Your Happiness Medicine – The Four Questions
By Marci Shimoff
Would you like to wake up every morning feeling happier, fully alive, and more connected to life than you already are?
Of course you would. We all want to be happier. In fact, Aristotle said that “happiness is the goal of all goals—the be all and end all of life.”
Unfortunately, we don’t always feel happy.
Five years ago, when I was on tour promoting my book Happy for No Reason, I was tired, burned out, and feeling anything but happy—not a very good situation for someone espousing happiness.
One day when I was home between stops on my tour, my assistant looked at me and said, “Marci, you’re a wreck. You’re coming with me to a Zumba class.” I said, “What’s Zumba?” Without answering, she grabbed me by the hand and whisked me off to the local dance studio. After an hour of smiling, sweating, and strutting during this Latin-inspired dance exercise class, I felt like a new person.
That was the beginning of embracing the regular exercise routine that I had abandoned in the process of writing and promoting the book. And exercise re-awakened my zest for life.
Recently I had the great fortune of going on a retreat with Angeles Arrien, a world-renowned cultural anthropologist. I deeply respect Angeles’s work and how she draws on the wisdom of indigenous cultures to help us make our modern lives better.
Angeles shared a story that helped me understand why I had gotten my happiness mojo back through my Zumba experience. She told us about a man from a tribal culture that had become troubled and unhappy. The villagers had taken him to the local shaman (medicine man). After the suffering man poured out his troubles to the wise spiritual leader, the shaman sat quietly for a moment. Then, instead of giving him advice or prescribing an herbal remedy, the shaman simply asked him four questions:
1. When did you stop singing?
2. When did you stop dancing?
3. When did you stop being enchanted by story?
4. When did you stop being comforted by the sweet territory of silence?
Across all cultures, the healers and medicine people know that if someone is unhappy, they are inevitably missing one or more of these four crucial ingredients for happiness.
Without song, movement, story-telling and silence, we begin to experience a loss of soul or spirit.
Let’s take a closer look at each of these:
1. Singing: Singing can be as simple as humming or chanting or it can be a full blown aria in the shower. You don’t have to have a great voice or be on key—just singing opens the heart. Research shows that the sound of your own voice singing, chanting or humming strengthens your immune system. Even though we often think of singing as an expression of being happy, it can actually help you recover your inner peace and well-being if you’ve lost your joy.
2. Dancing/Moving Your Body: Every culture throughout history has had some form of movement in dance, sport, and exercise. Moving your body creates endorphins, the feel-good hormone. Movement and dance bring you back into your body and help you trust your body’s deep wisdom.
3. Story-telling/Sharing with Others: Story-telling is one of the oldest healing tools igniting our heart and imagination and re-enchanting the world. In writing six of the books in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, I’ve witnessed the huge value of story-telling. Make sure to share your story with others—not the victim version, but the empowered one.
4. Silence: While silence is something that’s hard to come by in our culture, it is one of the most important allies you have in raising your happiness level. Being silent, even for 10 or 15 minutes a day, allows you to touch the great mystery of life and remember who you are.
So, the next time you find yourself a little down or in a funk, remember the shaman’s four questions. Then add a bit of singing, dancing, story-telling, and silence into your day. I guarantee you’ll find they’re powerful medicine for your happiness!
About Marci Shimoff: Marci Shimoff is a #1 NY Times bestselling author, a celebrated transformational leader, and one of the nation’s leading experts on happiness, success, and unconditional love. She is the author of the runaway bestsellers Love for No Reason and Happy for No Reason, which offer revolutionary approaches to experiencing deep and lasting love and happiness. These books soared to the top of many national bestseller lists including The New York Times, Amazon, and the Wall Street Journal and have been translated into 31 languages.
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Visit Marci’s offiial blog at: http://marcishimoffblog.com/
