Last week, I started watching the new season of my favorite show—Dancing with the Stars.  I’m completely mesmerized!

This show has a special place in my heart, as my dad and I watched it together during the last few months of his life.  (My dad was a great dancer in his day, and I remember learning how to dance when I was 7 years old by standing on his feet.)

At 91, he was fading fast and not alert to most things, but when Dancing with the Stars would come on TV, he would sit up with a big smile on his face and his eyes would light up with joy. We’d watch it together laughing and feeling the love.

Clearly, we aren’t the only ones who get a big hit of joy watching the show.  24 million other viewers tune in on Monday nights for their fix, as well.  Why?

Because this show is all about happiness.  The music, the energy, the exhilarated expressions on the contestants’ faces—this energy is contagious, and we, as viewers, catch it.

When I look at the show’s phenomenon from the standpoint of what I know about happiness, it makes a lot of sense.   Dancing with the Stars incorporates what I call “The 4 M’s of Happiness.”  Both the pros and the stars use these four main ingredients of happiness, and you and I feel them when we watch.

Here they are:

1. Mindset:  The pros and the stars consciously and consistently choose thoughts and feelings of optimism, positivity, gratitude, and appreciation.  They know that a high-energy mindset translates into a great performance.

Meaning:  The dancers feel inspired by what they are doing.  They’re focused on something that’s purposeful and meaningful to them.  They always speak about the joy that they experience being on the show.

3. Movement:  Moving the body is good medicine. It produces big doses of happiness chemicals, and counteracts the stress chemicals that produce doubt, fear, and insecurity.

4. Membership:  All the dancers and all of us watching are part of a like-hearted group of people.  Feeling connected to others, having good relationships, and experiencing a sense of belonging are all fundamental to living in a state of happiness.

You and I can use the exact same principles to expand our happiness no matter what’s going on in our lives.

Try the 4 Ms of Happiness on for size:

Mindset:  Check out your mindset.  Are you staying optimistic and positive?  Are you bringing gratitude into your life regularly?  Try setting an alarm on your cell phone (a nice musical one) to schedule “thank you moments” into your day.

Meaning:  What gives you meaning?  Are you doing something every day that inspires you, helps you feel on purpose?  Fill in this sentence:  “My life feels meaningful when I __________,” and incorporate that activity into your life on a regular basis.

Movement:  Are you moving your body?  Stand up right now and stretch. Go outside and get some fresh air a few times during your day.  Dance a little (or at least shake your body) while you’re out there.

Membership:  Are you a member of something?  Connect with people who share your values.  Consider joining a group of like-hearted people – perhaps volunteer at an animal shelter or take an improv class or join a hiking club.

Though you may not get called upon to kick up your heels in front of millions of weekly viewers, when you start minding your 4 Ms, you’ll definitely create more opportunities to smile, enjoy and be happy for no reason.

Please share with me on Facebook your experience with the 4 M’s– and tell me who you’re rooting for on this season of Dancing with the Stars.

Off to put on my dancing shoes!

With love for no reason and every reason, Marci

Today is my 54th birthday.  Yippee! Yay!  I love my birthday because it’s a day that I treat as very special. A day that I feel immense gratitude in my heart for my life.

It’s also a time that I reflect on the past year.  So, as part of my annual birthday reflection, last night I re-read the short ezine that I’d written on my birthday last year.  Here it is:

Today is my 53rd birthday. I was planning to write a “profound” ezine today on my birthday about the purpose of life, but I’ve spent the last five days sitting with my 93-year-old aunt who is about to transition from this life. My experience right now is very internal, but I will share more later. This is an extraordinary way to spend my birthday — midwifing my aunt. It may be her birthday today, too — into a new world. Thank you for all your love and wishes. I am full of gratitude.  

About one hour after I sent that ezine, my aunt died peacefully in my arms.  It was an amazing experience and a beautiful blessing that imprinted on me deeply the preciousness of this life.

And it was the beginning of a year of powerful transitions and transformation on many levels.

So what about this year? What’s it about?   I think it’s reflected in my birthday wish for myself– that I live in greater love and acceptance (and less judgment) of myself, everyone else and life.

