS THE MOST difficult concept to understand and accept. As adults, over time we become used to the presence of death in our lives. When someone we love passes away, we have the life experience and intellectual capacity to cope with the loss. For children, however, the death of a loved one is a complicated idea that they are not equipped to process. And when we adults find ourselves needing to explain the death of a parent, a grandparent or a sibling to a child, we are at a loss. 12 APRIL 2014 VOL VIII ISSUE 06
When my parents had to explain the death of my seven-year-old sister Donna to my sister Linda, who was two at the time, it was in the simplest terms. Donna died in a plane crash in 1952, which presented a complicated situation for my parents to explain to a two-yearold. From what my mother related to me [I was born two years a er the plane crashed into their home], they told Linda that Donna was hurt very badly and that she could not be saved. Although this satisfied Linda initially, she continued to ask when Donna was coming home. My parents had to repeat o en that she would not be coming back. As Linda got older, my parents explained the accident in greater detail, in line with her level of understanding. They also needed to deal with explaining to their kids that tragedies happen, in this case a plane crash. I have o en wondered how their handling of the situation would measure up to today’s standards.
Be truthful, open and direct So, what is the best way to address the death of a loved one to a child? According to experts, it depends on the age of the child, but honest, open communication is essential. All agree that it is important to avoid euphemisms. Use the words died, dead and death in a direct manner, advises Abigail Brenner, MD, and psychiatrist in San Francisco. “Explain the circumstances of the death in simple terms,” says Dr. Brenner, “If a child is very young, refrain from using pat phrases or euphemisms. Older children are even capable of understanding the nuances and circumstances surrounding a death.”
Consider the child’s age The developmental phase of the child should also be taken into account, explains Justin Butler, a social worker in Brooklyn. “For a child who is too young to process object permanence in any way, it’s mostly important to tell them that the person is gone and not coming back, without trying to make them Complete Wellbeing
While talking to children about death
understand the concept of death,” Butler says. Patricia Sheehy, author in Connecticut, had to unexpectedly introduce her grandchildren to the concept of death. “Our adult daughter, single and in the midst of planning her wedding, was diagnosed with advanced, aggressive pancreatic cancer and given about eight weeks to live,” Sheehy explains, “Faced with the need to tell grandchildren of varying ages, we found the best approach was a balance of honesty and gradual disclosure. First we told them that she was sick; a couple of weeks later, we explained she was very sick and the doctors were making her comfortable but she may not get be er. At that point, when they visited her, they were prepared for how weak she was. Basically, we continued the dialogue so they were part of the journey and not surprised by her death. It was always a gentle unfolding of the truth.” “Age makes a difference,” notes Elayne Savage, Ph.D., and family therapist in Berkeley. “Kids under the age of five or six are literal and so explanations need to be basic and simple.” She suggests an example: “Grandma died yesterday. We won’t be able to see her again. She died because she was old and her body stopped working.”
Allow children to grieve It is also important for a child to grieve, just as an adult needs a mourning period, Dr. Brenner counsels. “Children are far more perceptive about what’s happening around them than many adults realise,” she says, “Children need to grieve too, in whatever way they can.” Dr. Savage agrees, “Kids seem to know these things whether you tell them or not, so it’s best to be truthful.” She also advises never to keep the death a secret, in order to try and spare children the pain.
Keep teachers informed Dr. Savage added that keeping a child’s teacher informed of the death is important too. “For example,” Dr. Savage says, “you don’t want the teacher saying, ‘well, your Complete Wellbeing
>> >> >> >> >> >> >>
Be open and truthful Take into account the age of the child Avoid using euphemisms—be direct Encourage open communication within the family Don’t keep the death a secret Explain the details according to their level of understanding Understand that the child needs to grieve too.
grandma is in heaven now’ when you are not telling the child this.”
Parents model the grieving process Dr. Brenner underscored that children learn how to express grief from the way their parents grieve. “Parents who are capable of expressing their emotions and displaying their feelings positively show children that they can do the same thing. If parents can openly express grief, and yet still stay present and grounded in their lives, it reassures children that even in the midst of profound sorrow, they will be able to move on with their lives,” she says. Communication within the family helps everyone move on a er someone close passes away. Dr. Brenner adds, “Open, honest communication is shown to be a vital determinant of how well family members move through and beyond the profound grief, deep sense of loss, and psychological vulnerability they experience a er the death of a loved one, especially in the case of the death of a sibling.”
Judy Mandel is a writer in Newington, Connecticut. She is the author of Replacement Child.
