by Tony Wilkinson
245 pages paperback
What inner skills do we need to live happily? There must be many answers, but the book develops an approach by looking at what can go wrong, at what spoils our happiness. The important thing though is not to know some magic list, but just to have a reasonable system and then practice, practice, practice as our inner lives reap more and more benefits. These are the five sets of skills we suggest.
Mindfulness
Vital for observing what goes on in the inner life and also to create inner stillness.
Benevolence
The key to combating negative emotions like anger and hatred - can you be angry and happy at the same time?
Story
We need skills to deal with problems arising from our view of the world, including our view of ourselves. All descriptive language is story and our stories are often wrong and always partial, never the whole truth. If we can change the story, we can change our world.
Letting go
Includes some key elements for dealing with our reluctance to accept change, our attachment to the past (forgiveness for example is included here) and our fears about the future.
Enjoyment
Gratitude, patience, humour, playfulness - the positive side of appreciating and enjoying what we have instead of fretting about what we don't.
Endorsements
"This is a wonderfully wise book on how we can train our minds to be happy. It's beautifully written."
Professor Lord Layard FBA (Director, Well Being Programme, LSE)
"I cannot think of a single human being who would not benefit from reading this highly intelligent, sympathetic book. Most of us are unhappy to some degree or other. Follow the way of life that this book recommends and happiness will be yours."
Dr. Anthony Seldon (Master of Wellington College and pioneer of teaching happiness skills in schools)
"This is an important and original book. Tony Wilkinson brings a wealth of experience, a keen intelligence and an enquiring mind to the thorny and complex issue of contemporary spirituality. It is a must read for anyone interested in self-knowledge."
Malcolm Stern (psychotherapist, author, Channel 4 presenter and co-founder of Alternatives)
Can anyone learn to be happy with practice? This book teaches you the skills, the author argues that happiness is based on skills which can be learnt and built up through constant practice. The skills of happiness are the skills of our inner lives. or managing how we get affected by events and people around us, and of managing our emotional states, beliefs and desires. Wilklnson offers five central skills to being happy: mindfulness, Ihe ability to observe the inner life and be still: benevolence, the goodwill to overcome difficult emotions like anger: the skills of changing limiting beliefs, which the book calls story skills, for example Ihe ability to recognize we don't see the full picture and are often wrong; letting go, tne ability to release the past and any fears for the future; and enjoyment, Ihe ability to be grateful, patient and light-hearted focusing on what we have, rather than on what we haven't. Author Tony Wilkinson has an unusual background. He spent 20 years working in a merchant bank after taking a first in philosophy at Cambridge and is an advanced student of the Japanese martial art of aikido. He attributes the development of the ideas in this book all aspects of his life. This is a greal book, wonderfully wise and beautifully written.
Embody Magazine Spring 2009
happynews.com
"Most of us are unhappy to some degree or other. Follow the way of life that this book recommends and happiness will be yours."
- Dr. Anthony Seldon, Master of Wellington College.
We all say we want to be happy. So why are we not? Most of us say we will be happy when this problem or that worry has disappeared. If we wait for our problems to go away however, we are likely NEVER to be content. In The Lost Art of Being Happy, author Tony Wilkinson explains how it is possible to live happily - right now!
Full article at Happy News
The Sunday Times
Helen Brown in The Sunday Times Style Magazine 11 November 2007 writes How to be glad in praise of The Lost Art of Being Happy.
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