Being Happy Now

Welcome to Life,

Lessons and Laughter with your host Glenn Ambrose.

Hey everybody,

I'm happy to introduce happiness.

Oh man,

We're finally back to it.

We're back to it.

Yeah,

We gave you a hard time with the Q&A,

So we needed to do one on happiness.

Absolutely.

I've been shooting you down and I didn't even know it.

Right,

So this topic was inspired by one of the Q&As that we just did for Patreon with some patrons that were live on it.

And you can see that Q&A on Patreon.

Com.

But this is a topic that we covered sort of in our first episode ever over five years ago,

Which is happiness.

But more specifically,

We're talking about being happy right now.

Right now.

Right now.

Right now.

Don't wait.

Don't wait.

Right now.

Yeah.

Okay.

How?

Tell me how.

Tell me how.

Tell me how.

Okay,

Man,

Just decide.

Just decide that you're happy.

That's it.

Then you're happy.

Actually,

I'll start talking,

But I think there's a Groucho Marx quote on this.

See if you can find it.

I will do that.

All right.

All right,

Go ahead.

Yeah,

It's happiness is a decision.

So,

Really,

Our happiness is not based on our external circumstances or on any circumstances.

It really is just a decision.

So,

There's this unconscious fear that we're going or sometimes conscious fear that if we allow ourselves to be happy now,

Then we're not going to have any desire to do anything.

We'll just become complacent,

Sit around,

Not take any action,

Not do anything because we're already happy.

So,

Why work towards something else?

But that's not the way it works.

When we're happy,

It actually inspires us to do more.

We have more energy when we're happy.

We want to express our happiness.

We want to engage in life in a happy way.

We actually have more energy and we do more when we're happy.

When we're beating ourselves up all the time and unhappy all the time and constantly focused on what we don't have and our circumstances that we don't like,

It's depressing.

And I don't know anybody that gains energy through depression.

You don't want to do anything.

Your energy drops.

So,

We're actually less active when we're depressed and more active when we're happy in all ways.

So,

One is not tied to the other as far as complacency and experiencing happiness and not wanting to do anything.

I get way more done when I'm in a good mood than when I'm not.

Me too.

Yeah,

For sure.

I found the quote.

Yeah,

Of course you did.

Yeah.

And if you want a little Easter egg of when we recorded this,

Go back in time on Glenn's Instagram and the quote of the day,

The day after we recorded this,

Will be this quote.

I,

Not events,

I,

Not events,

Have the power to make me happy or unhappy today.

I can choose which it shall be.

Yesterday is dead.

Tomorrow has not yet arrived.

That's Groucho Marx?

Groucho Marx.

I,

Not events,

Have the power to make me happy or unhappy today.

Okay,

I think there's another one,

But I mean that gets to the point.

I thought there was one that ended with like,

I choose to be happy today or something.

But I mean,

You know,

He's saying the same thing.

So it's,

The point is,

Is we can literally,

And you can practice this,

You can literally wake up in the morning and before you get out of bed,

Just stay there a minute.

And I mean,

Of course,

If you meditate,

Which is a good idea,

You can do that first.

But get yourself into that head space where,

No,

I'm going to choose to be happy today regardless of what's going on.

I'm not judging everything as good and bad.

It just is.

And I'm going to be happy regardless.

If,

If we can be happy,

Like if you,

If you get,

I think I've used this example before,

If you get into a fender bender,

Like you can still be happy.

Like you don't have to be happy that your car got dented up.

You can't say,

Yay,

My car's dented.

That's not what I'm talking about.

But you can sit there and go,

Okay,

My car's dented.

I will get it fixed and I'm not going to let it ruin my day.

Why we feel it's so necessary to ruin our day when something that we don't like happens.

It's,

It doesn't have to.

We can walk through situations where going,

Okay,

This is,

That happened.

I wouldn't choose it to happen.

I don't really want it to happen again,

But it did.

And I will do what I need to do to rectify this situation.

But I'm not going to let it wreck my day.

You know,

We,

There's this unconscious pull that we're lying to ourselves if we don't walk around,

You know,

Moping and kicking things and being all upset when things don't go our way.

Well,

Then we're just denying life.

No,

We're not denying it.

