8 Takeaways From The Happiness & Its Causes Conference.

happiness & its causes

Last week we went to the Happiness & Its Causes Conference as the official bloggers! What an amazing couple of days.

We’re all for conferences: nothing beats face to face networking and the buzz of being among like minded people. PLUS investing in yourself, well, there really is no better investment. You can never know enough, there is always more to learn!

AND when you put yourself out there, step outside of your norm, do something your brain isn’t used to… we guarantee you will be rewarded with genius ideas and AHA! Moments from every corner.

We’re all for sharing… because it’s very caring and we love you! There were some definite moments of clarity during the conference for us and so, here they are!

Our 8 Takeaways from the Happiness & Its Causes Conference

BUT FIRST! One of the BIG BIG reasons we were so darn excited to be bloggers for the Happiness & Its Causes Conference was because the Dalai Lama was opening the show… yes… the DALAI. LAMA! The morning we were supposed to catch our flight at 7am from Canberra-Sydney (a quick 25 minute flight) our car wouldn’t start due to the minus degrees weather we were experiencing in Canberra… so… we missed our flight and therefore MISSED the Dalai Lama. Yes we MISSED. THE. DALAI. LAMA!

We soon got over it and said we would read the overview of his talk… we then went to catch the 10am flight to Sydney (which we did not miss… yay!) only to get caught in the pouring rain in Sydney. We arrived to the conference just after lunch, looking more like drowned rats rather than merrymakers. BUT we did not get sad… we did not get annoyed, we just thought how amazing it was that we were finally at the conference and how fun it is to dance in the rain!  The moral of our story… book a flight the day before merrymakers 🙂 AND always… ALWAYS dance in the rain.

Ok! Back to the takeaways…

ONE: Do not waste one breath or one second of your life not doing what you want to do. If and when you say this out loud there is a ‘but’ that follows… STOP and change that to ‘But what?!’ This was from Allan Sparkes. We loved this. It aligns perfectly with our follow your bliss message. Do what you want to do, find a way, make it happen.

TWO: Moments of happiness grow where attention flows. What you focus on should be things that make you happy – Susan Pearse. Susan also shared the stat that the average person spends 47% of their time doing one thing… and thinking about another… woha… it’s time to get mindful!

THREE: ALL emotions are valid… it’s about how we use them intelligently – Sue Langley. This was a huge AHA! Moment for us. Sometimes we might be sad or annoyed and try and cover this up with happiness. BUT, it’s important that we allow ourselves to feel all emotions (after all this is what makes us human).

FOUR: Face to face relationships will always increase happiness. Gretchen Rubin. Gretchen also spoke about the importance of keeping in touch with family and friends, even if it’s with a boring update (it’s ok to be boring she said!). Take turns sending updates every 3-4 days. Have the rule that you don’t NEED to respond to every update… but it’s nice to know the little things that happen during every day life and this connection will increase happiness.

FIVE: Technology is a good servant but a bad master, again from Gretchen Rubin. We loved this. As bloggers and social media addicts this was a VERY good message for us to hear. It’s important to be mindful and live the moment you’re living (this does not include scrolling through Instagram!). Be mindful of technology and whether it’s running your life or you’re running it.

SIX: Is your worry a ‘yellow car’. Now you kind of needed to be there to understand the yellow car reference. BUT! Basically, this technique is looking at all your worries and asking yourself if there is action you can take RIGHT NOW to make that worry go away or better. If there is no action you can take right this moment… then stop letting it take over your thoughts, your brain and your life – Toni Powell.

SEVEN: You can withstand your negative emotions. They make life worth living. Dr Robert Biswas-Diener spoke again about the importance of embracing our ‘down times’. The moments when we are uncomfortable should be embraced and lived fully.

EIGHT: Optimism… take it, grab it, hold it. Optimism works! This was from Bob Brown. His talk was heavily focused on this area of Tasmania that is being destroyed by mining and logging (this makes us sad). But we agree: optimism works! Our thoughts have so much power over our lives and others. It’s like our affirmations we use… when you say them enough over and over, you start to believe them and they become your normal thoughts.

This conference was a real winner for us because it talked about the importance of being optimistic and overall happiness (we’re all for this!). BUT… it also taught us to embrace our ‘negative’ emotions… in fact we should stop calling them negative emotions all together.

All emotions are equal and we feel each of them because we are human. It is human to feel. When we are open and allow ourselves to live through the emotion we will reach a more balanced and content life.

OH! We must mention that the conference was at Luna Park… which just adds to the awesomeness… which meant, YES! We got to ride all the rides!

We’d love to hear your thoughts on our AHA! Moments. Did any ring true with you or perhaps you had a light bulb switch on when you read one? Tell us all about it… leave us a comment below!

Always merrymaking,

Emma + Carla

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