Mary Oliver is a Pulitzer Prize winning poet and in her poem “The Truro Bear” has a wonderful line –
… the seed
has been planted, and when has happiness ever
required much evidence to begin…
Happiness, like all emotions, begins in our minds. Neurologist Lisa Feldman Barrett observes that our brains predict how we will feel in certain situations. But we also have the ability to choose how we will predict.
In other words, just because we were anxious yesterday does not mean we need to predict we will feel anxious today. We can predict that we will feel happy. We can imagine ourselves feeling happy. This is the seed of happiness Oliver points us towards.
Sometimes when I feel stressed or anxious I actuality spell out the word h.a.p.p.y. in my mind. It is my seed.
On Emotions 