It's just all that negative emotion doesn't do anything to benefit you or the situation.

All it does is wreck your day.

So you can choose to be happy regardless of your circumstances.

And when you do,

You're vibrating at a happier rate.

When you're vibrating at a happier rate,

You attract more things to be happy about.

So it's actually one of the best ways to manifest things is walking around in a state of happiness and or gratitude,

Which are very,

Very similar.

It's hard to be happy and not have any gratitude.

So,

I mean,

When you're walking around with those types of things,

You're attracting more things to be grateful for,

More happiness,

More things to be happy about.

When we're focused on what we don't have,

We're attracting more of what we don't have.

We're coming from a place of lack,

You know,

Instead of a place of joy and abundance.

So we're actually attracting what we don't want by focusing on what we don't want.

Absolutely.

And that's something that I talk about all the time with friends is like,

Why let this little thing ruin your day?

Like,

Come on,

This doesn't have to,

You know,

Obviously there are circumstances that are bigger circumstances and,

You know,

Like I always think about people,

Our episode that you did on,

You know,

Stop being a victim,

Don't be a victim.

Yeah.

There's always going to be people that want to stay in that or people that,

And,

You know,

Rightfully go,

Well,

That's not my circumstance.

My circumstance is this is a horrific event.

This is a bad,

You know,

And if it's a truly bad event and stuff,

That's not necessarily what we're talking about right now,

You know,

Like,

And always that's fine.

If you don't want to do that,

Like that's you,

But on a day to day basis,

You can choose to be happy and,

You know,

You cannot let someone cutting you off in traffic or like the store that you wanted to go to being closed or out of something.

Like,

People will literally let that stuff ruin their day.

Absolutely.

And it's,

Yeah,

And that's where we need to start.

We need to be the change we wish to see.

Start in your day to day circumstances.

And I mean,

Theoretically,

Or yeah,

I'll just stick with the word theoretically.

Theoretically,

You know,

You can stand in this same energy even in really,

Really,

Really bad situations.

People have done it.

Right.

So it is possible.

It's a lot harder,

You know,

And if you don't practice on the small stuff,

There's no way you're probably going to stand it in the bigger stuff.

But that's,

You know,

That's neither here nor there.

We'll talk about the day to day stuff that can enhance your life right now.

You know,

So yeah,

You can do it with the day to day stuff and it is practicing with the day to day stuff.

Like when my son was young,

You know,

We can all do this and like you can do it with your children too.

And you can be an example of it with your children.

Like my son was really young and I told him something had happened and I was like,

You can start your day over as many times as you want.

It's your day.

You're in control.

So if something happens that you don't like,

Say,

OK,

I'm starting my day over now and the rest of my day,

I'm going to be happy.

This is behind me.

It's in the past and I'm starting my day over now.

And then half an hour later,

You kick the coffee table and stub your toe.

And five minutes later,

When the pain wears off,

You can start your day over again.

And you can start your day over 150 times if you want.

There's no limit.

There's no rules.

You know,

So really,

You know,

Give yourself the power to not let a circumstance drag you down.

Pause and choose how you're going to react to that situation.

You know,

We talked about this on another podcast.

Just lean back a little bit.

Put a little space and choose.

Do I want this to wreck my day?

And you know,

You can reshape things.

You know,

I had an experience kind of,

It wasn't life altering by any stretch,

But it was something that really bothered me.

I got off the phone with a very emotional subject and I got upset with the way the phone call went.

And I was like,

As soon as I was feeling,

As soon as I hung up the phone,

I'm like,

Glenn,

Do you really want to be mad about this?

And I was like,

Yes.

Yes,

I do.

And I did.

I really wanted to be pissed off.

So I allowed myself to be pissed off.

And I stormed around the house like a little lunatic for about five or 10 minutes,

Expressing to the universe how right I was and how wrong the situation was.

You know,

And then,

You know,

Five or 10 minutes later,

I kind of sat down and I was like,

Okay,

Do you still want to be mad about this?

And I was like,

Yes.

No.

Because I don't want to be walking around with anger shooting through me.

You know,

I don't like that feeling.

I don't want to reserve my right to be upset.

So I reframed the situation and I chose to look at it in a way where I wasn't a victim of the circumstance,

Where I came to a logical understanding of what may have transpired and why it went that way.