I got an early birthday gift about how to make that wish come true last week when I was attending a meeting of the Transformational Leadership Council in Hawaii.  One morning, I took a walk on the beach with Alison Armstrong, who is a brilliant teacher, an amazing visionary, and a wonderful woman.

At one point on our walk, I was judging myself for not being more curious. I complained to Alison that, unlike some people who have a curiosity to learn about everything they can, I didn’t care one bit about knowing certain things – for example, I didn’t care about how the sand we were walking on was created.

Alison stopped me in my sand tracks.

She said, “You know, Marci, the quality our lives is influenced by the quality of the questions we ask ourselves.”

I realized that a question I sometimes ask myself, mostly subconsciously, is “What’s wrong with me?”

Alison suggested that I experiment with asking with these two questions, instead:

1. What if I’m perfect just as I am?  What if, in fact, there are plenty of people on the planet who care about how sand is created, and the universe doesn’t need me to be one of those people.

2. What is right about me?  Wow, what a concept!  Such a different question than the “What’s wrong with me” question.

I’ve begun this experiment, and I love the results.  I’m really feeling more lightness, love and acceptance. I’ve told my friends about it, and they’re trying it on too.

So this is my birthday gift for you—that you try on these questions and see what happens.

My birthday wish for you is that you feel greater love and acceptance of yourself.  That you experience the perfection of you just as you are and that you’re able to see what’s right about you more of the time.

What if the whole world lived with those two questions?  Then every day would feel like a birthday.

With my great love and gratitude that you’re a part of my life,

Aaah.  A New Year!  Woo-hoooo.

What I love about the new year is that we get a fresh start.  Right now, you have a fantastic opportunity– you get to leave behind what didn’t work in 2011 and envision what you’d like to create in 2012.  As this quote says:

“Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.”  – Oprah Winfrey

For the past ten years, I’ve had a simple New Year’s ritual that’s been a great way to ring in the new.  I’ve shared it with a few friends who’ve loved doing it, so I want to share it with you. As the saying goes, Well begun is half done, so I suggest you do this either on New Year’s eve or New Year’s day to get 2012 off to a wonderful start.:

1. Start with a 10 – 15 minute meditation in which you set your attention on releasing the old and opening to the new.
2. On a piece of paper, hand write a list of all the things in 2011 that you’d like to let go of.  This can include old patterns that don’t serve you, grudges or resentments you’re hanging on to, fears that hold you back, or circumstances that you’d like to change.It can also include not-useful habits such as eating too much sugar or not exercising.  Make sure your list is as complete as possible with everything that didn’t work for you in 2011.  My list is usually a few pages.
3. If it’s easy for you to burn the list, then you can do that.  If not, you can tear the list up in many pieces.  As you release this list, imagine letting go of the energies that are represented on your list.
4. Now, on to creation.  Make a list of all that you wish to create for yourself in 2012.Include the habits you’d like to embrace, the external circumstances you’d like to create, and the internal experiences you’d like to have (joy, freedom, ease, love, peace, acceptance of all that is, etc).  Be as specific as possible.
5. Read the list aloud (whether you’re alone or with others).  Speaking it out adds more energy to it.  Feel each item as though it’s actually happened.
6. Put the list in a special place, as a symbolic offering for your coming year.

Notice how you feel after doing this ritual.  I always feel cleansed, lighter, renewed, and excited about what’s ahead.

Please let me know your experience with this and/or share with me any New Year ritual you love on my Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/MarciShimoffFan

This is a special New Year’s for me.  I get to spend New Year’s eve in an extraordinary way.  I have the huge honor of officiating at my nephew’s wedding on December 31!    He and his fiancée are two fabulous people and they’re a great match — their relationship is an inspiration.  I can’t think of a better way to start the new year in this celebration of love.

May 2012 be a year for you full of wonder, grace, miracles, love and the deepest fulfillment of your soul.

With love for every reason,

Marci

P.S.  Something exciting is happening on January 10 — stay tuned for the news.

Almost five years ago, Carol and I interviewed a fascinating neuropsychologist named Rick Hanson for our book, Happy for No Reason. Rick brilliantly explained how a “happy brain” works. He shared with us the great analogy that our brains are like Velcro for the negative, but Teflon for the positive — the negatives stick to us while the positives tend to slide right off. More importantly, he shared simple ways we can reverse that negativity bias.

