Kintsugi Magazine Spring Issue

SPRING - ISSUE 5

Art · Culture Fashion · Beauty Travel · Self

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From the editor Inspiring yourself and those around you to bring happiness and change into the lives of others.

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The Mindful Five Calm your mind and soul this Spring.

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Reading List From mother and daughter-healing to solving problems before they start, this season’s new books offer a wealth of life skills and insight to plunder.

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Lessons Learned A good teacher is a gift that inspires long after we leave the classroom, says Dr Asma Naheed.

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Five apps for…

Happiness If your own happiness is always at the bottom of your to-do list, these apps provide helpful stepping stones to contentment.

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Laugh Out Loud From releasing endorphins to boosting the immune system, there is a reason that laughter is often said to be the best medicine.

Annabelle Spranklen attempts her first laughing yoga class.

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Labour of Love As she releases her first book, Love it or Leave it, author and happiness consultant Samantha Clarke meets Elle Blakeman to talk about helping people to find joy and purpose in their work.

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Happiness Heroes From politicians and scientists to chefs, writers and monks, we seek out the global gamechangers looking to uncover the truth about happiness…

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Do What You Love The Japanese have a word for something that combines the joy of living with a sense of hope and purpose – Ikigai. Beth Kempton explores how to find yours…

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Happy Nation Is Scandinavian living still the ultimate recipe for happiness? As Finland and its contented neighbours continue to top happiness charts worldwide, Emma Johnson goes in search of the Nordic utopia.

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Eight Secrets of Happiness

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Spring Launches The latest seasonal beauty products to soothe and cleanse this Spring…

With tips, advice and guidance gathered from happy states across the globe, and from books and podcasts on wellbeing and joy, this is the essential Kintsugi guide to every day happiness…

Editor-in-Chief Al Reem Al Tenaiji

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Checks and Balances

Managing Editor Dr Asma Naheed

Monochrome makes the perfect playmate to this season’s eye-catching checks in our seasonal fashion shoot.

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From Kimono to Catwalk As London’s V&A museum prepares to open a new show dedicated to this most Japanese of fashion pieces, Claire Brayford delves into the great history of the kimono we need to stop people-pleasing and put ourselves at the top of our to-do lists.

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Food for Thought

Our founding editor Al Reem Al Tenaiji asks why nutrition advice is so complicated.

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The Cracked Pot Chinese wisdom in the beauty in our imperfections.

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Planting the seed of joy

Editor Elle Blakeman Editorial Assistants Paris Starr Annabelle Spranklen Creative Director Rosemary Macgregor Sub Editor Bruno MacDonald

Finding solace and happiness in a simple garden.

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From the editor...

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

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ver since we started Kintsugi, one of the most important things to us has been empowering women to affect change, for themselves, their families and the world around them. And one of ways we’re most passionate about doing this is focusing on the small changes we can make that have the biggest impact.

It has been a whole year, and four issues, since we launched Kintsugi, and in that time we have covered selfcare, rewilding, faith, journaling, sleep, dance, ageing, pilgrimage, nutrition, positive psychology, finding your inner child, slow travel, meditation and the power of saying no.

All of these are small ways that you can change your life for the better, to nurture yourself, to deepen your connections with faith and family and to find more meaning and purpose in your life. But they are still, essentially, all small changes that don’t require a radical, dramatic life overhaul.

It perhaps seemed a tad ambitious then to dedicate a whole issue to happiness – a lofty subject that surely has more to do with big ideas and future dreams than the small changes in our day-to-day? And yet, in our everyday lives is exactly where we need to look for happiness, and it is exactly where we will find our joy.

Through every book we read, every person we interviewed, every theory we examined, every talk we listened to, every country we visited, from Sweden and Tibet to Japan and Canada, the thing that kept appearing, again and again, was how happiness is found in the small moments, not the big ones.

People talk about the pursuit of happiness, but this is exactly what we must not do. Happiness is not a destination to be reached, it is not something to pursue, and it is not something affected by external factors. The chance to be happy lies in all of us, in how we are present in our own lives, how we can show up for the people we love and how we can turn inwards and celebrate what we have now, in our hearts and lives, and not keep our eyes on some impossible, imagined horizon of happiness that might never arrive.

The truth is, happiness doesn’t lie in changing something – it lies in changing how you feel about what you have now. Japanologist and writer Beth Kempton explores this idea in her feature on ikigai – the Japanese

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secret to doing what you love and living a happy life. Ikigai, she says, is about knowing yourself, living life slowly and paying attention to who you are. “Even if the day-to-day is tough right now, notice what brings you a moment of joy, wonder, connection or happiness. Try to be really present as those things arise. A beautiful sunset, a smile from a stranger, a lovely piece of music. Those tiny moments are one aspect of ikigai right there.”

Scandinavian author Bronte Aurell explained to us that, for her, happiness is also about focusing on the now. “Happiness is being able to stop and say to myself: “I am happy, right now.” I feel that sometimes, people view happiness as this huge goal they need to strive for continuously and sometimes we forget to stop and appreciate the here and now.”

Speaking to happiness consultant and change maker, Sam Clarke we also learnt that the important adage of ‘doing what we love’ is actually about finding joy in our jobs – and identifying whatever that means for us personally – whether it is status, money, adventure, freedom or flexibility. “We need to move into more of an expansive statement around who we are that doesn’t pigeon-hole us into just one label,” says Clarke.

We also heard about how happiness is a choice from a corporate happiness expert, while Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard shared his belief that happiness is a skill we need to practise and writer Gretchen Rubin extolled the virtues of order and planning as the key to a happier life. In addition, we tried out laughing yoga, explored the lifechanging magic of gardening and considered a more personalised approach to nutrition and diet.

Crucially, we learnt that real happiness comes from having a true sense of purpose, and a deep connection with your life, just as it is. And it is something everyone can have. “Happiness is not a luxury for people - it is a fundamental human goal,” says UAE Minister for Happiness Ohood Al Roumi. Once you have these things, this happiness runs like a steady, grounding undercurrent across the rest of your life, and then, even the bad days are not quite so bad. From this steady grounding, as the little things start to bring you joy, so you too can begin to look at the big things – love, work, home , wealth, family and faith and begin to meet those higher needs of happiness in a profound and real way.

Clockwise from left: Les 4 Ombres Multi-Effect Quadra Eyeshadow, Chanel. Ring, Chanel. Short suit, MaxMara.

White Caviar Eye Extraordinaire, La Prairie, Bag, Loewe, Supplements, Lyma

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‘For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness’ – Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The

Mindful 5

Calm your mind and soul this spring

ANATOME ESSENTIAL OIL

LEADING THOUGHTS

Dab this fast-acting oil on your sensory points whenever you’re feeling a bit sluggish and you’ll soon get your mojo back. The oils in here include Black Pepper Paraguay and Camphor which help increase stamina and support the respiratory, muscular and nervous systems while May Chang, which is prescribed in Chinese medicine, works to energize and uplift.

This book of quotes from great thinkers and leaders - complied by Kintsugi founded Al Reem Al Tenaiji will provide daily insight and wisdom into your life, delivered in manageble pieces. From the words of Winston Churchill, Mark Twain and Mother Teresa to proverbs shared from all corners of the world, this book offers a guiding light for those looking for wisdom and the path to living an enlightened, empowered life. Designed using strategic chess moves and split into months, Leading Thoughts is something you will come back to again and again

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Energy + Strength Essential Oil, £35, Anatome

Leading Thoughts, £27, Kintsugi (kintsugispace.com)

JETFUEL SACHETS

KINTSUGI CANDLE

Think of these JetFuel sachets as your go-to travel hack this summer that will have you feeling your best post-flight and during your trip. They’re divided into three specialised supplements - energy-boosting ‘Performance’, soothing ‘Rest’ and ‘Health’ for overall well-being - each is loaded with vitamins, minerals, botanicals and bacterial cultures. It’s a game-changer for frequent flyers.

There is nothing like the flickering flame of a beautifully scented candle to promote a feeling of calm and wellbeing. At Kintsugi we are something of candle connoisseurs, and we are very proud of our very own new candle, with scents of fresh clementine flower, rich cocoa bean and lush coconut and warm undertones of musk and vanilla to create a reassuring and inviting fragrance within your home.

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15th Degree JetFuel Travel Fatigue, £40, Net-a-Porter

Kintsugi Candles, from a selection, Kintsugi (kintsugispace.com)

FLOWRBX -

Numerous studies have pointed out that having flowers in your home do more than simply look pretty - they have stress-relieving impact, boost your mood and help you sleep by clearing the air around you. The best way to harness their benefits is to get a prescription in the form of a Flowerbx subscription where the season’s finest blooms will land on your doorstep weekly, fortnightly or monthly.

Flowerbx subscription, from £45 per delivery

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The

Reading List From mother and daughter healing to solving problems before they start, this season’s new books offer a wealth of life skills and insight to plunder

LIFT AS YOU CLIMB VIV GROSKOP

KATE ELIZABETH RUSSELL

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Part self-help guide, part master class in survival skills for life and work, this book examines what sisterhood really looks like, asks what you can do to make things better for other women and how to be ambitious without losing your sense of self.

Tackling the contentious issue of sexual abuse and emotional complexity, this debut novel from author Kate Elizabeth Russell explores the blurred lines between consent and manipulation and how both memory and context can shift alarmingly over time.

KINGDOMTIDE

CONJURE WOMEN

RYE CURTIS

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MY DARK VANESSA

AFIA ATAKORA

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The lives of two women — the sole survivor of an airplane crash and the troubled park ranger who leads the rescue mission to find her — intersect in this gripping novel of hope and resilience, second thoughts and second chances.

