
By Michelle Guillemard. I’ve just returned from a conference entitled 'Happiness & its causes'. Hosted by Gretel Killeen, and featuring some inspirational speakers and panellists like Naomi Wolf, Professor Barbara Fredrickson, Hugh Mackay and Margaret Throsby, the conference was an emotional and insightful foray into happiness, wholeness and positivity.
We've dealt with not only what happiness is, but also with the essence of what it means to experience a broad spectrum of emotions, such as sadness, loss, anger, contentment and bliss. We’ve explored forgiveness and how one can go about moving on with Lindy-Chamberlain-Creighton, who was falsely accused of murdering her baby when a dingo took it in 1980. Former Premier Bob Carr discussed the importance of literature and enlightenment in achieving contentment. Naomi Wolf looked at the effect of the media, advertising and body image on women.
I’ve put together a collection of the points that were touched on throughout the day to provoke some thought in you:
"How well did you love? How fully did you live? How deeply did you learn to let go?" This quote from Buddha was echoed by Ken Marslew in a panel discussion about forgiveness. Ken lost his 18-year-old son Michael in 1994 during an armed robbery.
"Moving on is like trying to eat an elephant. If you take it bit by bit, you’ll get there eventually, but if you try to eat the whole elephant at once it will just fall and crush you." Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton drew on this analogy when discussing forgiveness in her plight.
"It is only through loving that we are made whole."
"We are healed by a suffering only by experiencing it in full."
"We grow through pain and we learn more from failure than from success." Hugh Mackay (Psychologist, Social Researcher and Author) made these poignant statements when he discussed whether or not happiness is beyond our control.
"One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, ‘My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.’ The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked, ‘Which wolf wins?’ The old Cherokee simply replied, ‘The one you feed.’" Professor Barbara Fredrickson (University of North Carolina, USA) told this old American indian tale in her presentation on the power of positive emotions.
"Everything was better when everything was worse." – Barry Schwartz (Author and Dorwin Cartwright Professor of Social Theory and Social Action, Swarthmore College USA) on how too much choice affects our happiness.
"In the 1960s, models were eight per cent thinner than the average woman. Today, they are thirty per cent thinner." Naomi Wolf on images of beauty in the media and how these influence happiness.
When Gretel welcomed us in the morning, she remarked that she loved the fact that the conference was named 'Happiness and its causes', because this assumes that happiness is not a natural state, despite the fact that we feel need to be happy one hundred per cent of the time.
I think this is a really valuable point. If we yearn for happiness it means we are missing it. Happiness is not something we can easily control but learning how to cope with the full spectrum of emotions will inevitably make us whole.