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Living From Happiness

The Happiness Doc, Dr. Melanie Harth, and guests share thought-provoking convos every week on Living From Happiness. From mindfulness and neuroscience to positive psychology and creativity, the show's all about living well in transformational times.
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Now displaying: March, 2021
Mar 30, 2021

Can astrology help us ease fear and anxiety and learn how to be happy? Can Psychoastrology help us understand the subconscious patterns that hold us hostage? What is a "core wound"?

These questions, and many more, are answered in this engaging conversation with Lisa Tahir, a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) for over 20 years, an inventor with a US patent, EMDR Level I, and Reiki Level II practitioner, and Certified Thought Coach.

Lisa's also the founder of Psychoastrology® and author of The Chiron Effect: Healing Our Core Wounds through Astrology, Empathy, and Self-Forgiveness, which has been endorsed by His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama.

Lisa talks about her own fears of publically sharing herself, as well as the challenges she faced in finding and articulating her own voice.

As she writes, "oftentimes, the greatest things we have to contribute to this world will only manifest if we are willing to live outside the box of what we think is possible.”

The book's dedication reads, in part:

   " ... to those of you who are learning the value of being happy over being right, and those who view missteps and challenges as opportunities to become a more evolved and happier version of themselves, and those who have chosen to rise from the dark nights of their souls with a beautifully scarred yet open heart … ."

This is a fast-paced episode, rich with thought-provoking ideas for you to ponder.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” -Carl Jung

“The root causes of your wounding can become the source of your greatest healing and empowerment.” -Lisa Tahir

Lisa Tahir's website here

Dr. Melanie Harth's website here

Mar 23, 2021

Everything mindfulness is the topic of this episode. The beloved mindful meditation / mindful working / mindful loving / mindful living teacher, Michelle DuVal, is in the virtual studio.

Michelle is the director of The Mindful Center in Albuquerque, the leading provider of mindfulness training in the Southwest.

She offers ongoing training in MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction), has online courses and meditations, and facilitates retreats at Ghost Ranch, in Abiquiu, NM.

In this episode, Michelle and Melanie talk about the hunger for mindful awareness, how to meet what's happening with awareness, and much more.

Michelle shares her wisdom and experience in this fun, contemplative, light-hearted show.

"Stress is a form of holding on, peace is a form of letting go." Michelle DuVal

more information about Michelle's 3-day Silent Meditation at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu here

The Mindful Center and Michelle DuVal website is here

more about Dr. Melanie Harth's Conscious Transformation program here

 

Mar 16, 2021

Cynthia Jurs is a remarkable woman. She's a Buddhist teacher, trained by the beloved Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. A practitioner of Vajrayana Buddhism. A Lama, initiated in Nepal, in recognition of her many years of dharma practice and dedication to the work of global healing through the Earth Treasure Vases.

She founded Alliance for the Earth and is the Executive Director of the Earth Treasure Vase Global Healing Project.

Finally, Cynthia is the guiding teacher at the Gaia Mandala Sangha in Santa Fe, where she's been leading meditation groups, retreats, and pilgrimages offering a unique blend of engaged Buddhism and sacred activism.

In this episode, Cynthia shares insights about the goddess Tara, Gaia -- Mother Earth -- and how to recognize a sacred calling.

She also shares details about her upcoming Tara Gaia online retreat; here's the retreat link.

Here's the Earth Treasure Vase Facebook link.

Dr. Melanie Harth's website is here.

 

Mar 9, 2021

In the stunning New York Times bestselling book Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, Katharine May writes that wintering is "the active acceptance of sadness. It is the practice of allowing ourselves to feel it as a need. It is the courage to stare down the worst parts of our experience and to commit to healing them the best we can.”

In her acknowledgment of sadness and unhappiness, Katharine opens the door to the possibility of healing from those inevitable dark times when we don't think we can bear more suffering.

Yes, suffering is part of being alive. Yes, there is hope. And choice about how we respond to those inevitable times.

Part of what helps us get better at navigating metaphorical winter includes doing the "deeply unfashionable things [of] — slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, resting — [it's] a radical act now, but it is essential."

Melanie was thrilled to find out that not only is Katharine May a great writer, she's also a fantastic guest!

There's lots of laughter, lots of transparency, and lots of deep, well-lived experience in this episode.

Katherine May's website here

Dr. Melanie Harth's website here

Mar 2, 2021

We're beginning to wake up, to emerge from the darkness of the literal winter, as well as the “wintering” we’ve had to endure as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Not quite ready, though. nature needs us to be mindful and intentional about how quickly we emerge.

Just this morning, I saw another reminder on Facebook about not clearing out old leaves and dead-looking plant stems from our gardens until the temperature is consistently over 50 degrees. ‘Cause, who knew? butterflies and bees and other pollinators overwinter in those places.

If I clear out the dead-looking stuff in the garden too soon, some very important members of our ecosystem get lost in the process.

The same with beginning to re-emerge from the past pandemic hell year. A small percentage of folks have gotten fully vaccinated; many more have received their first shot. And millions have yet to get any.

Those who've received vaccinations must hold onto their impatience for freedom, and continue wearing good masks and socially distancing so that the rest of the human ecosystem can catch up.

As the literal winter is ending in the northern hemisphere, so too the metaphorical wintering caused by pandemic lockdowns. This metaphorical wintering is an energetic, emotional, and psychological wintering.

The idea comes from a beautiful book written by Katherine May, called Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times.

Here’s how she describes it:

"Wintering is a season in the cold. It is a fallow period in life when you’re cut off from the world, feeling rejected, side-lined, blocked from progress, or cast into the role of an outsider. Perhaps it results from an illness or a life event such as a bereavement or the birth of a child; perhaps it comes from a humiliation or failure. Perhaps you’re in a period of transition and have temporarily fallen between two worlds. … . However it arrives, wintering is usually involuntary, lonely, and deeply painful."

Don’t you think it’s true that we’ve all been wintering? And that, while some of us may be emerging, many others are not.

We haven’t really begun to tally our losses, or to grieve what’s been lost — a statement that may be true for both our lives, as well as this pandemic year.

One of the things that helps me so much is being reminded of the beauty that’s everywhere. It’s something that Katherine’s book is rich with, both in her writing, as well as the things she writes about, such as a sleeping dormouse.

If you can, please read or listen to her book.

In the meantime, you can listen to Part 1 of the interview we did together (Part 2 airs next week).

We are in the midst of a collective transformation that affects each one of us. As Katherine writes:

“Transformation is the business of winter. In Gaelic mythology, the hag deity known as the Cailleach takes human form at Samhain to run the winter months, bring with her winds and wild weather. … . The Cailleach is thought to be the mother of the gods, the gruff, cold originator of all things. … .  … The Cilleach offers us a cyclical metaphor for life, one in which the energies of spring arrive again and again, nurtured by the deep retreat of winter. We are no longer accustomed to thinking in this way. Instead we are in the habit of imagining our lives to be linear, a long march from birth to death in which we mass our powers, only to surrender them again, all the while slowly losing our youthful beauty. This is a brutal untruth.”

We can honor the cyclical nature of life — leave the garden looking scraggly until the hibernating pollinators are awake and getting on with it, wear a mask and social distance until everyone has gotten vaccines, and breathe into and be with our personal winterings.

In doing so, we're alive to the great wonder of being human.

Katherine May's website here

Dr. Melanie Harth's website here

sadness, depression, illness, happiness, nature, mindfulness

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