A mother and daughter with a shared talent for healing - and for the conjuring of curses - are at the heart of this novel that tells the lives of three unforgettable women spanning eras and generations before and after the Civil War.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF LOVE GAVANNDRA HODGE -

When Gavanndra Hodge was a child, she lost her beloved sister Candy in an accident on holiday. Now an adult with two daughters of her own, they remind her terribly of her sister of whom she has almost no memories. Here, Gavanndra embarks on a journey to write her way back to the little girl whose death tore her family apart.

TENNIS LESSONS SUSANNAH DICKEY -

From dead pets and crashed cars to family traumas and one too many misguided love affairs, Susannah Dickey’s hilarious debut novel plunges us into the private world of one young woman as she navigates her rocky way to adulthood.

THE PANIC YEARS NELL FRIZZELl -

A hilarious and honest account of the ‘panic years’ as Frizzell aptly terms them – the era that women are faced with the lifechanging decision whether to have a baby or not. Both an arm around the shoulder and a campaign to start a conversation, this is a topic we all need to start talking about more. This informative, witty book is a great place to start.

UPSTREAM HOW TO SOLVE PROBLEMS BEFORE THEY HAPPEN DAN HEATH -

Charlie’s life seemed to be following a plan: she had a beautiful house, a lovable dog and an upcoming wedding. But she felt trapped. A few months before the big day, ignoring the warnings from her family, she abandoned her life and fled to the other side of the world to live on a narrowboat. This explores the journey of self discovery, family grief and hidden secrets.

BURNOUT

EMILY NAGOSKI AND AMELIA NAGOSKI This groundbreaking book explains why women experience burnout differently than men—and provides a simple, sciencebased plan to help women minimise stress, manage emotions, and live a more joyful life.

YES TO LIFE IN SPITE OF EVERYTHING VIKTOR FRANKL -

Just months after his liberation from Auschwitz renowned psychiatrist Viktor Frankl delivered a series of talks revealing how he learnt from his fellow inmates that it is always possible to say ‘yes to life’. This book is the first time they’ve been published in English.

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Five Apps… for helping happiness Are you a worrier by nature?

Or are you too busy to slow down and focus on yourself?

If your own happiness is always at the bottom of your to-do list, these apps provide helpful stepping stones to contentment

1 SUPERBETTER This app aims to help you build grit and resilience, and develop the ability to stay strong, persistent, and positive whatever curve balls might suddenly be thrown at you. You’ll be provided with daily activities that you can track until you reach your goal, gaining points for every step you complete - these might include taking a walk or drinking a glass of water.

What’s great about this app is that you’re made to feel a bit like a superhero, collecting power-ups and winning against bad guys while getting help from friends and allies.

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2 TRACK YOUR HAPPINESS Invented by Matt Killingsworth during his doctoral research at Harvard University, this app helps to identify the age-old question: ‘What makes people happy?’ Killingsworth believes that the true meaning of happiness is different for everyone and the factors affecting happiness varies for each person, something this app sets out to discover. Every day, you’ll be sent a set of questions about what you are doing and feeling at that moment. For every 50 responses, you’ll get a happiness report so you can recognise exactly what makes you feel the happiest. Plus, you will know when and where you are feeling your best.

4 DAYLIO Emoji lovers will adore this simple and quick mood tracking app that monitors your happy triggers using, yep you guessed it, emojis. Every day you input the icons that represent your mood and activities at that time and it then provides a calendar along with statistics that help you better understand your habits. If you sometimes fancy inputting more than just an emoji, there’s also an ‘old-school diary’ function too.

3 WORRY WATCH If you’re one of life’s worriers, this is the app for you. Worry Watch can help you track and overcome your anxiety for a happier life. The app’s five-step process helps you record your anxieties, reflect on what the actual outcome was, analyse your thought patterns, realise (based on your previous records) that your worry is mostly unfounded, and then challenge your anxieties the next time they come up. It’s like your fairy godmother, helping you see that the worst case scenario rarely happens.

5 SIMPLE HA B IT Let’s face it, many of us lead busy lives and don’t always have enough time to squeeze in mood quizzes and tracking reports. If that’s you, then this app might be the one. Simple Habit offers audio meditations as short as five minutes, perfect for the time-poor who want a good quality guided meditation that reduces stress and calms the mind.

Users are asked to choose topics that interest them and there really is something for everyone – from meditations that will help you find your feet after a break up, to post-argument relaxation, stress-free commutes and pre-date mindfulness to help you get into the zone.

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‘Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time’ - Marthe Troly-Curtin

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Laugh out loud From releasing endorphins to boosting the immune system, there is a reason that laughter is often said to be the best medicine. In a bid to harness this power, Kintsugi writer Annabelle Spranklen attempts her first laughing yoga class

‘As we get older we often repress our laughter so a class of Laughter Yoga creates a safe space for us all to do this without judgement.’

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ow, pretend to be a bird, open those wings!’ ‘Go on everyone, ruffle those feathers, open those wings, and fly!’

Arms flapping, we race around the room, chirping and cackling as loud as we can - ‘And all together now, HO-HO-HA-HA-HA, HO-HOHA-HA-HA. ver the next hour we were also pretending to be bears, galloping about madly on imaginary horses and swanning along fantasy red carpets.

I’m quite sure anyone who happened to be standing outside the Claridge’s ballroom that morning might have wondered whether a toddler’s dance lesson had taken over. In fact, we were all quite sane grown ups, colleagues to be specific, and this was our first ever session of Laughter Yoga.

I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t embarrassingly awkward at first but as if under some kind of spell, we soon began to ease into the weirdness of it all, embracing it with both wings (and trotters), finding the whole thing hip roaringly hilarious, our work hierarchies and boundaries quickly dissolving.

To understand Laughter Yoga you need to put all your notions of mainstream yoga aside – you won’t be doing Downward Dog or sitting quietly on a mat. The

philosophy behind is pretty simple - laughing, whether it’s true or forced, triggers the same physiological responses and while pretending to do it, you’ll almost always end up actually doing it.

So, during a session, where you’ll clap, skip and chant mantras, it’s near impossible not to be shaking with real laughter by the end with blood pumping around your body and brain, and as a result, triggering an endorphin response that will make you feel fantastic. As we get older we often repress our laughter so a class of Laughter Yoga creates a safe space for us all to do this without judgement.

The other benefits also include giving yourself a gentle cardio and facial workout. Furthermore, a study by the psychology department at Oxford University revealed that laughter can pay a huge part in pain management with group laughter significantly raising our individual pain threshold.

The man behind Laughter Yoga is Kataria, a Mumbai doctor who came up with the idea while working on an article about the health benefits of laughter for a medical journal in the mid-Nineties.

‘I suddenly thought: if it is so good for you, why not get people laughing together, every day?’ So, Kataria and his wife started swapping jokes with local strangers in a park one morning and local curiosity piqued. The next day more people

turned up and within a week, 55 strangers met.

According to Kataria, they started to run out of jokes so he decided to work on another idea - how to laugh without jokes. Returning to the group he asked them, ‘Let’s just fake laughter for one minute.’

And they all went ‘hahahahahhahahahaha’ and ‘hoohoohoo hoohoohoohoo’. Without seconds, the group had erupted into real laughter because it became so contagious.

Laughter clubs eventually popped up across Mumbai and then India, before CNN got whiff of it and then the BBC. Suddenly, laughter yoga was becoming a global sensation, like a choir for people who didn’t want to sing in tune but laugh instead. Today, there are clubs in over 70 countries, spreading yoga happiness everywhere from workplaces and schools to prisons and hospitals.

After my first session, I felt exhilarated. It was a chance to be silly and carefree for an hour, to relive that childhood playfulness that’s been snatched away. The mood stayed with me all day, I was focused and spirited, less worried and stressed out.

The best thing of all is that the main ingredient for laughter yoga is at literally everyone’s disposal. You just need to be brave enough to unleash it.

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Labour of love Samantha Clarke has made it her life’s mission to help employees to feel joy and purpose in their work. As she releases her first book, Love it or Leave it, Elle Blakeman meets a true Kintsugi woman, empowering others to effect change‌

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amantha Clarke’s business card reads ‘Happiness consultant and changemaker’.

She is that rare thing of a woman at the top of her game who wants nothing more than to lift everyone around her.

I’m half expecting a hippy, someone in a flower skirt with a passion for hugging trees, but when we meet, in London’s Soho House, I find a wonderfully warm and down-to-earth woman, eager to share her hard-earned knowledge with the world.

So, how on earth does one anyone become a Happiness Coach I ask? ‘I wasn’t happy with my work,’ explains Clarke. ‘I’d gone down a very traditional career path – studied management and marketing and found myself in the advertising world, selling things that didn’t really fit with my values. And I just wanted more, but I didn’t know what ‘more’ was.’

‘I wanted to be creative and was dreaming about working independently, having a ‘portfolio career’ but that language wasn’t around then so I was a bit stuck.

So, I started experimenting in the evenings with stuff that I loved.’

She had planned to launch a footwear brand, but after investors pulled out due to the recession, a friend suggested she lend a listening ear to a colleague who was also struggling at work.

‘I loved it!’ she exclaims with feeling. ‘Speaking through his work and fears, I’d managed to help him pinpoint what to say in an interview and soon more and more friends were asking for help.’

Clarke soon decided to retrain, studying psychology at The School of Life while working at tech company Dadi. She was originally employed to work in marketing before pitching them a new role as a happiness coach.

‘They loved it,’ she recalls. ‘Like most companies, they had some issues, people weren’t connecting. They had a certain type of culture and they didn’t really understand the people they’d brought on. I just thought they could stand to really humanise their culture.’

After two years, she decided to branch out alone, launching her own consultancy and coaching services which has so far seen her running workshops for Soho House, Harrods, Innocent and P&G, as well as numerous TED Talks which have been watched by a

worldwide audience of millions.