I’ve continued to be a huge fan of Rick and his work — we even began a book together. I avidly read Rick’s “just one thing” articles, which are wonderful short pieces about easy, powerful practices that can make a big difference in our happiness and well-being levels. In today’s ezine, I’d love to share one of my favorite “just one thing” ideas that I think you’ll find really helpful.

Here are Rick’s wise words about “Don’t Take It Personally” (excerpted from his wonderful new book called Just One Thing):

Here’s an updated parable from the ancient Taoist teacher Chuang-Tzu: Imagine that you are floating in a canoe on a slow-moving river, having a Sunday picnic with a friend. Suddenly there is a loud thump on the side of the canoe, and it rolls over. You come up sputtering, and what do you see? Somebody has snuck up on your canoe, flipped it over for a joke, and is laughing at you. How do you feel?

Okay. Now imagine the exact same situation again: the picnic in a canoe, loud thump, dumped into the river, coming up sputtering, and what do you see? A large submerged log has drifted downstream and bumped into your canoe. This time, how do you feel?

The facts are the same in each case: cold and wet, picnic ruined. But when you think you’ve been targeted personally, you probably feel worse. The thing is, most of what bumps into us in life — including emotional reactions from others, traffic jams, illness, or mistreatment at work — is like an impersonal log put in motion by ten thousand causes upstream.

Say a friend is surprisingly critical toward you. It hurts, for sure, and you’ll want to address the situation, from talking about it with the friend to disengaging from the relationship.

But also consider what may have caused that person to bump into you, such as misinterpretations of your actions; health problems, pain, worries or anger about things unrelated to you; temperament, personality, childhood experiences; the effects of culture, economy, or world events; and causes back upstream in time, like how his or her parents were raised.

Recognize the humbling yet wonderful truth: most of the time, we are bit players in other people’s dramas.

When you look at things this way, you naturally get calmer, put situations in context, and don’t get so caught up in me-myself-and-I. Then you feel better, plus more clearheaded about what to do.

How?

To begin with, have compassion for yourself. Getting smacked by a log is a drag. Also take appropriate action. Keep an eye out for logs heading your way, try to reduce their impact, and repair your “boat” — relationship, health, finances, career — as best you can. And maybe think about finding a new river!

Additionally:

1. Notice when you start to take something personally. Be mindful of what that feels like — and also what it feels like to relax the sense of being personally targeted.

2. Be careful about making assumptions about the intentions of others. Maybe they didn’t do it “on purpose.” Or maybe there was one not-so-good purpose aimed at you that was mixed up with a dozen other purposes.

3. Reflect on some of the ten thousand causes upstream. Ask yourself: What else could be in play here? What’s going on inside the other person’s mind and life? What’s the bigger picture?

4. Beware getting caught up in your “case” about other people, driven by an inner prosecutor that keeps pounding on all the ways they’re wrong, spoke badly, acted unfairly, picked on you, really really harmed you, made you suffer, etc., etc. It’s good to see others clearly, and there’s a place for moral judgment — but case-making is a kind of obsessing that makes you feel worse and more likely to overreact and create an even bigger problem.

5. Try to have compassion for the other people. They’re probably not all that happy, either. Having compassion for them will not weaken you or let them off the moral hook; actually, it will make you feel better.

And — really soak up the sense of strength and peacefulness that comes from taking life less personally.

As a recovering “personalizer,” I love this reminder from Rick. Try applying these ideas over the next days and see how you relax and enjoy your life more.

I welcome you to share your personal experience with this great practice on my Facebook page.

With love for every reason, Marci



On a recent visit to my doctor, he asked me if I was doing each of the three important types of exercise — aerobics, strength and flexibility. I answered an enthusiastic yes to aerobics (I love my Zumba), a luke-warm nod to strength (I occasionally lift weights) and a definitive no to flexibility (my muscles are very tight and stretching is hard).

I started thinking about these three types of physical exercise, and I noticed the correlation to various mental/emotional states. While each form of exercise builds all of these qualities, they each have a specialty:

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