Final thoughts Although my parents would have surely benefited from this kind of advice, as well as the support of a professional, they were able to provide my sister and me with a positive and inspiring model of how to move beyond grief. One of their most hopeful measures was to have another child a er the death of their daughter—me. To subscribe to Complete Wellbeing, send ‘CW SUB’ to 07738387787
VOL VIII ISSUE 06 APRIL 2014 13
Trending this month
14 APRIL 2014 VOL VIII ISSUE 06
Complete Wellbeing
W hy
happisine es s
luding you
The more we focus on planning to be happy one day, the more disconnected we become from our true selves. What we don’t realise is that when we connect to our true selves and simply be, true happiness will reveal itself from within, says Marnie McDermoĴ
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The multiplicity of happiness Happiness, like so many things in life, is subjective. No two people will give the same response to this question: “How do you define happiness?” We are all unique, and you will create your own meaning of happiness and of bliss. You may even rediscover and recreate your definitions of both throughout your life, perhaps even as you read this book. The multiplicity of happiness lies in the subtle experience of the word itself. On the one hand, the word happiness conjures feelings of joy, visual images of gleeful smiles, or contented moments of idyllic bliss on a tropical beach. Whatever happiness feels like for you, it fills you up inside. Everyone wants to be happy. On the other hand, striving to be happy sees most people trying to change everything and everyone around them, dictated by some deepseated belief that happiness is an external experience. The oversight of the happiness seekers is not realising that happiness is a state of being rather than an external experience. When people realise that they need to look within, and connect to themselves, happiness becomes a much more challenging concept and an even more challenging experience to find. My role here is not to tell you what happiness is. My role is to help you rediscover it for yourself. However, just as I’m sure you have, I have experienced happiness in so many forms. Yet no ma er the variation, the result was always the same for me: fleeting. It has led me to believe that there are five common kinds of happiness: storybook happiness, surprise happiness, surrogate happiness, someday happiness, and soul happiness. The first four result in fleeting happiness, but the fi h transforms it into enduring bliss.
Marnie McDermott Marnie McDermott is an award-winning author, heart-fuelled lifestyle coach and host of MarnieTV. As the founder of www.marniemcdermott.com, Marnie has worked with women from all corners of the globe to create their own version of wholehearted bliss. www.marniemcdermott.com
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Storybook happiness We frequently compare ourselves and our lives to others. We strive to have the storybook-perfect life we perceive some others as having. Because they appear happy, we believe they are happy and make all kinds of wild assumptions as to the reasons for their happiness. We believe they must have found the key, that they must have all the right happiness ingredients. We want their “happily ever a er”, so we seek to emulate what they have. Sadly, we believe that whatever they have is be er than our own lives. This stems from not truly accepting who you are. When you don’t love and cherish yourself, it is easy to compare yourself, o en less than kindly, with someone else’s life. You may perceive others to be more beautiful or successful than you, to have more thoughtful partners than you, or to have nicer homes than you. Sometimes you may go a step further, comparing yourself to people you don’t even know, like the airbrushed gorgeous celebrity on the front of your favourite magazine or even fictional characters in television shows. We judge all these people based on what we see—without any true insight into their lives. If what we see mirrors our perception of happiness, o en we will go to extreme lengths to create our storybook happiness.
Surprise happiness Happiness has been defined as an emotional state characterised by feelings of enjoyment, pleasure, and satisfaction. Enjoyment, pleasure, and satisfaction ... In my view, these are all the result of doing something—cause and effect, if you like. Depending on who we are with, what we are doing, and how we are feeling (the cause), we can dip in and out of the effect of happiness on a daily or even an hourly basis. It’s almost as if happiness is a surprise we are looking for and even trying to make happen, but we never quite know when it will appear. We can all think of moments or events that have made us happy and put smiles on our faces. Perhaps for you, it came from receiving unexpected flowers from your husband, hearing a sincere and heartfelt thank you from a colleague, or even enjoying the simple pleasure of a sunny day. It might even be the way you feel when you buy something new or receive a gi . Perhaps you even base how loved you feel in a Complete Wellbeing
relationship on the number and size of loving gestures and gi s. Or you try to create surprise happiness for others by lavishing them with gi s rather than seeing that the best gi is your time and unconditional love. The feelings of happiness associated with these things may last a while, but eventually the feelings fade and we wait for the next moment to be happy because of something or someone. It is no wonder that although we strive for more and more, we’re constantly le feeling unfulfilled.
Surrogate happiness Surrogate happiness comes in three forms: when you base your happiness on someone else’s expectations of how your life should be lived, when you put all your energy into making someone else happy because you believe that will make you happy, and when you expect someone else to make you happy through his behaviour and actions. Happiness by expectation: Too many people are living lives that are not theirs to live. They live their lives according to what others think is best for them. Foremost, our parents shape us. Sometimes we are so desperate for their approval and love that we live our lives the way we believe they think we should. What our friends, colleagues, and even the media think is best for us also influences us. Sometimes we are so busy pleasing people that we give away ownership of our lives. We ignore our inner voices and let others’ opinions divert us from our paths. Now is the time to give up living your life according to other people’s expectations. Happiness by sacrifice: For many of us, it is easier to give love than to receive love. Some people ignore their own needs, preferring to focus all their energy on making someone else happy. Sometimes this is shaped by our upbringing. In my own life, I have been used to putting others before myself since an early age. The eldest of four children, I was a second mum to my youngest sister before I had reached the age of 10. She would choose to come to me with her problems, climb into my bed for reassurance if she had a nightmare, and confide her fears and dreams to me. I love my two sisters and my brother dearly, but being the responsible-beforemy-time older sister shaped my belief that my role in life was to nurture others and put their needs before my own. That continued well into Complete Wellbeing
adulthood. I believed my role and my happiness stemmed from making others happy. The truth is that you can’t make anyone else happy. Others are in charge of choosing to be happy all by themselves. Of course, we are here to love, nurture, and care for and share our lives with other people, but not to the point of sacrificing our own needs to meet theirs. There is a lot of literature around about the benefits of doing good for others... and how
The happiness associated with receiving a gift is short-lived, the feeling soon fades away
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