Clarke’s book, Love It Or Leave It: How To Be Happy at Work, which debuts this month dubs itself ‘the cod liver oil prescription to help you limber up and get flexy – being open to learning, spotting opportunities and preparing mentally and physically.’ In her pages, Clarke outlines the evolution of our relationship with work as a ‘bitter, twisted love story’ explaining how we’ve moved from work first being a brutal, joyless manual labour in the fields to the warmth of an office ‘where we flourished and learnt new skills’. However, she explains that the relationship soon engulfed us, and with the advent of new technology, became as she wittily notes ‘a bit clingy’, leaking into personal lives, our personalities and even our sleep, leaving us feeling trapped.

Many of her clients wanted a change. ‘A lot of the questions that come up include clients saying, “I love doing many things but how do I stop myself from burning out?” They’re open to risk and being agile but need help with balance of networking as well as managing money. And we’re not taught that at school – money and entrepreneurship.’

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For Clarke, one of the biggest problems today is that people who are unhappy at work often think there’s little they can do to change the status quo. ‘We don’t take the time to reflect on what we actually want, we become either a bit comfortable or complacent with ourselves and our abilities and we don’t realise that.’

‘We’re quite a popcorn culture, we think we can move from one industry to another and have the same salary or higher and have the perfect job, it doesn’t work that.

She believes that some people are reluctant to move into a new role because they’re scared of ‘going back to the beginners mindset’ so there’s a resistance, ‘it makes it easier just to stay put.’ She compares it to the world of dating apps, ‘With each swipe we think the next person we meet is going to be perfect and actually we don’t spend any time properly looking at the person right in front of us there and then, we’re quick to dismiss things easily - it’s the same with the job, it’s not ticking the boxes but you don’t really know why.’

And that’s where Clark’s skills are a lifeline, helping unsatisfied workers identify what the problems are and how to overcome them without doing anything too drastic. ‘People come to me and say “I hate my job, it’s a disaster, it’s a nightmare” and once we’ve pulled it apart and discussed it all they’ve realised that it’s actually not that bad and they’d have been a fool to walk away from it. Instead they’ve managed to tweak and change the things they didn’t want. It’s just about shining a light on it.’

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As well as drawing attention to areas that need exploring, coaching gives clients a confidence boost, allowing them to take charge of their lives and their careers. ‘They find themselves finally able to ask for a sabbatical or to go down from five days to three to give them space to do something else.’

Of course, sometimes people are disinclined to make changes to their careers, particularly if the job becomes a status symbol of who’ve they come and the successes they’ve achieved. Clarke believes that no job titles should define us, ‘We need to move into more of an expansive statement around who we are that doesn’t pigeon-hole us into just one label’. The main thing is to work out what makes you tick: ‘For some people it’s money and for others it’s freedom and autonomy or doing the work they love.’ It’s important not to judge yourself whatever order these things fall in says Clarke, it really is ok and allowing yourself to be whoever you are is key.

Does Clarke find that more of her female clients struggle with asking for a pay rise than her male clients? ‘Men seem to have such a fluid ease with the language around money so there is something around worth and cost that women haven’t spoken about, we’re getting better, especially around equal pay and investing circles, I think it will become a deeper conversation, that’s the only thing that’s held us back, it’s not always been spoken about therefore talking about it in the workplace feels a bit like a taboo and we’re scared to do it.’

She believes that millennials are more open to career changes than their parents, ‘When we look at generations of say 30 or above, we’ve grown up with technology, we were on the curb of it and knew about working remotely but there’s a lot of risk and people older than this are perhaps more risk adverse, they worry about how they actually make money.’

While older generations may have been hesitant to move jobs or challenge a company’s ethos, for younger people this isn’t always the case. ‘I like the fact that young people are being a lot more open and that we’re not being passive around job searching. That’s what’s led us to this grin and bear it idea, we never realised that we do all actually have a choice in this.’

She attributes this to the fact that we’re now time in a time of such transparency. ‘There wasn’t any such thing as rating the CEO and working conditions of a company

on Glassdoor - we were just grateful to be there.’

‘Young people have their own platforms to talk about stuff, if things are not right at work they will be vocal about it and companies now are trying their best to create the right employee brand because you don’t want a potential candidate doing research ahead of applying for a job and finding out that it has a toxic environment.’

Helping businesses invest and better understand their employees is a major part of Clarke’s work today and it’s not just about free lunches and colourful bean bags or pool tables. ‘I try to encourage companies to think that when individuals are coming to work they don’t just switch off being the person they are outside, they might have issues going on with family or through core nutrition they’re not being productive - there is so much that makes up who we are in the holistic space that we operate. It’s up to companies to try and do everything they can to support the individual.’

Of course happiness doesn’t just stem from a harmonious working life though, something the UAE went about tackling in 2016 when Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum appointed Her Excellency Ohoud Al Roumi as the country’s first Minister of State for Happiness. The UAE follows in the footsteps of Bhutan and Venezuela, who have worked to improve levels of happiness in the country through a variety of policies measuring the effectiveness of the government’s various social welfare programs. For Clarke, these are steps in the right direction. ‘I think it’s really imperative we do look at happiness as a wider spectrum because work is one part but individuals that go to work make up a company and the company becomes part of a community and so toxicity has ripple effects on everything.’

So what’s next for Clarke? ‘I’m super excited about my book, I want people to really get the changes they want to seek from this and I want to support people with additional material, like a member’s group that surrounds the book itself.’

‘I’m also training people in my methods so I’ll have a team of other consultants who can help more and more people find work that makes them happy and gives them a purpose.’

‘Love It Or Leave It: How To Be Happy at Work’ is available now, £11.99, Endeavour. samanthaand.co

“A lot of clients say ‘I love doing many things but how do I stop myself from burning out?’ They’re open to risk and being agile but need help with balance of networking as well as managing money.

And we’re not taught that at school ”

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Happiness Heroes From politicians and scientists to chefs, writers and monks, the secrets of happiness can be found as much in the debate chamber as they can on a plate or in a design studio.

We seek out the global gamechangers looking to uncover the truth about happiness‌

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“ There is nothing more important and beautiful and rewarding than

creating joy in people’s hearts”

The Politician: Ohood Al Roumi, Minister for Happiness, UAE

One of only eight female ministers in a 29-member cabinet, Ohood Al Roumi was appointed the Minister for Happiness in the UAE in 2016.

Speaking at the World Government Summit in 2017 she called her work ‘the most important dialogue in the most critical of times”. Named one of the world’s 50 greatest leaders by Fortune magazine in 2017, and the only Arabic and Muslim person on the list, she is also the first Arab member of the United Nations’ Global Entrepreneurship Council. Her position as Minister for Happiness has seen her introduce such initiatives as the UAE Year of Giving, as well as programmes to study the science of wellbeing and introducing reforms to help tackle issues such as gender equality, freedom of speech, and the rights of migrant workers. Championing a more holistic, but also practical, understanding of the meaning of quality of life, Al Roumi is passionate about the idea that the key to happiness is rooted in what she calls ‘enabling environments’ which empower people to choose happiness, and she looks to her role in government to create this. “Happiness is not a luxury for people - it is a fundamental human goal.”

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The Corporate Expert: Shawn Achor, founder, Good Think Inc Charismatic and passionate about this subject, Shawn Achor is a positive psychologist, corporate happiness expert and a favourite of Oprah Winfrey, with whom he now runs a 21-day happiness e-course. The founder of Good Think Inc, which runs talks and trainings for Fortune 100 companies, national sporting teams and even the White House, Achor is considered one of the world’s leading experts on the connection between happiness and success. His focus on mindset as a path to happiness is inspiring and his Ted talk has had over 13 million views. He challenges the idea that our external environment has a big impact on our happiness, and says that in reality, the secret of our long-term happiness lies in our own minds. Achor explains that our current thinking is that if we work harder, we’ll do better, and if we do better, we’ll be happier. But, he argues, the way that we motivate behaviour like this merely puts happiness continually out of our reach. “It is scientifically broken, and backwards” he says. “Every time your brain has a success, you just changed the goalpost of what success looked like. You got good grades, now you have to get better grades… you got a good job, now you have to get a better job, you hit your sales target, we’re going to raise it. Ifhappiness is on the opposite side of success, your brain never gets there.” For Achor, the secret to happiness is about rewiring the brain to see positivity and not negativity – and whether you do that through gratitude journaling, practical therapy or his courses, it’s aconvincing argument.

“We’ve pushed happiness over the cognitive horizon, as a society.

And that’s because we think we have to be successful to be happier.”

The Monk: Matthieu Ricard, Buddhist monk and author of Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill “Mind training matters.

That this is not just a luxury.

This is not a supplementary vitamin for the soul.

This is something that’s going to determine the quality of every instant of our lives.”

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A former biologist, specialising in cell genetics, who became a monk after moving to Tibet in 1972, Matthieu Ricard is famously known as the happiest man on the planet. An expert on the way the brain works and processes emotion, he passionately believes that happiness, like anything, is something you need to work at. He describes happiness as a deep sense of serenity and fulfilment that underpins everything in our lives. Equating happiness to the ocean, he says, that while there may be waves, storms, or glitteringly calm sunshine days, the deep, still depths of the ocean remain, unchanged. This he says, is how to think about living with happiness. “A state that actually pervades and underlies all emotional states, and all the joys and sorrows that can come one’s way.” Ricard is an advocate of the power of meditation and the importance of training the mind to deal with emotions in a different way – while protecting that happiness undercurrent. Essentially, his appeal lies in his deep understanding of human nature, as well as his humour and his warmth. Interviews with him show a funny, beguiling man, very much in touch with modern society, but who is still able to access a state of deep happiness and speaks with deep compassion for the human race.