And why my life was going to be okay regardless of this particular situation.

And once I reframed it that way,

All of a sudden,

Now all of a sudden I just pulled away my reason to be upset.

You know,

Because the only reason that we really get upset about things is because of the way we're mentally processing it.

If we process it mentally and deem that it's negative,

It's bad,

And it shouldn't have happened,

Then that's what triggers the anger or the frustration that we're feeling.

So if we can reframe it into a different way that doesn't trigger those types of emotions where we're not the victim,

Where life is going to be okay regardless of the situation,

Then it stops triggering that emotion.

And I allowed myself to feel some of that energy from the previous way of processing it so that energy could go and I wasn't trapping it and stuffing it inside.

But then I reframed it.

Now all of a sudden,

Okay,

Reframe,

Now I can go about my day continuing to be happy because I didn't just experience something that I think is negative.

You know,

Nothing is either good or bad.

Thinking makes it so.

It just is.

It just is.

Labeling it does not help us.

You know,

I mean,

We can label things as good.

Why not?

But why do we want to label things as bad?

It's a detriment to us.

It doesn't benefit us.

It steals our happiness away.

So it's not about our circumstances.

It's about a choice.

It's about really just slowing down and going,

No,

I'm going to choose to be happy regardless of my circumstances.

And if my shoelace breaks or something else goes wrong,

I'm going to look at it and go,

Okay,

Is there something I need to do to correct this situation?

But I'm not going to let it suck me out of my happiness.

I'm not going to let it pull me out of that state.

Okay?

Okay.

I'm going to ask the question now of,

And I'm hesitant to ask this question.

Ooh.

I see one.

Yeah,

No,

I don't think it's that juicy,

But I think it's like divisive,

I guess.

What about clinical depression?

What about if you're suffering from clinical depression and choosing happiness feels harder than it should?

Well,

I think that people don't usually get clinically depressed after a real happy run in life.

You know,

Like I don't see people like going and,

You know,

Their life's just been,

You know,

They're really well adjusted to life.

Everything's been going good.

And then all of a sudden they're clinically depressed.

It usually takes us a while to get there,

You know?

And I think personally,

My personal perspective is I think that there's a place for medication.

I think that it can help.

I don't think it's the long-term solution.

I think a lot of things along these lines,

What we do is we say,

Okay,

Well,

You know,

My body,

There's a chemical imbalance which is causing this,

So therefore I need a pill.

Well,

Yeah,

There is a chemical imbalance that's causing it,

But what's causing the chemical imbalance?

That we're not just made like that.

There's not all of a sudden,

You know,

Half the population all of a sudden is starting to be born with chemical imbalances where they can't be happy.

It's just like everything else in this world,

We try to fix it with a pill.

Like I said,

There can be a place for that sometimes.

But what's causing the chemical imbalance?

My personal perspective is that we're maladjusted to life.

We're not interacting with life.

We're not happy.

We're not living in a happy,

Productive,

Fulfilling way.

And therefore,

That's what's causing our chemical imbalances.

If we're not producing the hormones that we're supposed to be producing because we're never experiencing happiness year after year after year,

Maybe our body stops producing those hormones,

You know,

Which all of a sudden goes into depression,

They give you a test and they go,

Oh,

Your body's not producing this,

So you need a pill,

Therefore,

You know.

So,

You know,

That's my personal perspective and people can take it or leave it.

But I think it's regardless of what the situation is,

Instead of hyper focusing on that,

What I would say is just try this stuff.

Just try living happy.

Try connecting spiritually.

Try implementing the tools that we discussed to the best of your ability where you are.

That's all.

Just try it.

I mean,

What's the worst case scenario?

A year from now,

You're still depressed and you're still taking a pill.

You are going to be that way whether you tried this stuff or not.

So,

You know,

So best case scenario is that this type of stuff works.

You stop becoming happier,

Then you can get off the medication.

Worst case scenario is you're in the exact same spot,

But you tried doing something that might benefit you.

So,

You know,

I'm not going to say that I have the cure for everybody,

But what I will say is I recommend,

Because I've been through depression,

I've been suicidal,

I've been through addiction,

I've been through my fair share of stuff in this lifetime.

