Harvesting Happiness Talk Radio Welcomes Naomi Kryske and Jody Bremer May 22

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By Lisa Cypers Kamen, Harvesting Happines 4 Heroes – Originally published in The Huffington Post

Economists and the media tell us we have just come back from the precipice of the “fiscal cliff.” I posit that we are on the verge of an even more serious crisis, “The Emotional Ledge,” a result of allowing ourselves to believe everything we see, hear, feel and think. This impairs our ability to self-regulate and undermines our emotional and physical safety, well-being, sense of self and happiness.

Like other dystopian authors, Aldous Huxley held a pretty bleak view of society. In A Brave New World, his future looks something like this: We live to consume. We’re brainwashed by advertisements and institutions that make us feel as though we’re free, even as they wipe out any originality and creativity in us. We lack meaningful relationships. We live in a society where art and religion are four-letter words, but where science reigns supreme. Science controls how we live, when we die, and what we look like; we’re all born in labs, adjusted to be exactly how society wants us to be.

Some aspects of this dreary dystopia seem farfetched (after all, we’re not all born in laboratories, and most of us still value deep connections with our fellow humans). But there’s also some fitting forecasting at play here: Our society is becoming more preoccupied with consumption, and technology has begun to rule many of our lives. And advertising and media do play a strong role in how we humans think about the world, which can threaten our originality — if we let it.

Huxley’s view of the future doesn’t have to be our future. Yes, the world is imperfect. There are a lot of negative forces at play. But with the right attitude and approach to life, we can avoid making Huxley’s terrifying vision of society our reality. It’s time to embrace the United States of Amazing.

What is the United States of Amazing? This is no saccharin-sweet view on life, and it’s not a Pollyanna perspective. It’s the art of swallowing the bitter pills that come from life’s disappointments and choosing happiness as a vitamin regime. So, with 2013 right around the corner, I urge you to explore this brave new world with these Emotionally Intelligent tools in your arsenal:

• Might
• Gratitude
• Kindness
• Passion
• Empathy
• Amusement
• Inquisitiveness
• Curiosity
• Transparency
• Vibrancy
• Authenticity
• Love
• Bravery
• Courage
• Creativity
• Compassion

The outcome is always unknown, but by applying the United States of Amazing viewpoint to your journey, you’ll find the future looks brighter than it does bleak.

Tags: The Huffington Post

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By Lisa Cypers Kamen, Harvesting Happines 4 Heroes – Originally published in The Huffington Post

Joseph Heller’s 1961 novel Catch-22 is a witty, ironic discussion of the double binds our WWII troops faced due to the military bureaucracy. But here’s the thing: More than 50 years later, this double-bind hasn’t gotten any better. The term Heller coined to describe “no-win” military policies can still be used to describe many of the situations our veterans face as they return home from war. The latest Catch-22 for our heroes? Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder stigma in hiring.

In a recent New York Post piece, numerous veterans describe this Catch-22 in blatant terms: If they disclose that they suffer PTSD, the New York Police Department won’t hire them. But if they hide their PTSD from the military (and the NYPD, which receives the military’s medical files), veterans run the risk of losing their health care if the condition gets more severe.

One veteran said he passed the NYPD entrance exam in 2006, before his tour overseas. When he developed PTSD from the fighting and admitted it to the military, they shared that information with the police department. NYPD then disqualified him from serving on the force.

This is where PTSD stigma has gotten our veterans.

Although it’s understandable for a police department to require mental health screenings for officers who may have to use deadly force, that doesn’t change the fact that our veterans are in a devastating double bind. Our veterans still face dire jobless rates,and often turn to addiction or self-harm when they have nowhere else to go for help. Seeking help should be seen as honorable, courageous and an important step in taking care of one’s health; but because of the stigma surrounding PTSD, a veteran wears a scarlet letter as soon as he or she divulges any PTSD symptoms. It’s time for stigma to stop trumping our veterans’ strengths and virtue.

One way to decrease these ill feelings toward PTSD, a condition affecting nearly one-third of our troops is to ramp up public education efforts. Our veterans and their families aren’t the only ones who need to understand what it means to live with this condition; employers and other civilians are a big piece of the puzzle. When we teach employers and the public to understand and accept PTSD as a treatable condition, we are helping our veterans slowly break free from this stigma.

Tags: The Huffington Post

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By Lisa Cypers Kamen, Harvesting Happines 4 Heroes – Originally published in The Huffington Post

Our nation has had a heartbreaking few days. The tragedy at Sandy HookElementary School has left Connecticut, the United States and the world overcome with grief. As the nation struggles to provide solutions amid this latest instance of death and destruction, gun control has dominated our discourse. But I propose we focus on the person holding the gun, not just the gun itself. Mental illness can’t be taboo any longer.

Sandy Hook, Aurora, Columbine and other mass shootings are analyzed time and again as isolated events, but there are a few traits these tragedies typically share. One of these is mental illness in the gunman’s medical history. Although nothing is confirmed yet in the Connecticut massacre, there are reports that Adam Lanza may have suffered from Asperger’s, and these have taken over the media. All this speculation brings up two issues: How do we ensure that individuals who need help receive it? And in the wake of such tragedies, how do we protect mentally ill individuals from facing even more stigma than they already do?

The answer to both is integrated wellness.

Stigma follows mental illness like a shadow. Studies have shown that this stigma, whether through verbal slurs, job discrimination, or inadequate health insurance coverage, deters people from seeking out the help they need to turn their trauma into growth. With 26.2 percent of Americans suffering from mental illness each year, and 6 percent living with one classified as severe, it’s time to approach this issue with compassion, humanity, and an open mind.