“Whatever we do, whatever we hope, whatever we dream -- somehow, is related to a deep, profound desire for well-being or happiness.”

The Positive Psychologist: Emily Esfahani Smith, author of The Power of Meaning: The True Route to Happiness Drawing on positive psychology, philosophy and her own personal experiences, writer Emily Esfahani Smith breaks down the persistent myth in our culture that in order to lead a fulfilling life we must pursue happiness. In her groundbreaking work, The Power of Meaning, she says that happiness is only part of the puzzle, and what we should be looking for in our search for happiness is in actuality a life with meaning. Smith has a formula for meaning, made up of four distinct ‘pillars’ - belonging, purpose, transcendence and storytelling - which she engagingly and compellingly conveys in her brilliant TED talk and her book. Smith was raised in Montreal by parents who ran a Sufi meetinghouse from their home. The impact of Sufism – a spiritual practise that emphasises the inward search for God and is associated with some of the world’s most beloved literature, including the works of Rumi - was profound. Sufism involved meditation, sharing of stories and, crucially, serving creation through small acts of love. “Looking back, I now realize that the Sufi house had a real culture of meaning,” says Smith. “The pillars were part of the architecture, and the presence of the pillars helped us all live more deeply.” For Smith, this journey towards happiness is misguided. Happiness is temporary, but meaning lasts forever, enriches our lives with fulfilment, and is also a uniquely human experience. “The amount of time people report feeling good or bad correlates with happiness, but not at all with meaning,” she says.

“Meaning, on the other hand, is enduring. It connects the past to the present to the future.”

“What sets human beings apart from animals is not the pursuit of happiness, which occurs all across the natural world, but the pursuit of meaning, which is unique to humans.”

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Left: Karen Somers

“ The happiness you get from giving back every day is something no-one can take from you. It doesn’t come and go, it doesn’t leave you or The Mother: Jacqueline Way, fade. Giving everyday has founder of 365give.com brought me a happiness When Jacqueline Way ‘founded’ 365give.com it was then just a simple way for her and her three-year-old son to chart their experiences of doing a good deed, each day. The that gets meup in the aim was to give back to the world, to help family, community and the planet. Way, like many parents, wanted to teach her son about compassion, and to give him the tools she morning and drives me.” thought would help him to grow up to be happy and kind. What she didn’t expect, was that, through this process, both of them began to feel happier in their own lives. “The greatest gift of giving is what you receive from it,” she says. “The look on someone’s face, or the first time your son picks up garbage to help the planet without any prompting.”

Now, what started as a simple parenting project has become a global giving movement.

365give is national charitable foundation that encourages children to learn giving as a way to be happy. Over 8000 students in 25 schools in Canada have done the 365give Challenge, which has included them contributing thousands of dollars globally through donations and volunteer work. One teacher involved in the programme told Way: “My kids are understanding how their actions can make a better world. It’s connected them to each other and their community and most importantly it’s making my classroom happy.”

For Way this connection with giving and happiness goes beyond the simple concept of give to receive. Because she focuses on acts that help both the community and the world, her organisation is teaching children that happiness and making the world a better place go hand-in-hand. “Together we can all start small and we can make the world a better world, a happier world, one give one day at a time.”

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The Foodie: Dr Rangan Chatterjee, nutritionist and author of The Four Pillar Plan As our understanding about the links between physical health and mental health continue to evolve, no-one has committed more time and energy into sharing the importance of those links than Dr Rangan Chatterjee, whose important book The 4 Pillar Plan instantly became a Sunday Times bestseller when it was released in the UK. Chatterjee’s goal is to revolutionise the way we treat illness, to simplify healthcare and to encourage people to live calmer, happier and healthier lives. He focuses on the small changes that can make big differences, and has championed making sustainable health and lifestyle improvements to our everyday lives, while also taking time to explain how improving our mental health can also help our physical health. ““For me, true happiness comes from our connections with other people,” he says. “It comes from the heart. Our hearts are not just pumps that deliver oxygen around the body. They’re also those slightly magical things that poets, storytellers and songwriters have been waxing lyrical about for hundreds of years.” In his book he talks about things like how to breathe to feel happier and how to find and ignite your passions, as well as the importance of things like tea rituals, forgiveness and gratitude. As a doctor and author he is one of the first people to approach mental and physical together and to connect them in such a profound way. “I want to empower you to become the architect of your own health. Because when you feel better, you live more.”

“ The majority of my patients don’t need a pill, they need a lifestyle prescription.”

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The Organiser: Marie Kondo, home organiser and author of The Lifechanging Magic of Tidying Up Tidying up might not seem like the solution to the world’s problems with depression and anxiety, but when it’s presented as a lifestyle choice by the inimitable Marie Kondo, the concept of a clutter-free life and a clutter-free mind is quite convincing. The tidying expert who created and coined the KonMari method, Kondo believes that her method of tidying can be genuinely life-changing, and has less to do with belongings, and more to do with simply being happy. “Visible mess helps distract us from the true source of the disorder,” she says. For Kondo, the space in which we live should be about the person we wish to be in life, and the act of tidying it is a radical act of self-love and self-care.

“From the moment you start tidying, you will be compelled to reset your life…the task of putting your house in order should be done quickly. It allows you to confront the issues that are really important. Tidying is just a tool, not the final destination. The true goal should be to establish the lifestyle you want most.” In a world when consumerism has reached an all-time high, Kondo is a reassuring voice of minimalism and simplicity, focusing on the concept of only having in your home the things which bring you joy. For Kondo, joy and happiness are deeply aligned, and she is clear that happiness isn’t simply about beautiful pictures or nice cushions, but about the clothes that you enjoy wearing, the filing system that reduces your stress levels, the kitchen drawer that is clear enough for you to find things and the bookshelf that has books on it that you recall reading with delight. One of her key traits, and something that makes her so different to other ‘declutterers’ – is how she looks not for what to get rid of, but instead for what you want to keep. “The best criterion for choosing what to keep and what to discard is whether keeping it will make you happy, whether it will bring you joy,” she explains.

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‘‘ The question of what you want to own is actually the question of how you want to live your life.”

Left : Heather Moore

The Writer: Gretchen Rubin, author The Happiness Project Gretchen Rubin shot to fame when her book – The Happpiness Project – was released on 1 January 2009 and quickly became a New York Times bestseller. A happily married, ex-lawyer, with a chic apartment in New York and two children, Rubin is perhaps the biggest example of the idea that money, marriage and looks aren’t a guarantee of happiness. She started researching happiness because she said she wanted to ‘appreciate more what I already have’, and discovered that the truth really does lie in being able to focus on the small moments and celebrate the life that you currently have, rather than searching for a future imagined utopia. Her book – and now her podcast, online courses, blog and an app – aim to share the small changes we can introduce that can make us happier – from getting more sleep and meeting deadlines to singing in the morning, reading classical literature, keeping a onesentence journal and nagging your spouse less. Some of her findings are reassuringly

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predictable – decluttering, no sugar, making your bed every morning – but some are more revolutionary. She discusses how novelty and challenge are powerful sources of happiness, and posits the idea that money can help buy happiness, when spent wisely, while extolling the virtues of charts and goals for every change you want to make. At her core though, her theory suggest that happiness is a life choice and a commitment to a lifestyle, just as much as anything else, and says that it takes work and self-love to achieve. “The belief that unhappiness is selfless, and happiness is selfish is misguided. It’s more selfless to act happy. It takes energy, generosity, and discipline to be unfailingly lighthearted. It’s about living in the moment and appreciating the smallest things. Surrounding yourself with the things that inspire you and letting go of the obsessions that want to take over your mind. It is a daily struggle sometimes and hard work but happiness begins with your own attitude and how you look at the world.”

“What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.�

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Do what you love The Japanese have a word for something that combines the joy of living with a sense of hope and purpose – Ikigai. Here’s how to find yours... By Beth Kempton

Imagine the difference it would make if we could usher ourselves through winter with care, allowing plenty of time for rest and ref lection.

W

hen I was 19, I spent a year living in Kyoto, Japan, as an exchange student. I was thousands of miles from home, my Japanese was awful and I was living on a very tight budget. As I had so little money that year, I became an expert in entertaining myself for free.

There was a standing joke in my language class that I was the strange foreigner who trekked the backstreets of Kyoto with a forward slant to my walk, heavy pack on my back and a mission to fulfil. This emerged from my tendency to finish class, open a map, drop a coin on it and go wherever it landed.

I also volunteered for lots of events and activities as a way to get involved with local people, improve my language skills and learn more about the place I was living. One of my favourite volunteer roles was on the editorial team of the bilingual magazine Life in Kyoto. We would meet up once or twice a month in the Kyoto International Community House, usually with tea and treats, and assign articles to write and copy to check.

Through this I befriended a group of wonderful

older women, some four or five decades my senior, many of whom I am still friends with now they are in their eighties. It was one of those women who introduced me to the term ‘ikigai’ when she commented that I had it.

She struggled to explain what the term meant – and I struggled to understand her explanation – but over the years I have come to know it as having a hybrid meaning combining the joy of living with having a sense of hope, purpose, and motivation.

Joy and purpose are not necessarily always connected. We can experience joy in apparently ‘meaningless’ moments, and have a hard time doing something we know is intrinsically purposeful. The same goes for hope and motivation. We can be motivated but pessimistic about our chances, or hopeful but stuck.

But somehow these all come together in the term ikigai, and it certainly encapsulates how I felt in Kyoto, learning all those new things, connecting with lovely people and exploring the world and my place in it.

The word ikigai embodies a spectrum of notions

which collectively remind us to appreciate what makes life worth living right now, and have a hopeful heart directed towards the future.

