Written without “yoga jargon,” Feeling Happy explores the nature of happiness as a basic human capacity—and illuminates how suffering, imbalanced emotion, and confusion can cast a veil over one’s ability to truly feel happy.
What is the fully embodied experience of happiness, and is there any way for it to last? Feeling Happy helps you explore what happiness is and offers practical steps toward cultivating happiness as a deep, embodied expression of life and connection to others. Using familiar examples from everyday life, traditional understanding of one’s search for happiness, stories, and humor, Freeman and Taylor demonstrate how to find your way back home to the essence of who you are, and the direct experience of what it feels like to be truly happy.
The book offers 24 accessible practices—meditations, simple movements, and breathing exercises—along with 22 black-and-white illustrative photos as guides along the path toward fully embodying happiness. These practices together with insight into the nature of being, will allow you to wake up and integrate the physical body, heart, and mind through the breath so that even in difficult times, compassion, equanimity, and happiness can emerge.
Richard Freeman and Mary Taylor draw from their years of experience practicing and teaching yoga, meditation and the philosophical interfacing of yoga and Buddhism to explore what happiness is and to offer practical steps toward cultivating happiness as a deep, embodied expression of life. They offer insight into the nature of happiness as a basic human capacity—and illuminate how suffering, imbalanced emotion, and confusion can cast a veil over one’s ability to truly feel happy.
Some of the practices · Focusing and calming the mind · Observing and engaging the breath as a guide · Working with difficulty and vulnerability · Keeping a tender and open heart · Building authenticity and presence · Attuning to yourself and to others · Cultivating kindness and compassion in complex times · And more
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This book reflects the warm, genuine teachings Richard and Mary have shared for decades. What I appreciate most is that it doesn’t promise a life of constant joy and contentment. Instead, it offers a way to find fleeting moments of happiness when needed and perhaps extend them. It's an easy read, perfect for picking up throughout the day for a quick boost or to sit down with for an in depth study.