Dear Friend,

2015 has been a year of great learning for me: how to live with loss, how to parent a preschooler, how to prioritize self-care and how to be happy even when things aren’t going well (see that living with loss part up there).

The best thing I’ve learned this year?

Our behavior matters.

What we do every day contributes to our level of happiness and well being.

Science finally proves it!

For decades we’ve been told our level of happiness depends on our genes and our environment, but science is now showing that our behavior matters.

Even if we were born with a lower happiness level and experienced a lot of crappy things in life, we can still be happy. Not just happier than we were before, but like someone who was born happy.

I think we can all agree that this is great news!

Back in September, I had the opportunity to hang with Oprah and friends. That day I was introduced to a fast talking Harvard guy named Shawn Achor. You can meet him here if you’d like.

Shawn studies happiness and he has uncovered what many people have known for years: our behavior matters to our happiness and well being.

Why do I keep saying that?

Because it is within our control to change how we see the world. It is within our control to change how we feel in the world. There is scientific evidence to show how our behavior can train our brains to help us be happier.

Who doesn’t want to be happier?

Shawn’s books and talks are all full of excellent information about how to be happier and the science behind it.

If you are in Sacramento and you’d like to learn more about the science behind happiness and some simple techniques for sparking happiness in yourself and to your loved ones, please join me Monday nights in January at It’s All Yoga.

It is my intention to build a happiness community in Sacramento and to have our happiness grow outward. We’ll come together to learn some of the science and to put some happiness techinques into practice each week in order to jump start our own happiness.

If you’d like to learn more on your own or live out of town – check out Shawn’s website.

Please let me know what you think in the comments.

I look forward to seeing you soon!

xo,

Tami