In recent years ikigai has been talked about in the West as being at the sweet spot of what you love, what you are good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for. But I’ll let you into a secret. The ‘Ikigai Venn diagram’ which shows this in visual form and has been shared thousands of times online and by life coaches and HR executives over the past few years is actually a Western construction which, while interesting in itself, overcomplicates and misinterprets the term ikigai. Ikigai isn’t always connected to money, although it is of course possible to earn money doing something which also gives you a sense of ikigai. It may have nothing at all to do with what the world needs, when it is just you experiencing the joy of living in a quiet moment by yourself.

Having said that, exploring the idea of ikigai can be a doorway to discovering what ‘doing what you love’ as a career might mean to you. Here’s how:

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Ten tips for discovering your ikigai and doing what you love

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Whichever way you approach it, to discover what you love, you have to pay attention. There are clues all around us, and inside us, if we are open to noticing them, and if we look. Even if the day-to-day is tough right now, notice what brings you a moment of joy, wonder, connection or happiness. Try to be really present as those things arise.

A beautiful sunset, a smile from a stranger, a lovely piece of music. Those tiny moments are one aspect of ikigai right there.

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Noticing small moments of joy helps you move to a more positive frame of mind, from where you can consider how to bring more of a sense of purpose into your life. This might be through connections with others, learning something new or making a contribution in some way.

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If you don’t already have a solid gratitude practice, start making a list of all the things that bring you that sense of ikigai. Try listing at least ten things you are grateful for each day, without repeating any item. In the beginning it’s easy, but the longer you do this, the harder it gets and the more you are forced to notice details. Start noticing what you appreciate in your life already, and see else lies in that direction.

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4

And then start to get really curious about things. If an idea pops into your mind, pursue it loosely, without too much attachment, and see where it takes you. If you keep being drawn to the same kinds of people, or ideas, or symbols, explore that. If you have some time on your hands, employ a little spontaneity. Pick up a magazine you’d not normally read, or listen to a new podcast, or ask a friend for a book recommendation.

Approach new knowle

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Find ways to explore your creativity, and discover what lights you up.

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Then think about all this in the context of making a living. Just because you are really good at something does not mean you should do it for work.

Just because you have been doing something for the past decade does not mean you need to do it for the next decade. As you nurture your curiosity, open your mind and explore your creativity, you will start to see new paths opening up for you, and new possibilities for your life. If you can connect the kinds of things that bring you a sense of ikigai to the way you generate money in your life, you are likely to find more job satisfaction and shift to doing something that you love.

Remember we change as we grow, so what used to be the dream job may end up becoming dull or repetitive.

It’s OK to change as you go through your career. Keep coming back to what gives you a sense of ikigai, and keep exploring, and new possibilities will emerge for you.

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And if you think that in theory you are already doing what you love, but you don’t seem to have a sense of ikigai, you are probably just running too fast to notice all the good in your life. Sometimes we find ourselves in a position where the day to day reality doesn’t match our expectation of a particular job or career. We are stressed, overworked and overstretched, and seem to rush from one thing to another. If that’s the case for you, it’s time to create some space in your life, to take stock of what you are grateful for, to notice the joy of living in the small moments of your day, and to give yourself the breathing room to see how to bring back a sense of purpose to what you are doing. Try meditation or yoga, or a walk in nature.

Take a day off – or longer, to allow yourself a rest. Go on a retreat. Journal your thoughts, and your gratitude list, and remind yourself what it is you love about what you do. Spend time near water to clear your head, or have a soulful conversation with a good friend. And then get purposeful about how you can rearrange things to focus more on the meaning in your work and life.

Beth Kempton is the founder of dowhatyouloveforlife. com which offers support for career transitions and living well. A dedicated student of Japanese life, Beth has a Masters in Japanese is the author of Wabi Sabi: Japanese wisdom for a perfectly imperfect life, which has been translated into 24 languages.

www.bethkempton.com

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‘Happiness is not something ready made.

It comes from your own actions’ - Dalai Lama

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The Happiest Nation Is Scandinavian living still the ultimate recipe for happiness?

As Finland and its contented neighbours continue to top happiness charts worldwide, Emma Johnson goes in search of the Nordic utopia

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“If you were to envision the world’s happiest people, you might imagine an island nation somewhere, where folks sit on a beach slurping juice out of coconuts all day. But, more realistically, you might picture a dude in slim-cut slacks, eight months into paternity leave, biking his two young kids to a coffee shop under a cold, slate sky.” ~ Brent Gianotta, thrillist.com

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I

n 2019, the World Happiness Report announced, once again, that Finland was the happiest place in the world. For the second year running, this small, unassuming northern European country had cemented itself as the best place in the world to live. Close behind it was its other Nordic neighbours, with Denmark in second place, Norway in third, Iceland in fourth and Sweden in fifth. This meant, that the top five happiest nations in the world, were comprised entirely of Nordic countries. The usual platitudes abounded, citing the merits of various Scandinavian (the smaller collection of just Norway, Sweden and Denmark) and Nordic cultural and political leanings that lent themselves to a measure of happiness.

But, really, this wasn’t new information. The fascination with the Nordic recipe for joy has been in popular culture for a decade now. The New York Times called Denmark a ‘happiness superpower’ in 2009, and since then, books and features have hypothesised about the Danish art of living well and the Scandinavian secret to happiness. Buzzwords such as hygge, lykke, lagom, fika are now part of our global parlance. Being cosy has become cool. Candles, mood lighting, artfully-draped blankets and hot cinnamon drinks feature on every social media feed across the globe. Influencers and journalists alike talk about the power of hygge, the life-changing magic of lagom. Whole books are being written about lykke – the Danish word for happiness.

But what do these things really mean? And how do they lead to a culture of national happiness? The truth is that they both are at the centre of Nordic joy, but are also supported by something much bigger

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than a cultural love of scented candles and log fires.

‘While some of the praise heaped on the Nordic nations in the international media have surely been exaggerated and over-positive – no place is perfect, as the Nordic people themselves will be the first to point out – the Nordic countries have undeniably created a model for what a high quality of life and a healthy society can look like in the twenty-first century,’ says Anu Partanen, the Finish author of The Nordic Theory of Everything.

Partanen refers of course to the famed and quite extraordinary welfare states, renowned across the Nordic region for providing a sort of social safety net for their citizens. High-quality, free education, a commitment to closing the gender gap and changing the culture of presenteeism at work, generous time off and pay for new fathers and mothers, universal and free health care, as well as a progressive and successful approach to ending homelessness and a supportive unemployment benefit system means Nordic citizens live life with considerably less fear about money, employment and family.

Meik Wiking agrees. Founder of The Happiness Institute in Denmark, and author of the bestselling Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well, Wiking explains that welfare and wellbeing go hand in hand in Denmark. ‘The key to understanding the high levels of wellbeing in Denmark is the welfare model’s ability to reduce risk, uncertainty and anxiety in its citizens and to prevent extreme unhappiness,’ he says. In

Denmark, the welfare model turns collective wealth into wellbeing. ‘We are not paying taxes, we are investing in our society. We are purchasing quality of life,’ adds Wiking.

So, does this mean that in the end, Scandinavian people are happier? ‘Yes,’ says Bronte Aurell, Swedish author of North: How to Live Scandinavian.

‘We are pretty good at taking stock of what we have and asking ourselves: “Do I have everything I need”? Asking this is not a small thing, but it’s hard for Nordics to say “no” to that. You need to remember that the people of the Nordics have a very solid social system and we do have what we need. Our basic needs are met.

We feel safe, we are supported. We won’t fall through the net if we lose

our jobs. We have opportunities. We have balance with work. We have a pretty good deal.’

It’s clear that the political stability and generous welfare state in the Nordic countries goes a long way to increasing quality of life and therefore happiness.

But what if you don’t live there? How do you find or create this kind of happiness that seems steeped into every fabric of the national culture?

Perhaps this is where Scandinavian concepts for living have a value that we can all learn from. ‘I have come to realize that there might be an overlooked ingredient in the Danish recipe for happiness,’ says Meik Wiking. ‘And that is hygge.’

Hygge might, on the surface, appear to be about nice décor, candlelight and cinnamon buns, but on a deeper level, it’s about comfort, companionship and community. Hygge encourages people to find happiness in small moments, and to do this by making these moments beautiful, joyful, comfortable and cosy. This is the simple act of hygge – whether that is a warm cup of coffee, a freshly-baked cake shared with friends, a well-chosen playlist at dinner time, the scent of a pomegranate candle, or the welcoming sight of a cushion-laden couch in your parents’ home – something that makes your day-today living, each moment, more filled with pleasure and consideration for making things nice. Bronte Aurell explains that where hygge has real power is in the way it encourages us to find happiness in the now, not in something striven for, years in the future.

‘Happiness is being able to stop and say to myself: “I am happy, right now.” I feel that sometimes, people view happiness as this huge goal they need to strive for continuously and sometimes we forget to stop and appreciate the here and now.’

And it is this constant living with hygge, and the very nature of its nurturing, cosy essence, that encourages us to live better, happier lives. At the beginning of her book, Hygge: The Danish Art of Happiness, Danish actress Marie Tourell Søderberg describes what hygge means to her, citing such things as meeting her sister in the park for a walk, drinking wine in her mother’s garden, listening to the rain with her boyfriend - and so on. What is interesting here, is the themes that emerge from this short, but specific list. Family features heavily – her sister, her mother, her boyfriend; while the weather and nature are almost constantly referred to – summer days, walks in the park, rain on the

window. In addition, pleasure – good food, wine and coffee is always present, so too is community – time with friends or family, making connections and sharing parts of herself. ‘When I look at my list, togetherness seems to be central,” she says. “And I feel that sharing a sincere moment of hygge brings us closer.’