Stigma-free care for the mentally ill isn’t about prescribing pills. It’s not about getting them back to a predetermined “normal.” It means taking an overarching approach to wellness that addresses an individual’s needs on an emotional, physical and mental level. Treatment is offered without judgment or expectations, instead letting the individual’s needs guide the process. Stigma is left at the door.

Another way to reduce stigma is simply to develop new, compassionate tools for accepting others. With kindness, empathy and good social connections to guide us, we can diminish the stigma and approach others with a non-judgmental, understanding heart. You’ll be surprised how many problems this new approach to acceptance will solve.

A perfect mental health system won’t prevent every mass shooting from occurring, and neither will the most stringent gun control laws in the world. But by working together to reduce the stigma toward mentally ill individuals, we can give people the treatment and acceptance they need. And that will make the world a safer, happier place for all of us.

Tags: The Huffington Post

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By Lisa Cypers Kamen, Harvesting Happines 4 Heroes – Originally published in The Huffington Post

Lately, I’ve been completely captivated by the concept of Living Out Loud. Don’t worry: it’s not another one of those wishy-washy ideas dreamt up by a warm and fuzzy idealist. Living Out Loud is a concrete thing, and I’ve seen its healing power. It goes like this: Each of us has the power to confront the emotions that are keeping us from happiness, and by doing so, we can transform that negative energy into motivation for living with passion, excitement and fearlessness. And one of the best ways to let out repressed emotions is through the art of Spoken Word, poetry performed onstage and has strong ties to storytelling.

That’s why I teamed up with Ret. U.S. Army Sgt. Denoh Greer, educational specialist Joe Brightman and the Boys and Girls Clubs of Malibu to host a Spoken Word Pilot Program exploring fear and trauma. During the seven-week workshop, middle-schoolers from the Boys and Girls Clubs of Malibu shared their experiences with bullying and their emotions about it. Working in a virtual classroom with Denoh and Joe, the kids turned their emotions into deeply personal Spoken Word dialogues. They presented their spoken word pieces during the TEDxMalibu 2012: Living Out Loud = LOL conference in Malibu, and I could tell every member of the audience was as impacted by these presentations as the kids were.

Although there are different levels of fear, we all experience it, sometimes numerous times within a single day. Fear has the unique ability to hold us back from Living Out Loud — hence Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s famous quote, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” As a positive psychology coach working to heal Veterans’ invisible wounds of war, I was especially interested in exploring the common threads of the inner (emotional) and outer (battle) war experience. It would undermine the seriousness of combat and PTSD to compare it to the daily fears civilians face; however, my work with the Boys & Girls Clubs demonstrates the power of Spoken Word to help people of all ages overcome their negative emotions regardless of the source of their trauma or fear.

“Harvesting Happiness Through Spoken Word” inter-woven with Sgt. Denoh Grear’s “Pieces of PTSD” project is just one of several inspiring presentations that took place at the TEDxMalibu 2012: Living Out Loud = LOL event at the Malibu Jewish Center & Synagogue. During the daylong event, numerous speakers shared stories to mtoivate each of us to live every day with audacity, fearlessness and positive energy. Some of the highlights included talks from author Agapi Stassinopoulos, Olympian Greg Louganis, film producer Adam Leipzig and Dr. Benjamin La Brot, 2012 CNN Hero of the Year Nominee. If you attended, I can guarantee you walked away feeling more in tune with your emotions and more inspired to start Living Out Loud.

Tags: The Huffington Post

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By Lisa Cypers Kamen, Harvesting Happines 4 Heroes – Originally published in The Huffington Post

I present my gratitude manifesto. Before the pumpkin pie satisfies our collective sweet tooth, before the tryptophan in the turkey makes us sleepy, before the world starts counting down the minutes to Black Friday, let’s stop to reflect. I hit pause on my increasingly fast-paced life to express thanks. Gratitude. For our bodies, that carry us each day. For our liberty. Our free will. Our ability to live our lives as we want, to change our lives in an instant, to hold our happiness in our hands. I feel the deepest possible gratitude for our troops. For our soldiers and their loved ones, who make the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf, who fight for our well-being, for our freedom. We may not always agree with the crusades they are asked to take on, but even in that there is liberty, in the right to disagree, and that is gratitude-worthy. I was reminded just a few short weeks ago how grateful I am for the right to vote: in an election, in my daily life.

I am eternally grateful for family, friends, colleagues and invisible fans. For the ones who I am privileged enough to hold close, and for the ones I love from a distance. I express thanks for what we consider basic, food and shelter, which Hurricane Sandy again reminded us are not that basic. I am thankful for having enough food, enough shelter, enough gas, enough heat, enough electricity, enough transportation, enough, enough, enough everything.

Let us show gratitude for our love, empathy, compassion, strength of heart and ability to look, listen and hear what is said and that which is unspoken. Now is the time to honor our intuition, our sixth-sense, our moral compass, our inner true North, our souls, our spiritual practice (whatever that looks like). Thank you God – God as a noun, verb, adjective, action, or myth. Because we are lucky to have the right to believe, or not to believe.

Thank you universe, for the universe: the moon, sun, stars, planets and great mysteries of our galaxy and beyond, both seen and unseen. Thank you, feelings of wonderment and awe, for making me feel forever young. Thank you hope, optimism, courage, strength, resilience and belief in all possibilities – you carry us, even in the darkest, most difficult and uncertain of times.

I urge you to take a moment and express your thanks like I just did. It will feel all the more meaningful when you do.

Tags: The Huffington Post