Dear Reader, Over the last weeks, I’ve shared the six Pillars of Happiness — my framework to understand and nurture happiness in everyday life. Each pillar stands on its own, but together they form a solid foundation for a lighter, more joyful way of living. Here’s a reminder of each one, with links in case you missed any: Body – The science of feeling good Learn how your brain, hormones, and nervous system shape happiness — and how small everyday choices like breathing, sunlight, and...
9 days ago • 1 min read
Pillars of Happiness: Letting Go Each Tuesday, I'm reflecting on how aspects of our lives and society relate to happiness and how we can increase our happiness. This week, I'm looking at the last pillar of my framework Pillars of Happiness - letting go. This pillar ties all the concepts together. I believe that letting go is the magic ingredient of happiness. Here we are — the final pillar of the Pillars of Happiness framework. While the other pillars are about taking control, this one is...
16 days ago • 4 min read
Pillars of Happiness: Connections Each Tuesday, I'm reflecting on how aspects of our lives and society relate to happiness and how we can increase our happiness. This week, I'm looking at the fifth pillar of my framework Pillars of Happiness - connections. This pillars examines the secret sauce of happiness - research finds that connections and relationships are the strong happiness makers. What is behind that secret sauce? Here we are, Pillar 5. There’s so much talk about how humans are...
23 days ago • 4 min read
Pillars of Happiness: Resources Each Tuesday, I'm reflecting on how aspects of our lives and society relate to happiness and how we can increase our happiness. This week, I'm looking at the fourth pillar of my framework Pillars of Happiness - Resources. How can we work with belongings, skills, time, money and energy to nurture our happiness? The Pillars of Happiness is a framework I’ve developed over the years to understand happiness and its determinants. This post is about the fourth pillar:...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
Pillars of Happiness: Dreams & Desire Each Tuesday, I'm reflecting on how aspects of our lives and society relate to happiness and how we can increase our happiness. This week, I'm looking at the third pillar of my framework Pillars of Happiness - dreams & desire. This pillars explores why dreams and desire are essential for our happiness and how we can approach them so that they cause that happiness instead of frustration, disappointment and supressed energy. Self-development guru James...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Pillars of Happiness: Mind Each Tuesday, I'm reflecting on how aspects of our lives and society relate to happiness and how we can increase our happiness. This week, I'm looking at the second pillar of my framework Pillars of Happiness - mind. Let's see how happiness beliefs, the understanding of positive and negative emotions and mindfulness & presence are foundations to create long-lasting happiness. The Pillars of Happiness is a framework I’ve developed over the years to understand...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
Pillars of Happiness: Body Each Tuesday, I'm reflecting on how aspects of our lives and society relate to happiness and how we can increase our happiness. This week, I'm looking at the first pillar of my framework Pillars of Happiness - body. This is an exploration how body parts and processes are responsible for our happiness. The Pillars of Happiness is a framework I've developed over the years to understand happiness and its determinants. This post is about the first pillar, Body. Why is...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Learning Happiness Each Tuesday, I'm reflecting on how aspects of our lives and society relate to happiness and how we can increase our happiness. This week, I'm looking at the happiness equation and how our set point, life circumstances and intentional activity influence our happiness. I keep saying happiness is a learnable skill. And it is. Some people are born happy with personality traits (e.g. arousability, extraversion and negative affect) that support happiness. But if you are not born...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Anger Each Tuesday, I'm reflecting on how aspects of our lives and society relate to happiness and how we can increase our happiness. This week, I'm looking at our defence mechanism, anger. In this newsletter, I am exploring how to reduce anger in important relationships - in my case, with my kids. I have been taking a good look at anger recently. It's so energy-intensive. When I get angry, I spend a lot of time on it. I decided that I'd rather spend more time on other things. It's not that I...
2 months ago • 2 min read