Hygge doesn’t just stop at beautiful homes, cosy fashion or bracing walks in the snow. It’s about who you do this with, how you do it, and what that means for both you, and the people around you. The more you practice hygge as an act of love and connection, the happier you make yourself, and others. One moment from Søderberg’s book that sticks out, is how hygge translates into our relationships in a myriad of ways. One of Søderberg’s friends recalls how she tries to put guests at ease when they come to visit. Something, she says, that is not just about making people comfortable and offering them a drink, but also includes making them feel at ease in themselves. ‘I throw my legs up on the sofa, to indirectly show my guests that they are welcome to do the same, and I will tell my guests about a mistake I made at work, or how I have a kayaking test tomorrow and I’m really nervous about it. It’s about daring to share something about yourself and show you’re not infallible. When I invite people home, I invest myself in them.’

For the Danes – and its Scandinavian neighbours – hygge is central to their existence and continues to be an important part of their culture, long after the zeitgeist-y books and ‘current trends’ articles have stopped being written. As the popularity of hygge has grown, it has simply reminded a lot of the world, just how important comfort is, and how much we should value those things over the most ostentatious signs of success and happiness that we have come to prioritise. For the Danes, career, money and mansions matter much, much less than family, companionship and community – and this is what they work towards always. ‘For many Danes, hygge is something you strive for. It’s like a compass, steering us towards small moments that money cannot buy you, finding magic in the ordinary,’ adds Søderberg.

Of course, this is not to say, that there is no sadness in Scandinavia, that there is no worry, anxiety, depression and stress. In fact, there is, and Meik Wiking has been quite vocal about misunderstanding the perceived utopia of Scandinavia - some parts of which have higher suicide rates than you would expect. But, says Wiking, this is actually an expected feature of a culture so famed for its perceived happiness, and one that now, due to social media and worldwide attention is more obvious than ever. As people become more and more aware of the happiness of others, their own lives by comparison can seem small and unimportant.

And it’s not that people in Scandinavia don’t get sad.

Of course, they do. And there is worry and doubt in every household at times. But, in many cases, the very nature of their cultural approach to life provides a remedy for their problems - a place to feel safe, to heal, to nurture.

“The things that make me sad are injustice, and unkind people. In short, mainly things I can’t control,” says Aurell. ‘But once I’m by my kitchen table with my family, then all of those things are locked outside - and they can’t get in.’

And this is the crux of it. Hygge is the antidote to sadness, the supportive cocoon around daily challenges that makes life feel better, happier. ‘One of the most interesting findings in recent years,’ explains Miek Wiking.

‘Is that the experience of positive emotions matters more to our overall wellbeing – measured in terms of life satisfaction – than the absence of negative emotions.’

In short, we will have bad days, but if we also have good moments in these days, it can lift us immeasurably.

As we have seen, this Scandinavian legend of happiness comes in part from social systems that put people first and which have resulted in happier nations.

And yet, it just isn’t as simple as this, because it is also about a culture that values celebrating what you have, enjoying the small moments, and making time for beauty, nature, good living and family. ‘What I do think, is that people in other places – busier places, places with less safety nets, are longing for this,’ says Aurell. ‘A reason to reconnect, leave work earlier, study, read, be with family and maybe not be so focused on the rat race. And, if so - good. Take care of yourself. Go home to your family. Hug your kids.

Turn your phone off. All of that is important.’

And all of that, is hygge.

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The Eight Secrets of Happiness

With tips, advice and guidance gathered from happy states across the globe, and from books and podcasts on wellbeing and joy, this is the essential Kintsugi guide to every day happiness‌

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1

“ The most important social relationships are close relationships in which you experience things together with others, and experience being understood, where you share thoughts and feelings, and both give and receive support.” -Meik Wiking

Make Connections

– from Scandinavia to Japan, those cultures that invest in family and make time for being together always report higher levels of happiness. Family can be large, or it can be small, it can be made up of relatives or of people you have befriended along the course of your life. Whoever they are, make time for them. Use your holiday allowance to spend time with them, get home early from work to have dinner with them, organise regular weekend lunches with them, tell them how special they are, and when you’re with them, give them all of yourself, turn your phone off, be open and interested, warm and welcoming. They say it takes a village to raise a child, and this is true. If you’re a parent, build the village and keep it close. And if you’re not, embrace the village that supports you as an adult. Find your family and invest in them with both your heart, and your time.

Take Action: Create a new family tradition, something you can all agree on and look forward to – this could be something you do at the start of the weekend, a regular homecooked lunch with everyone, or simply learning a new skill together.

‘

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2

“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.” - John Muir

Be in Nature – Getting outside, amongst the forests and the fields is good for the body and good for the soul. It also makes you move – ensuring you’re using your body and making time for fitness, and benefitting from increased endorphins. Sitting still ages us, it’s not good for our bodies and it can end up isolating us.

Getting outside, to walk, run, meet people and breathe fresh air naturally makes us feel better. It ensures we get more Vitamin D, vital for healthy skin and happy hearts; the right amount of melatonin to help with a good night’s sleep and enough fresh air to help regulate serotonin levels and promote happiness and wellbeing. Being out in the open can encourage our creativity and disconnect us from digital interferences. Crucially, though, nature forces us to be more present, centring us and reminding us how vast and infinite the world is, and the small part we play in our own lives. It can be both levelling and transformative.

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Take Action: Find time once a week to take a walk into the local landscape, be mindful about what you can see, hear, smell, touch. At home, go into the garden, is there a space you could improve to give yourself somewhere to sit with friends, a chair you could curl up in on a fresh morning to have a coffee, a shady spot for a table to share dinner with friends? Look at how you could live your life more connected to nature, and make it happen.

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“We make a living by what we get.

We make a life by what we give.”

Do Good

– It is true that money can’t buy happiness, unless you spend it on others. Research has shown that we are far happier when we are giving than when we are receiving, and making a conscious effort to help others is a vital part of a happier lifestyle.

Whether it’s donating to a charity, helping out a friend, volunteering locally or visiting an elderly neighbour, doing nice things for other people is one of the simplest ways to make yourself feel good. And, if you can build this into your every day life, even better.

Enjoy the Moment – the Danish art of hygge has become a buzzword for happiness, but the concept of making comfort and cosiness a priority is actually linked to a deeper sense of joy, and is relevant worldwide. This idea is about being truly present in the moment, not wanting something, not chasing some unrealised future happiness, but focusing on making little moments of happiness every day. Lighting a candle is just one way to make you stop, to centre yourself and acknowledge the moment you are in, creating a warm, welcoming, happy space to sit, read, talk, eat. Playing beautiful music is also one, so too is choosing careful lighting, soft cushions and comfy chairs for your home. It’s also about reading books, watching films or looking at art. It’s even about dinner with friends, picnics with family, coffee with colleagues. It is about what you love, what feels good and connects to yourself and those around you. Those little gestures and moments that make life beautiful, comfortable and pleasurable.

“Happiness consists more in small conveniences or pleasurethat occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but

,

seldom.”

- Benjamin Franklin

- Winston Churchill Take Action: Contact a local charity and commit to a way you can help out each month – whether that’s with your time, or your money. The best way to give, is to give what you can, because then you will always do it gladly.

4 Take Action: Write a list of the moments in your day that brought you happiness – don’t be surprised if they weren’t what you expected. Take some time to acknowledge the happy moments in your day that weren’t about chasing a dream, but were about things happening right now. Tomorrow, see if you notice these happy moments as they’re happening.

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5

Rewrite your Story – getting to understand yourself and your life better, and knowing what your story is is really important. Creating a narrative from the events of our lives brings clarity, and helps us understand how we became who we are today. “We don’t always realize that we’re the authors of our stories and can change the way we’re telling them,” explains writer Emily Esfahani Smith. “Your life isn’t just a list of events. You can edit, interpret and retell your story.” Changing your story is about seeing your life and the events in it differently. It is about seeing the loss of a job or the ending of a marriage as an opportunity, not a disaster. It can also mean seeing your life right now in a new, happier light. Sitting at the dinner table with your family, for instance, and just taking a moment to drink the experience in – even if it is noisy, or busy or messy. Hear that noise as evidence of joy and life, see that busyness as evidence of people and connection, see that mess as having food to eat, plates to serve it on, a table to sit around.

Take Action: With a therapist - or on your own - chart the story of your life back, and see if you can change the meanings of some events. Reflect on your life, asking how your defining experiences have shaped you, and see if there is a different interpretation than the one you have always accepted.

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“Most folks are as happy as the make up their minds to be.”

-Abraham Lincoln

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Don’t Compare

– It is true that comparison is the thief of joy. The more you worry about what others have and what you do not have, you miss the rich, glorious beauty of your own life. So, focus on yourself more, on what you have and what you can be grateful for. Stop worrying about your neighbour’s car, your neighbour’s house, your neighbour’s marriage, your neighbour’s job. Get off social media and look at the beautiful, varied, loving life you do have. Do you feel happy when you get home? Take time to delight in your own space, in your own patch of earth, in the world you have built around you. Stop worrying about what anyone else has got - and start enjoying what you have.

“It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness”

,

- Charles Spurgeon

Take Action: Start a gratitude journal, write in it every night, just three things that you are grateful for. Once a month, look back over it and acknowledge all the incredible moments in your life.

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7 – The world is bigger than us, we are simply not all that there is. We all need something that keeps us grounded and allows our sense of self to fade away, to be replaced by something awesome and infinite. Find something that transcends the day-to-day and allows you to reach out and build pathways to a deeper understanding. This could be a connection to God and spirituality, but it could also be found in books, art, travel or music. However your find your spiritual awakening, allow yourself the space to feel connected to a higher reality – and to mark the time either in prayer or pursuit of a passion. “My spiritual practice is unique to me, as I think each person’s is,” explains life coach Jude Temple. “What I eventually stumbled upon is…a collection of truths, observances, and touchstones that unswervingly lead me back to peace, that encourage me to live with an ever-opening heart, and that consistently fill me awe and wonder.”

