Happier Now: How to Stop Chasing Perfection and Embrace Everyday Moments (Even the Difficult Ones)

188 Pages·2018·0.94 MB·English

by  Kogan

For my Mia.
I love you
more
always.
Contents Practices
Gratitudes
Introduction
PART 1 The Journey to Happier
CHAPTER 1 I’ll Be Happy When . . .
CHAPTER 2 Gratitude to the Rescue
CHAPTER 3 The Breaking Point
CHAPTER 4 It’s Okay to Be Not Okay
PART 2 Your Daily Anchors for Becoming Happier Now
CHAPTER 5 Developing Your Happier Practice
CHAPTER 6 Acceptance
CHAPTER 7 Gratitude
CHAPTER 8 Intentional Kindness
CHAPTER 9 The Bigger Why
CHAPTER 10 Self-Care
CHAPTER 11 Becoming a Force of Good in the World
EPILOGUE A Letter to My Daughter
Select Bibliography
About the Author
About Sounds True
Copyright
Praise for Happier Now
Practices
I’ll Be Happy When . . .
Five-Minute Joy Break
What Are You Grateful For?
Breaking Fear into Parts
Your Safe Place
Be. Here. Now.
I’m Happier Now Because . . .
Creating Your Daily Anchors
Reconnect to Your Strength
Where You Begin
Leaving the Valley of Suffering
Permission Slip
Embracing Your Stress
Quiet Stillness Ritual
Creating a Gratitude Ritual
Savor It
Gratitude Antidote
Gratitude Zoom
Imagine Life Without This
I Appreciate You
Check In
Overcoming Obstacles to Kindness
Kindness Sprinkles
Scheduling Kindness
Lens of Compassion
From Frustration to Advanced Kindness
Moments of Meaning
Identify Your Strengths
To-Do List Makeover
Exploring Meaning
Self-Gratitude
Reframing Harsh Self-Talk
Creating Your Self-Care Ritual
Scheduling Rest
Simple Ways to Explore Your Creativity
Five-Minute Happier Workout
Gratitudes
T
o my parents, my heroes, my most amazing humans—thank you for
you. None of this incredible, difficult, beautiful journey would be possible
without you, your love, your care, your courage, your being. This book in its
entirety is my letter of gratitude and love for you. I’ve been lucky to grow up
with four loving grandparents, and I’m deeply grateful to my grandpa Misha,
without whom we would not have dared to begin our journey to the United
States, and to my grandmas Mirra and Sarra, and grandpa Sasha, who are no
longer with us but are always in my heart.
I’m so grateful to Jaime Schwalb at Sounds True for nurturing this book—
and me—with such tender care and passion. Thank you for believing in my
voice before I did. Thank you to the entire team at Sounds True for your
creativity, tenacity, and working like true partners through every step of creating
and bringing this book to life.
Joelle Hann, my incredible editor, I’m eternally grateful for your wisdom,
insight, and the kindness of your guidance. You have been an invaluable partner
in helping bring my best self to write the best version of this book.
Thank you to my fearless agent, Janis Donnaud, for sticking with me and
making sure we found the best home for this book. I am grateful for your
tenacity and always looking out for me.
A huge thank you to the Happier team, past and present, close and far, for
your hard work and dedication to bringing our mission of helping millions of
people cultivate their happier skills. To everyone who has supported me on this
quest, including our investors, advisors, and friends—thank you for being part of
the most meaningful and unexpected journey of my life.
I wish I could give an enormous, larger-than-life hug to the Happier
community and all the kind souls who have inspired, supported, and encouraged
me through the years and continue to do so every day. This book isn’t mine
alone—it’s ours, together. Thank you for your courage not only to be real and to
be okay with not always being okay, but also to fight for moments of joy and
beauty and kindness.
My deepest gratitude to the many people who generously shared their stories
for this book. Some of you are dear friends, others I’ve never met in person, but
you have all enriched this book by sharing parts of yourself—and helped to
inspire many by doing so.
When the student is ready the teacher will appear. This was true in my case.
Janet, my teacher and spiritual guide, I’m so grateful for your acceptance and
invaluable guidance. I hope I honored your wisdom in this book; I continue to
cherish it daily. I have also been incredibly lucky to learn from so many amazing
yoga teachers—my soul sister Joanna, JoJo, Larissa, Elena, David, Amy, and
many more. Thank you for your dedication in sharing yourselves and this sacred
tradition, which has become my life’s anchor. And without listing them all, I
want to offer my deepest gratitude to the many teachers whose words have
helped guide me, even though I’ve never met them.
My dear Sharon, thank you for your friendship, for flying with me to catch
the rainbow, and for catching me when I fall. Thank you for seeing my true self
before I had the courage to allow it to emerge.
The journey that led to this book began almost thirty years ago, and for
twenty of those years I’ve walked this path with Avi, my husband, my partner,
my greatest supporter, my love. I don’t have the words to express my gratitude
to you for holding my hand through this rocky, amazing, scary, incredible
adventure, for believing in me when I wanted to give up, for making me smile,
for reading endless drafts, and for wrapping me with your kindness when the
world was too harsh. I love you for always.
My Mia, my most amazing, dearest, magical human. This book is for you
and because of you. Thank you for being the light on this journey, for being my
staunch supporter, and for your invaluable help with the bibliography. But most
of all, thank you for your being. I love you, more.
None of what we do, we do alone, and I’m grateful for the energy, the spirit,
the beauty that is this life force that is within and surrounds us.
And finally, I offer my gratitude to you, my dear readers, for joining me on
this journey. Knowing that this book might help another person find more
moments of joy and weather life’s storms with strength and compassion has been
the bridge of resilience that carried me through my own storms as I wrote it.
Introduction
I
sat on the steps outside my company’s office, leaning against the brick
wall. It was a chilly October night. I wasn’t wearing a jacket but I didn’t feel
cold—even though I’m always cold. It was around two in the morning. I didn’t
have a clue as to how long I had been sitting there or where I needed to be.
Our launch of Happier had been going extremely well. It had been a year of
very hard work to bring our app—“A Social Network Dedicated to Happy
Moments,” as the New York Times called it—to life. Happier was a place for
people to share little moments they were grateful for, no matter how small. I
knew that gratitude worked (based on mountains of scientific research). It had
helped me shift from always trying to chase happiness through hard work and
achievements to being able to experience the many moments of joy, kindness,
and beauty that were already present in my life. Happier mattered to me like no
other company I had launched or worked at. It was born not just from an idea but
also from my own struggles to feel content, to be in peaceful agreement with my
life rather than constantly pushing and battling it.
I had a deep sense of gratitude for the great team of people who made the
app and the launch happen, for having investors, friends, and family who had
supported us. And there was so much to celebrate. Enthusiastic users. Fan mail
telling us how lives were changed by using Happier. Invitations to exclusive
conferences, speaking engagements, and lots of great press. It was the best a
start-up could hope for at this early stage, and I knew it.
So why was I sliding into a total meltdown at work, at home, and in every
part of my life?
Why were strangers asking me if I was all right as I stood frozen in stores, on
streets, or inches away from the subway tracks?
Why did my daughter, who meant the world to me, and my husband, who
was my rock, seem as if they were avoiding me?
Why did I wake up every morning with an intense feeling of dread?