And as long as I was focused on the problem and what I was,

Why these solutions wouldn't work and why I was different and all that type of stuff,

I never got better.

Right.

When I focused on this type of thing and I said,

Ah,

The heck with it,

I'll try it.

I don't know if it's going to work,

But I'll try it anyway.

All of a sudden,

I started working.

And I haven't been on any medications for 16 years,

Over 16 years.

And about trying,

Something that I've heard you say a million times is,

You know,

I'll gladly refund your misery.

Right.

Like,

You know?

Yeah,

Exactly.

We fight so hard for the right to hang on to what we don't want.

You know,

It's like somebody comes in and offers a solution,

Says,

Hey,

Try this,

It might work.

And they go,

No,

It won't work.

I'm really bad,

Mad and unhappy and miserable.

So,

It won't work for me.

And there's science that backs in.

They give you 300 reasons why they won't even attempt to try because it won't work.

Something that,

One,

They don't know anything about because they've never tried it.

But like,

What are you protecting?

You're protecting,

You're literally protecting your misery.

Like,

You know,

That's why there literally is no risk.

If you don't like where you are,

Try this.

Because there's literally no risk.

Worst case scenario,

You end up in the exact same spot.

Best case scenario,

Your life improves.

Like,

I love those odds.

You know?

I can't lose.

It's literally impossible for me to lose.

And I might win.

Okay.

You know,

Give me a casino that runs like that.

I'll go to that one.

So,

That was a really interesting take that I like.

What about gratitude?

Practicing gratitude?

I mean,

I think that that's something that's come up a lot as far as the show goes.

And especially in regards to happiness and being happy now and just as a practice.

So,

What do you think the role that practicing gratitude would have in this would be?

A huge role.

I think that's one of the easiest ways to decide to be happy or to stay in happiness.

Because it's like,

If you're sitting there,

It's conceptual.

So,

If you go,

I'm happy.

I'm going to be happy all day.

I'm really happy right now.

I'm going to stay happy.

I'm really happy.

Like,

How long can you do that?

It's kind of weird.

But if you're sitting there and you're going,

You know,

You can count blessings like all day.

So,

If you start giving the reasons why you're happy instead of just going,

I'm happy,

I'm happy,

I'm happy.

If you start giving the reasons why you're happy,

Then you fall naturally right into gratitude.

So,

And that's the thing that you can develop exercises around.

You know,

That's,

You can start a gratitude journal.

You can,

You know,

You can do the alphabet.

Like,

Come up with something that you're grateful for with every letter of the alphabet.

You can,

You know,

There's lots of different gratitude practices that you can do in the morning,

Throughout your day,

And in the evening.

And what's cool is they have more than one benefit.

Like,

If you come up with five things you're grateful for every day,

And you do it in the evening time,

What happens is your brain starts knowing that you're going to do that in the evening.

So,

It starts looking for things to be grateful for during the day.

And then,

So then you're just constantly in that state.

You're looking for things to be grateful for.

You're trying to be grateful,

So you have something to put on your list.

You know,

So it's kind of like a backdoor way to trick yourself into thinking about gratitude more.

And I love backdoor ways of tricking yourself into doing things.

I mean,

I love that stuff.

It's,

You know,

If there's any way that I can accomplish these things that are,

That is easier for me,

That I can remove unconscious blocks and come in the backdoor on,

I'm all for it.

So,

Yeah,

Gratitude is really one of the best ways.

Gratitude,

Having appreciation,

Is one of the best ways to stay happy.

The other thing,

Too,

Is really understanding,

Not thinking about yourself all the time.

I'm reading this good book about joy with the Dalai Lama and Bishop Desmond Tutu.

And they do a great job at explaining this in this book.

And they talk about how when we're overly focused on ourselves,

That's a breeding ground for fear,

Selfishness,

Negativity.

And when we're really looking at ourselves as part of the whole and having compassion for other people,

And,

You know,

Really looking at ourselves as part of a society and connected with our other human beings,

That that is such a good way to bring in joy and happiness.

Because it's,

Like I said,

The breeding ground for the unhappiness is hyper-focusing on ourself.

We think about ourselves too much.

And when we're thinking about other people and bringing happiness into their lives,

We automatically get fed.