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“ True happiness... is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.”- Helen Keller Take Action: Start your journey to spirituality by exploring some of the questions in your soul. Jude Temple recommends both Soulcraft by Bill Plotkin or Care of the Soul by Thomas Moore, which she says are great primers for fostering sacredness in your everyday. And, talk to people, ask for recommendations, feed your inquisitiveness. “Knowledge and curiosity are the cornerstones of a truly rich spiritual journey,” says Temple.

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“Don’t wait around for other people to be happy for you.

Any happiness you get you’ve got yourself.”

to make - Alice Walker

Prioritise You: You are responsible for your own life

and you are the answer to all your questions. Prioritising yourself is not selfish, but a radical act of love and self-compassion. Your happiness lies in your own commitment to yourself. Self-care is an important aspect of a happy life – and it covers everything from eating well and staying fit and healthy to nurturing your mind with meaningful work and things that excite and inspire you. Even in a busy, chaotic world it is vital that you make time for you.

Take Action: Find a way to create a sanctuary somewhere in your house – the corner of your bedroom, a bathroom, a small study area – a space that is just yours, designed how you would like it, with the right lighting, the cosiest armchair, the most delicious scents, the softest blankets. This is where you can dim the lights, listen to music, meditate, journal, think, pray, write. Own this space, don’t apologise for it. You are just as important as the other people in your life, and you deserve a space that is somewhere you can go to feel safe, supported, happy.

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‘The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts’ - Marcus Aurelius

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CHECKS AND BALANCES

Monochrome makes the perfect playmate to this season’s eye-catching checks. Focus on texture with big ruffles, sweet Broderie anglaise or classic tweed and team with lavish accessories for a look that is both daring yet sophisticated 51

Left: Blouse, Chloé.

Bodysuit, Tesswithlotte.

Earring, Dior. Belt, Hopeful This page: Dress – Benchellal, Top, Natan. Earring – Dior.

Ring, Ole Lynggaard

Blouse and bodice, both Temperley London.

Earring, Dior.

Ring, Ole Lynggaard

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Bodysuit and blouse, Tesswithlotte, Trench, romper and earring, all Dior

Blazer, trousers and waistcoat, all Maxmara.

Earring and bracelets, Dior.

Necklace, Chanel.

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Bodysuit and blouse, Tesswithlotte, Trench, romper and earring, all Dior

Blazer, trousers and waistcoat, all Maxmara.

Earring and bracelets, Dior.

Necklace, Chanel.

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SP R ING LAU N CHE S As nature begins to open up to warmer days, we find products to help you embrace and enjoy the new season ahead 59

Nutribronze Adaptive Sheer Tinted Serum, £58, Oskia British skincare specialists Oskia’s first foray into a skincare-makeup hybrid has all the benefits we’ve come to expect from the team behind the iconic Renaissance range. Milk peptides lift and firm, while bakuchiol - a natural, non-irritating alternative to retinol - boosts elasticity. The lightweight formula can be used alone or mixed into your moisturiser to give the skin a subtle glow.

Riviera Postcard Body Mist, £13, And Other Stories Fast-drying body mist with a delicate perfume that instantly re-awakens the senses, leaving mind and body revitalised. Delicately scented with notes of lemon zest, pineapple and whipped vanilla.

Complexion L’Essentiel Primer, £38, Guerlain As temperatures soar, preventing your make-up from sliding off can be a challenge. What you need is the just-launched L’Essentiel Primer from Guerlain which not only gives you a long-lasting flawless base, it also tackles shine and keeps your complexion blemish-free.

Full Frontal Volume Lift & Curl Mascara, £21, Fenty Beauty It’s rare that a genuinely impressive new mascara comes along, but here is one that promises Rihanna’s ‘full lash’ look – and delivers. The exclusive ‘flat-to-fat’ brush works on one side to hold a maximum amount of product for loading and lifting lashes, while the other looks after the curling. Easily buildable and long-lasting, it’s nothing less than you’d expect from one of the biggest names in beauty.

Lavender & Coriander Cologne, £50, Jo Malone London Scent your spring with Jo Malone London’s limited edition Lavenderland Collection. Our favourite is Lavender and Coriander, a fresh and fragrant take on English lavender sitting on a base of tonka bean and sage which gives this otherwise fresh fragrance a hint of warmth.

Éclat du Désert, £55, Chanel Inspired by the shimmering sand dunes this limited-edition illuminating powder from Chanel leaves you with a soft, golden glow as if lit by gentle candlelight.

CBD Glow Oil, £48, Herbivore Emerald CBD was the beauty buzzword of 2019, but far from being late to the party, Herbivore’s reformulated CBD Emerald Glow Oil promises to be as popular for calming inflamed skin as the cult Prism Glow Serum was forgiving tired faces a luminous glow – as well as looking excellent on a bathroom shelf.

Oil bath for the senses, £50, Susanne Kaufmann There’s nothing quite like plummeting into the bathtub after a long day and this gorgeously scented bath oil, packed with a soul-soothing blend of oils such as ylang ylang and patchouli, leaves you with skin like actual silk.

Pure Canvas Protecting Primer, £32, Laura Mercier Add a perfect glow while protecting your skin from the harmful effects of the sun with this new primer. Lightweight, the base offers full invisible coverage without clogging pores, defending against environmental aggressors as well as UVA/ UVB. Vitamins E and C nourish your skin with regular use, leaving it looking healthier with a brighter glow.

Bal d’Afrique Body Cream, £60, Byredo A cult beauty favourite, Byredo’s sophisticated scents will stay with you throughout the day. This fast-absorbing body cream smoothes and softens the skin, leaving behind notes of lemon, neroli and African marigold mixed with sweet tones of jasmin Petals over an intense and woody base of black amber, musk and warming Moroccan cedarwood. Perfect for the gently warming days of spring.

Phyto-Blanc Le Concentre Pure Bright Activating Serum, £284, Sisley The ultimate in luxury-meets-laboratory, Sisley’s latest launch is a skin toneevening serum which uses active ingredients including pea peptide and wild thyme extract, vitamin B3 and a new find, Egyptian myrobolan, to inhibit the production of dark spots. After two months of use, testers also found a 49 per cent increase in radiance – just in time for summer.

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From Kimono to Catwalk From breathtaking haute couture to film costumes, the kimono has long provided inspiration all over the world. As London’s V&A museum prepares to open a new show dedicated to this most Japanese of fashion pieces, Claire Brayford delves into the great history of the kimono

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I

t was the increasing Americanisation of Japan in the aftermath of the Second World War and irrevocable changes to its cultural landscape that, ironically, meant the country looked to its past, particularly the kimono.

A treasured expression of the essence of Japan, in an increasingly globalised world, the kimono became as much a part of the national identity as the tea-making ceremonies and flower arranging it was worn for.

But as filmmakers, musicians and designers around the world adopted the kimono for its beauty and otherworldly mystery, they were criticised for a contemporary equivalent of 19th century imperialism.

Now a new exhibition, Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk at London’s Victoria & Albert museum is breaking down the stereotype of the garment as revered national dress, instead celebrating its dynamism, evolution – and relevancy.

Writing in a new book to accompany the exhibition, curator Anna Jackson says it is easy to fall into the trap

of viewing the garment as an unchanging costume. ‘That denies the kimono both its own sartorial history and its part in an ongoing, complex and vibrant international fashion network,’ she says.

Featuring 315 works – including rare exhibits, painting and film – the exhibition shows how kimono fashion has been translated across social and geographic boundaries; how its simple structure and sumptuous surface has had a major impact on global dress styles in all its cross-cultural glory.

‘But we also simply want people to enjoy seeing these beautiful garments and perhaps to find some inspiration for their own sartorial expression,’ she adds.

The exhibition begins in the mid 17th century, when a fashion-conscious society was emerging in Japan, demanding the latest styles to express their affluence, confidence and taste. It charts the evolution of the kimomo ‘from stylish samurai to Jedi knights, from Kabuki actors to modern influencers’ says Tristram Hunt, the museum’s director.

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Visitors can marvel at 17th and 18th century kimono that have never been seen before in the UK, alongside an Alexander McQueen dress worn by Björk on the 1997 cover of her album ‘Homogenic’.

Breathtaking haute couture brushes shoulders with kimono-inspired film costumes, such as the threadbare robeworn by Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars.

For Jackson, the standout piece is a man’s under-kimono preserved in the collection of Kyushu National Museum.

‘This was tailored from cotton cloth made on the Coromandel Coast of southeast India in the 17th or early 18th century and brought to Japan by the Dutch East India Company,’ she explains. ‘Uniting different aesthetic and cultural values, this wonderful garment exemplifies how fashion has the power to transcend geographic borders, blurring boundaries between the familiar and the foreign.’

With its ability to imbue the wearer with a filmstar elegance, the kimono has had a huge impact on western fashion, especially in the early 20th century, when designers such as Paul Poiret, Mariano Fortuny and Madeleine Vionnet abandoned tightly-corseted styles in

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favour of loose layers which draped the body.

Visitors will find work from Thom Browne, Yves Saint Laurent, Rei Kawakubo and Jean Paul Gaultier, while the La-La-San ensemble created by John Galliano for the 10th year of his own tenure at the house of Dior is arguably one of the most arresting.

In 2007, amid a blizzard of cherry blossom and confetti butterflies, the designer sent models lavishly dressed in long, slim-line shapes with embroidery that evocatively echoed the fashions of the Edo period to the astonishment of the fashion world.

‘The kimono is an historically important and evocative garment, which goes beyond trends or fashion,’ says Nigerianborn designer Duro Olowu, who frequently references kimono in his collections and whose jacquard, belted coat features in the exhibition.

