“Don’t waste time on what’s not important. Don’t get sucked into the drama. Get on with it: don’t dwell on the past. Be a big person; be generous of spirit; be the person you’d admire.”
Allegra Huston
AuthorAre you happy? I mean really happy?
The fact that you are reading the JollyCog site would suggest not, and you are not alone. No one is happy all of the time. With the challenges life throws at us, we are constantly ducking and diving, while striving for fleeting moments of happiness.
Being happy takes work. Being happy can be exhausting.
Happiness is a balancing act between various aspects of our life. We might love our job and be physically fit, yet lonely. We might have loads of friends and be financially in a good way, yet hate our job. The parts of our lives that don’t quite go to plan can bring us down.
So what can you do?
The approach Martin & I have taken in our own lives is to use the principles of Wellness, and JollyCog was set up so we can share our journey towards Wellness with you!
But it also gives you the platform to share your journey with us. It gives you the chance to be part of something bigger. A community you can lean on. A place where you can share your ideas, get support, and progress with like-minded happiness-seekers. JollyCog means you wont be alone on your journey.
Join us on that road to happiness and share your experiences along the way. Let’s make the world a better place. Embrace the JollyCog as a symbol of your path to true happiness.
Let us start the ball rolling by introducing ourselves and our motivations for starting this community.
Martin
You live life forwards and learn backward. When I look back at my life, I would not want to live it again – unless I knew what I know today!
Growing up in a rural part of Denmark during the 70s and 80 was very different from what life is like for kids today. Back then, kids were supposed to be seen, not heard. Parents figured that as long as no one was dead, all was well! I suffered tremendous social anxiety as a kid, making every day of going to school an unpleasant experience (I want to say nightmare, but it sounds too melodramatic). No grownup knew how I felt back then, and no adult asked. Not once. It was a different time. What I learned as a kid was to rely on toughness to get through the day.
Skip ahead 35 years of learning. Today I’m 47 and still rely on necessary toughness. But only for striving towards the ambitious goals I have set for myself in life, not for pure survival. I realize today that I live my life for accomplishment to a large extent. I have imagined the end of my life and believe that when I am on my deathbed, it will be the things I had to fight for the most that will make me the proudest. I hope to die with a smile on my face. This is true for me, perhaps because I have a high tolerance for dopamine. For some of you reading this, my personal life goals are pointless. I speculate sometimes if how we choose to live our lives depend on how our biological reward systems function. What I’m saying is – this is just who I am and I’m not trying to convince you that my way of living is the only right one.
At this stage of my life, I also see clearly that the process of working towards my goals should be one filled with as much joy and moments of happiness as possible. To that end, I rely heavily on the life lessons I have learned and the information about wellness Andy and I share here on JollyCog. I genuinely hope you will take the time to dig into the wellness categories where you feel the biggest need for more joy and happiness in your life.
Kids don’t do what you say, they do what you do. I try and lead by example and show my children how I’m true to myself and unrelenting in living life in a way that makes sense to me, regardless of how much effort it takes sometimes. Still, at times, the gray hairs in my sideburns get the better of me and I offer them advice! This is what I want them to know if I kicked the bucket tomorrow:
- Stop trying to please everyone! It’s impossible. Focus on what makes you happy and you’ll often find yourself surrounded by your kind of people. The kind that vibrate the same way you do!
- Stay away from toxic, unhealthy people.
- Become a master of sleep! I have suffered far too much anxiety in my life, especially related to my health, simply because I wasn’t getting enough sleep at the right time of the day. It’s hard to overemphasize the importance of good sleep, including when you are young! You can’t just absorb bad sleep, no matter your age. Bad sleep catches up to you – guaranteed!
- Don’t accept stress past a certain level. Nothing is worth getting sick or dying over.
- Have your hormones checked by a sympathetic doctor specializing in hormonal health if you’re feeling bad! It’s the one area of modern medicine (together with mental health problems) where doctors in general are the least knowledgable.
- Breathe! Breathing correctly is of major importance for your well-being.
Wonder if that’s it? I guess that’s all I got kids! 🙂
Andy
Some of my earliest memories were of being teased at school. To other kids, I was different. At the age of around 5, my family up sticks and moved from Canada to the UK. In school, every time I opened my mouth and spoke in a strange accent, other kids laughed at me. I was teased in the playground. To cut a long story short, this constant humiliation lead me to become introverted, shy, and reclusive.
As a teenager, things were a little easier. With my accent long gone, I now enjoyed school. But the shyness persisted. In a bid to break out from these shackles, I started dressing up in ways that would force me to deal with attention. I dyed my hair blonde, black, orange. Whatver I could get away with at the Grammar school I attended.
As an idealistic teenager, my goal in life was to become a doctor, helping and healing people. That never quite worked out for one reason or another, but was probably for the best. As I got older, I became more and more disillusioned with modern medicine which seems orchestrated to keep people sick and make pharmaceutical companies rich.
One of my big passions is nutrition and its power to heal disease. Using nutrition alone, I’ve reduced my own blood pressure, lowered blood triglycerides and reduced body fat. But I love helping others too. A friend of mine is diabetic and taking pills. Her doctor said that if she didn’t get her fasting glucose down she’d need to start injections. She came to visit for a week so I took the opportunity. She ate my diet and only my diet. Her fasting blood glucose levels fell from around 15.0 down to 7.0 inside three days. She is continuing with the diet in an attempt to reverse diabetes completely. Her doctor is super impressed with her.
But there was one problem I suffered from which didn’t seem to get better. I suffered unexplained bouts of depression.
My doctor put me on anti-depressants, but they made me feel worse. When I saw “suicide” as a possible side-effect (WTF!!), I stopped immediately and started to look for a more holistic approach to wellness.
I started down the path of mindfulness, meditation, and the role wellness has in our daily health and happiness.
When I am not sat at my computer, I love to grab my camera and go. Living in beautiful North Wales, there are just so many photographs waiting to be taken.
So what is your story? What has brought you to JollyCog?