Again,

It's a backdoor way.

You know,

When we're not thinking about ourselves,

When we're thinking about helping others,

All of a sudden we wake up two weeks later and we're like,

Oh my God,

I'm so happy.

I've been happy for a while.

What about the reverse of that?

What if you're somebody that puts others' happiness in front of your own,

And because of that you're not working on your own happiness,

And that makes you unhappy?

Asking for a friend,

I have no personal experience about this.

Yes,

Of course not,

Ben.

No,

That's a good point because that is when,

You know,

A lot of people,

Especially in this spiritual walk,

Are big-hearted people.

So we have a tendency to go too far in that direction.

But it's two different things because when you're helping other people,

You need to help,

You need to give from the overflow.

You know,

It's not selfish.

Self-love and selfishness are two different things.

So you can love yourself and take care of yourself and not overextend yourself and learn to have boundaries and take care of yourself and give from the overflow.

Like,

It's not one or the other.

Not only can you have both,

You have to have both.

So it's about giving from the overflow and making sure you take care of yourself first so you're capable of giving.

You know,

I think my.

.

.

I'm talking about Matteo a lot.

A whole lot.

I like it.

Yeah,

Anyway,

So when he was little,

Like,

I was putting him to bed when he was like around eight or something,

And I said,

You're my number one priority.

I know I've told this story before.

Yeah,

But it's a great story.

Yeah,

And he said,

No,

No,

I'm not.

And I said,

Okay,

What do you mean?

And I knew what he was going to say,

But I loved hearing his perspective.

And he said,

First,

It's your relationship with God.

Second,

You have to take care of yourself so you can take care of me.

And then third,

It's me.

So technically I'm third.

And I was like,

You're right.

And see,

He didn't think that I was selfish and I didn't love him because I was putting him third.

That's not the energy in which he said that.

That's not what he felt.

He said it joyfully.

He was happy that I did the first two.

He was happy that he was in third place because he understood that the first two things that I did were to be there,

My best,

The best father I could be for him.

I did those other two things because I loved him,

Not in spite of it.

So that's the energy in which we do things.

We take care of ourselves not as an end result,

But as the leaping off point,

As Michael Bernabeck would say,

As the leaping off point.

We take care of ourselves so we can help others to a really greater extent.

Which I think is our second episode.

This is kind of like a follow up on our first episode.

I think like our second or third episode was how to care for yourself to better care for others.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You got to put that oxygen mask on first because you're of no use to anybody if you're unconscious.

So take care of yourself first.

Then you can take care of other people.

And that is,

See,

If you do it that way,

You never burn out.

You're a lot more capable.

All you're giving is much more enjoyable.

It's unconditional,

Which is pure.

Otherwise,

If you just give without taking care of yourself first,

Then you start gaining resentments.

You become depleted.

It's a cycle that can't continue.

A lot of times people's health suffers.

There's a lot of drawbacks if you're not taking care of yourself first.

But if you are taking care of yourself first,

You can give forever.

Well,

We're almost out of time.

And I found the full quote of that Charlie Chaplin quote.

Is it Charlie Chaplin or Grover?

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

Groucho Marx.

Groucho Marx.

Oh,

Okay.

I wasn't looking at the name.

The name is very small on my screen right now.

Charlie Chaplin has a lot of great quotes.

He does.

I,

Not the events,

I,

Not events,

Have the power to make me happy or unhappy today.

I can choose which it shall be.

Yesterday is dead.

Tomorrow hasn't arrived yet.

I have just one day today and I'm going to be happy in it.

There we go.

I'm going to be happy.

It's just a decision.

I'm going to be happy in it today.

It's really that simple.

Absolutely.

It's,

I mean,

It doesn't seem like it until you stop playing around and you try it and then you're like,

Oh,

My God,

Are you kidding me?

I've been searching for happiness.

I've been doing all this stuff to try to be happy,

To try to find it,

To try to read the right book and go to the right retreat and get the right information and find the right magic key.

And all I needed to do was just decide to be happy in this moment.

That's it?

Yes,

That's it.

And then pay attention to see what unfolds out of that because it can be lots of good things,

You know,

Because you are being supported by the universe.

The universe wants you to be happy because it's an expansion of yourself.

So it's going to support it and give you more things to be happy about.

