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Preface
Mary Ann’s journey of understanding happiness started several years ago after we sold our business in San Francisco and moved to Southern California. Our daughter had just started preschool and after 46 years of having no time of her own, Mary Ann, had time to do anything she wanted. Most of us think that that would make us happy. But because of the way she had lived her life, full of work, projects, friends, and accomplishments, she was not comfortable with the spare time and loss of identity. She joined “mommy groups’, worked on fund raisers, volunteered for our school and other charities. Yet, as she described it later, she was “flat-lining”. Before sitting down to write our book, I asked Mary Ann to journal her perspective of those times. I intended to paraphrase her words in the foreword to set the stage for the research into “happiness” that followed. After reading her journal and feeling the angst and hopelessness in her words, I decided to leave it in her words. I believe that anyone who has suffered from depression, the loss of a loved one, a divorce, menopause, midlife or an identity crisis will relate to her words.
Her Journey
“I was in my late 40’s with a wonderful husband of 20 plus years, a 5 year old daughter in a private school, a big house in sunny Rancho Mirage, California, two vacation homes, and a yellow Porsche but still in a state that I called “flat lining”. I was irritated, moody, hopeless and dead tired. I yelled a lot. To make matters worse, I was ashamed and guilty because I knew I had the American dream. Because of my “people” skills, no one in my circle of friends, except my husband, knew that I was in a state of hopelessness.”
“After years of my verbal abuse and attacks of UMS (ugly mood swings), my husband suggested that I try drugs. Stealing the line from the Six Million Dollar Man, he would say in his FM disk jockey voice, “We have the technology”. But I refused. I didn’t even like taking aspirin. I have always been wound a little too tight, and I would say “I don’t need no stinking drugs”. Then, after a series of particularly difficult days I made the announcement that if he would accompany me on all of the doctor’s appointments, I would try drugs.”
“During the next 6 months, “The Doctors” helped me legally experiment with several anti-depressants and I hated them all. One made me hyper, one made me lose all sexual desire, one made me sleepy, and one made no difference at all. I felt like a cross between Goldilocks and Alice in Wonderland on Prozac. One day, after several months of trying different anti-depressant drugs, I was driving my car, still flat lining, but in a completely different way. I saw myself in the movie, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest” zoned out, sitting with a grin on my face and drool flowing down my chin. It was 9 am and I was on my way to a real estate class and I was comatose. That afternoon, I came home and threw the pills in the trash compactor. I am not good at doing anything gradually, especially weaning myself off of anti-depressants. After several days of electric tingles shooting down my arm, the angst triumphantly returned.”
“Now what? I was really lost. My mind was crying for peace and calm. I thought that religion or spirituality might be the answer. I bought Bible for Dummies and Spirituality for Idiots. I felt like going back to school and majoring in philosophy, theology or psychology. I felt arid inside. I was thirsty for the meaning of my life. Maybe it was a midlife crisis, I said. Maybe I should be taking some hormone replacement therapy.”
“Great idea, I thought. So off I went to a local wellness center and had everything tested. All of my levels were fine except for testosterone and progesterone. I was instructed to take all kinds of natural bio-identical hormones along with 26 other “natural, herbal” remedies; all “good stuff”. All the good stuff didn’t make me feel any better and I was gagging trying to take 26 pills every day. It took 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the evening just to consume the shoe box full of pills that had been prescribed. The thought of continuing this for the rest of my life only made me more depressed. I quit again, cold turkey.”
“In hindsight, I knew the path I was on. I was yearning for the meaning of life. I knew that an analyst wasn’t the way to go. I tried the pills. They didn’t work for me. I tried the hormone route, the herbal route, they didn’t work. Now what? I felt hopeless. I didn’t want to live my life with no enthusiasm. What was wrong with me? I was never religious so going that route seemed insincere. Where do I go from here? What did I want? I wanted knowledge. I wanted to know why religion? Why spirituality? What about philosophy? What about history? I was past 50 and I was not in the mood to go back to school for a degree in the meaning of life. I wanted answers, now.”
“Ask the Universe and the answers come. Sometimes in ways you do not expect. Mine came from my stepson, Scott, who had his own “demons to deal with”, as he would say. Having gone through the 12 step program of Alcoholics Anonymous, he had become open to new age thinking and teachings. Scott introduced me to Dr. William Kent Larkin. Dr. Larkin has a Doctorate in Theology and Psychology from Yale and Harvard and years of research and teaching in the area of Positive Psychology and neuroplasticiy of the brain. He started recommending books for me to read and I started reading voraciously.”
“I read Martin Seligman; Mihaly Csiksentmilhalyi; David Burns; Katie Byron; Budha; Roger Walsh; Jonathan Haidt; Sonya Lubomirsky; Chris Peterson; Ed Diener; Esther Hicks; Dalai Lama; Nathaniel Brandon; George Vaillant; Tom Rath; Marcus Buckingham; Bruce Lipton; Jeffrey Schwartz; Barbara Frederickson; David Cooperrider; and of course, Dr. Bill Larkin.”
“These books have become my textbooks, my bibles. I have fallen in love with the authors. Their dedication and a lifetime commitment to this business of happiness are truly remarkable. I am so grateful to be able to reap the benefits of their 20 or 30 or 40 years, of research in a few days of reading.”
“So where has the four years of work with Dr. Larkin and the Applied Neuroscience Institute and the thousands of hours of research taken me?” “My journey has taken me to a truly magnificent place; a place of love, peace, joy and gratitude without drugs or long hours of meditation. Along the way, I also found my meaning of life which I now know is an important ingredient in the formula for happiness. I learned that all of the knowledge in the Universe can not bring happiness. Knowing is not being. Happiness comes from the mind not from things or events. To achieve enduring happiness we must use tools to change our view of ourselves and the world in a positive and permanent way.”
“I also learned that it doesn’t take years of research, training, and meditation to achieve enduring happiness, it takes tools and dedication. Unfortunately, among the great scholars and authors of “happiness”, few have developed effective tools to help us rewire our brains to remain in a state of positive “being”. That has become my mission and goal; to develop the tools of happiness; the techniques and mental exercises, that if done with dedication, will produce a positive and lasting state of “being” for anyone who is willing to dedicate the time and effort to allow happiness to consume their life.”
“To that end, we started the Applied Happiness Foundation whose mission is to develop and teach the tools necessary to achieve a permanently happier state of being.”
Mary Ann Cullens
For more information about Applied Happiness please go to the About Applied Happiness touch plate.
For more information about the Applied Happiness Foundation please go to the Home touch plate.
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