What if I was able to give you the secret to a happy and purposeful life?

Despite of what we experience in our own life and how we feel when we come together, a group of Harvard researchers conducted a research – Harvard Grant study – over the course of many decades, following the lives of real people (268 males Harvard undergraduates from the classes of 1938 – 1940) over 75 years from childhood until old age in order to see how they changed and what they have learned over the course of their lives. At the centre of their research was one of life’s fundamental questions:

How do we grow and change, what do we value as time goes on and what is likely to makes us happy and fulfilled?

Luckily, the provides scientific evidence to what the heart already knows. The five lessons from the Grant Study that you may want to apply to your own pursuit of a happier and more meaningful life are:

1. Love is really all that matters.
2. It’s about more than money and power.
3. Regardless of how we begin, we can all become happier.
4. It’s all about connection.
5. Challenges, perspective and growth can make you happier.

Love Is Really All That Matters

It may seem obvious, but that doesn’t make it any less true: Love is key to a happy and fulfilling life. There are two pillars to happiness: One is love and the other is removing all the layers and finding a way of coping with life that does not push love away.

The study’s most important finding is that the only thing that matters in life is relationships. A man could have a successful career, money and good physical health, but without supportive, loving relationships, he wouldn’t be happy (“Happiness is only the cart; love is the horse.”).

It is About More than Money and Power

The Grant Study’s findings echoed those of other studies — that acquiring more money and power doesn’t correlate to greater happiness. That’s not to say money or traditional career success don’t matter. But they’re small parts of a much larger picture — and while they may loom large for us in the moment, they diminish in importance when viewed in the context of a full life.

In terms of achievement, the only thing that matters is that you be content at your work.

Regardless of How We Begin Life, We Can All Become Happier

A man named Godfrey Minot Camille went into the Grant study with fairly bleak prospects for life satisfaction: He had the lowest rating for future stability of all the subjects and he had previously attempted suicide. But at the end of his life, he was one of the happiest. Why? Because he spent his life searching for love.

Connection Is Crucial

Joy is connection and the the more areas in your life you can make connection, the better. The study found strong relationships to be far and away the strongest predictor of life satisfaction. And in terms of career satisfaction, too, feeling connected to one’s work was far more important than making money or achieving traditional success.

The conclusion of the study, not in a medical but in a psychological sense, is that connection is the whole shooting match. As life goes on, connections become even more important. The Grant Study provides strong support for the growing body of research that has linked social ties with longevity, lower stress levels and improved overall well-being.

Challenges & Growth Can Make You Happier

The journey from immaturity to maturity is a sort of movement from narcissism to connection, and a big part of this shift has to do with the way we deal with challenges.

Coping mechanisms — “the capacity to make gold out of shit” — have a significant effect on social support and overall well-being. The secret is replacing narcissism, a single-minded focus on one’s own emotional oscillations and perceived problems with mature coping defences.

Creative expression is another way to productively deal with challenges and achieve meaning and well-being.

See my workshop and retreat offerings if you would like to invite a little more connection into your life or find me in one of my classes on Sydney’s Northern Beaches.

Source: Path Retreats

This week, I am diving deeper into the meaning and the power of ‘the collective’.  It’s a big word, but what does it actually mean?

A simple Google search reveals the meaning of collective as ‘forming a whole’ or a ‘characteristic or action jointly owned and operated by the members of a group’.

Whether we realise it or not, there is always a collective experience. When one member or part of the collective experiences stress, discomfort or pain, this sensation can be felt by the entire collective.

Have you ever walked into a room and the energy just didn’t feel quite right? Or walked through the mall the day before Christmas? Or have you ever visited friends and simply by being there you picked up they had a fight minutes before you arrived? On the other hand, have you ever walked into a yoga room and you immediately felt at ease and taken care of?

As human beings we are astoundingly attuned to the subtle emotional shifts in the people and environments around us. Slight changes can either make us feel comfortable, supported, relaxed and nourished or anxious, suspicious, stressed and frightened. All of us have probably experienced the range of those emotions at some point in our lives.

You might remember a time when you were fraught with despair or fear and the safety, care or a simple act of kindness of a friend or family member immediately helped you to shift your perspective about or an emotion in a particular situation. I know I do.

The collective has the power to open us up to a new way of thinking, acting and therefore being. It works like a wave: a single action can cause ripples to grow into waves that create big movements.

When we feel safe, supported and held, it creates a space where we can open up, be vulnerable and not only show up for ourselves but also for others.

How can we create that space?

Love. Consideration. Kindness.

When the collective is fraught with fear, love has the capacity to calm that fear. When the collective is in need, consideration has the capacity to support that need.

It’s nothing the mind can do or ‘figure out’ (unfortunately) – it’s a transformation through the heart, not the mind. It’s about connection, about being real.

From my own experience I know this can be very difficult, however it’s possible. We can begin to practise this right here within ourselves and our environments by reminding ourselves that it is never necessary to react negatively to the world around us. We always have control over choosing our point of view or action to the things happening around us – however difficult, uncomfortable or negative they may seem.

We have the choice to connect to something greater than ourselves and find compassion and love for ourselves and others.

So, how do we do that?

Love. Love everything. Support each other.

And when you feel this is the last thing you or someone else deserves, choose love anyway. I know, it is not always easy, but it is possible.

When we choose to love, we bring love to the collective.

If a part in you can relate to that idea, I would like to invite you to our fundraising yoga practice and community get together this Friday, 13 April from 7:00- 9:00pm at Qi Yoga in Freshwater on behalf of The Hunger Project (THP).

We will be tapping into the support of the group and create a sense of connection to ourselves in order to connect with others.

Please head here for booking or here for a little more detail.

We are all connected and honouring that connection through partnership makes life a little richer.