I have mentioned this song on the podcast before,

I think,

But there is one of my favorite show tunes,

Shows from a Broadway musical is from a little tiny two-person show called Daddy Long Legs.

And it's called The Secret of Happiness.

And I love the song,

I love the lyrics to the song,

And it's just very true.

I mean,

It starts with,

I've discovered the secret of happiness is learning how to glide.

I've discovered the secret of happiness is just enjoy the ride.

Like,

You know,

Not to run too fast,

You can still beat them by coming in last,

Not to be afraid,

All illusions fade,

Living in the now,

Following my will.

You know,

It ends with happiness is clear,

Happiness is near,

Happiness is here.

Like,

It's a fantastic song.

If it weren't for copyright issues,

I'd have Dave put it on the end.

But it's great,

And it encompasses everything that you said in this episode.

You know,

It's here,

It's now,

It's simple,

It's just choosing to be happy,

You know?

Yeah,

That's it.

Choosing to be happy.

And you reminded me of Jason Mraz's song,

Living in the Moment.

It's another good one.

And this is how it ties in,

And I've said this a few times lately.

This is why everybody's teaching mindfulness,

Presence,

Being in the now,

Consciousness,

Awareness.

It's all the same thing.

If you're in the present moment and just interacting with life in the present moment,

You notice that there's a sense of calmness,

A sense of peace.

We can handle life one moment at a time in the present moment.

We get stressed out when we're feeling guilt about the past or anxiety about the future.

But I mean,

If we're in the present moment,

We can,

We're just naturally happy.

Like,

It's just,

Everything's okay right now in this particular moment.

You know,

We might need to,

You know,

Once I'm done recording,

I might need to go solve some sort of a problem.

But right now I don't.

I'm recording.

So right now,

Everything's fine.

So it's,

You know,

Just being in the present moment and finding happiness there regardless of your circumstances.

And if you go live life one moment at a time like that,

All of a sudden,

You know,

You find out you're more capable of handling the issues that come up.

And that actually being unhappy about things that happened in the past because that's pretty much what we're doing.

Oh,

You know,

I dented my car.

Well,

Yeah,

That was 15 minutes ago.

That's technically the past.

Yeah.

So you're being unhappy about something that happened in the past.

If you just accept that it happened and choose to be happy regardless,

It's going to be a more joyful process getting your car fixed than if you're bound and determined to be miserable until it's fixed.

Which,

Somebody hit my car.

Maybe that's why I'm talking about this.

I literally have to do this.

My car got hit like a few weeks ago and I'm like,

Yeah,

I'll get it fixed.

Yeah.

And I told my son like two weeks after it happened.

He's like,

What?

Somebody hit your car?

When did that happen?

I'm like,

I don't know.

Like I think it was a couple of weeks ago.

I didn't even mention it to him and he's the only one that lives with me in this house.

It just wasn't really an issue.

I'll fix it when I can,

You know?

Yeah.

Oh,

Well.

All right.

Well,

That's it for this episode.

We're probably a little over time,

But whatever.

We do that.

Yeah.

So check out GlenAmbrose.

Com for all my stuff.

Patreon.

Com backslash GlenAmbrose for a lot of exclusive stuff,

Including videos and a live Q&A.

We just did a few of them actually from the past.

And join my mailing list for the new thing,

Five Questions with Glen that we started doing.

All you got to do is join the mailing list for free on my website and you automatically get those five questions with Glen emailed biweekly or fortnightly.

Wow.

Yeah.

See,

I'm an international life coach.

The people in England and Australia taught me that they use the word fortnightly.

So now I'm international.

I speak in international languages.

Still English.

I know.

But it made me happy to say that.

It's great.

And I have to say this is a historic day.

This is,

I think,

The first time you've ever done that end of the show pitch completely by yourself.

And well,

Yeah,

You never,

I'm always like Patreon GlenAmbrose website.

This little boy is growing up.

You're growing up and I'm happy about it.

Boom.

See you later.

All right.

Thanks for listening,

Everybody.

We'll talk at you soon.

Glenn is available for life coaching sessions to book an appointment or for more information,

Go to GlennAmbrose.

Com,

Follow him on Facebook and Twitter or click the link in the description of this episode.