‘Relevant, desirable, and after many centuries still terribly chic – [the coat] is inspired by the 1920/30s paintings of artist Kees Van Dongen. Its louche-yet-sharp wrap silhouette is an ode to the kimono and the way it gives sensuality and shape to the human body.’

While the kimono was first worn as an undergarment by

Japan’s aristocracy and is still cut from a single bolt of cloth, it is anything but simple. The sumptuous surface patterns hold complex and powerful significance, while every tuck, tie and fold of the layers of silk is loaded with meaning.

Embodying strength and fragility – allowing the wearer to feel both powerful and feminine – its T-shaped structure, without focus on form, means it can be worn by all.

The kimono’s gender fluidity is another aspect explored at the exhibition, with a feminine design worn by British musician Freddie Mercury shown to the public for the first time.

‘Most people tend to think of kimono as feminine, so we were keen to show historic menswear, even though this is not always treasured and preserved in the same way as that for women because it tends to be quite plain,’ says Jackson.

Today a new wave of designers – Jtar Saito and Hiroko Takahashi, as well as independent studios such as Rumi Rock and Modern Antenna – have emerged exploring kimono design in fresh ways and creating more casual styles for time-poor customers.

‘The kimono renaissance started on the street, with the restyling of vintage garments by young Japanese tired of incessant changes in western fashion and bored of the uniformity of clothing available,’ says Jackson. ‘We are

seeing new types of patterning, less expensive materials, and more casual styles. They have reclaimed the kimono as an item of fashionable dress, valued as a unique garment within an increasingly globalised world.’

Stasia Matsumoto, a Tokyo-based kimono stylist, says many contemporary kimono makers are creating new designs to appeal to young people, as well as items that make them easier to wear.

‘Last year, the new way to tie obi [the garment’s belt] was all the rage in the kimono world – it’s called ‘Musubanai obi Musubi’, which means ‘tying the obi without tying it’.

New York-based, Tokyo-born designer Hiromi Asai, who is showing her menswear collection at Paris Fashion Week for the first time, believes that while today’s rules for kimonowearing are important, it should be donned without any inhibition.

‘It is my hope that people will learn to enjoy wearing the kimono in a more relaxed manner,’ she says. ‘It’s easy to show the kimono as culture but I want to show it as fashion. I believe there are no cultural, racial, and geographical boundaries for wearing kimonos because

they are beautiful, and the textiles are unique.’

In all its permutations, there is no denying how the kimono makes the wearer feel. Matsumoto explains that customers are often surprised that the ‘dressing process’ is not as lengthy, or tight, as they might expect and can be styled according to their tastes.

‘Kimono often has an image of being difficult to wear, with very strict rules, I show them that it doesn’t have to be the case,’ she says, describing the joy customers feel before they even glimpse themselves in the mirror.

‘It changes the way they move, the way they walk, they often say it makes them feel beautiful.’

With all eyes turning to Tokyo later this year for the summer Olympics, there is even a project to see 196 countries represented in kimono, unifying cultures around the world. It is reassuring to know that in its rich 1,000-year history, the kimono’s modernity and relevance has never wavered.

‘Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness’ - Ayn Rand

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Food for thought Why is nutrition advice so complicated asks Al Reem Al Tenaiji?

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“The fast pace of our lives leaves us little time to shop, to cook healthy meals, and to sit and eat them slowly. We ignore mindful eating and the pleasure of taste”

I

n the age of Instagram, there is such a thing as too much information. Navigating through before-andafter photos of millions of people embarking on diet journeys, various methods or products from dietitians’ blogs, and peer pressure can be a very slippery slope from informed to confused. New diet trends and superfoods are often the main topic of today’s dinner party conversation, and, while anyone can say they are going to start dieting, choosing the most suitable approach for long-term personal success can be complicated.

Our modern lifestyle is fast-paced. As a result, the modern diet has also become fast. The fast pace of our lives leaves us little time to shop for healthy foods, to cook properly, and to sit and eat them slowly. We ignore mindful eating and the pleasure of taste.

Though I’ve always been health and fitness conscious, I started following strict diet plans during my work in media. It was the beginning of my career and I had no time to plan meals or consider what was best for me. So, I went for the easy choice and joined a famous diet meal provider which focused on serving the correct number of portions from all food groups, and timely eating with

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proper intervals. This diet saved me the time I would have spent on the hassle of groceries and cooking. It worked well in the beginning, but I slowly got bored and realised that I needed more control of my diet plan rather than choosing from a fixed menu.

And so, I set about researching and discussing my passion for healthy eating with friends. I started reading blogs and consulting nutritionists, I learnt about superfoods, the role of supplements and the diets that some leaders and athletes use to improve stamina or brain function. All this knowledge helped me create my own personalised regime, which is one I can keep to wherever I am, which – being as I travel so much for work – is a real bonus. It requires solid commitment, but I follow it rigorously, and it’s become a mindset that I rely on.

Right now there many popular diets, but four seem to stay in the media – ketogenic, paleolithic, Whole30 and intermittent fasting. They all have benefits but there isn’t really a one size fits all when it comes to diets. For instance, I started keto in 2018 with a group of friends, and while the results were amazing, it really is the kind of diet that should only be used short-term.

There is currently a lot of hype surrounding intermittent fasting diets. For sure, it is not all hype – there is definitely some sound science here, not least that which shows how the likes of Ramadan fasting is both detoxifying and brings tremendous health benefits.

My take on a diet confusion, is less about food and more about your mind. Focus on the basics like sleeping well, keeping yourself hydrated, moving more, and lowering stress levels – all of which are often more realistic than strict calorie counting or denial.

Accountable self-monitoring on food choices with the focus on small steps are essential, and remember, no diet plan can work magic without your own personalised fitness regime. I also regularly journal how my diet is going, and monitor the different benefits I am getting from supplements.

Healthy diet and fitness are a bumpy ride and we all need to find our own personal fit. It’s important to remember that mindful wellbeing planning is the foundation of healthy happy life. Take some time to do some thoughtful introspection about your lifestyle and eating habits and, ask yourself, that do you actually need to go on a diet or just switch up your eating habits?

STORY OF

WISDOM

The Cracked Pot

A

n elderly Chinese woman had two large pots. Each pot hung on the ends of a pole, which she carried across her shoulders.

Every day, she used this device to carry water to her home.

One of the pots was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. The other had a deep crack in it and leaked. At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.

For a full two years this situation occurred daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do.

After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, the cracked pot spoke to the woman one day by the stream, saying, ‘I am ashamed of myself because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the

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way back to your house.’

The old woman smiled and replied, ‘Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side? I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walked back home you watered them and made them grow. For two years, I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table and give to my friends and neighbors. Without you being just the way you are, there would not have been this special beauty to grace our homes and lives.’

Sometimes, it’s the ‘cracks,’ or what we perceive as imperfections, in this reality that create something unexpected and beautiful. These “cracks” allow something to change and ultimately make the whole much richer and more interesting. Every thing and every being has its own unique purpose and destiny to fulfill. This is one of the great beauties of the Tao.

The Most Liberal Bestower, The Great Giver, The Giver of Gifts The One who continually bestows gifts, favors and blessings upon all of creation.

The One who is the most generous and liberal giver.

The One who gives freely and endlessly, without expectation of any return.

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Unbroken

Planting the seed of joy

By Najla Al Tenaiji

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W

hether you are a fan of winter, love the change that comes in autumn, or the heat of the summer, there is no denying that spring is a favourite season for many people. I love it personally, as it signals a time when I get more sunlight, and start to hear the spring sounds of birds chirping outside my window. Spring means more time to take walks in nature, which slows my heart rate and makes me more relaxed. I can get my vitamins naturally, open my window and sit beside it, watching the flowers.

I love flowers. After my accident, flowers and I have always felt connected.

Reborn each spring, just looking at them, and keeping them around, heals my heart and makes me happy.

In this long journey of recovery, I learn that spending time outside in the sunny spring weather isn’t just a mood booster, it actually can change the way I think. Just being outdoors broadens my mind, leaving it more open to new information and creative thoughts.

My love of gardening was started by a lovely friend who gifted me an orchid long ago. This plant became my best companion during the days of recovery when I was bedridden, and suffering. I used to talk to it, share all my feelings with it – my orchid was a beautiful, empathic listener. As strange as it sounds, he became a comforting presence who reflected many of my true feelings. One day, I saw his leaves change color, they became dry and fell to the floor. I couldn’t get out of bed and water the orchid, or take care of him. I was helpless, and somehow this plant’s sorrow echoed my own. He was alone, he needed friends and companions so he could flourish.

And so, my sister Al Reem and my mom created a beautiful garden for me in my backyard, which became my sanctuary. I started spend most of my time there meditating, reading, painting, praying and writing. This mini-garden is now full of my favorite flowers, and is still a special place. I am writing my column today in my garden.

Staying at home all the time can kill our mental

and emotional health. It also destroys our human need to be social. People who stay indoors and don’t connect with nature suffer from depression, social anxiety, obesity, and a ton of health problems.

Gardening gets me out of my room and in touch with others. It has been an important part of my recovery, and given me back purpose.

Al Reem, my younger sister, is the most inspirational person in my life and she is always finding interactive strategies for me. After being inspired by her skill in flower-arranging, she taught me the basics, and encouraged me to try my own. Since then, one of my weekly jobs is to arrange flowers for the entire house. I then share these flower pictures with friends, family and my therapists.

This hobby has helped me so much in improving my social life and interactions with family and friends, and flowers and gardening has become a joyful way for me to make new connections.

Gardening not only helps me socialise and connect with people though. It also provides me with a good opportunity for physical and strengthening work - bending, pulling, digging, weeding - and sweating! My physio coach, Leslie, always encourages and accompanies me in my garden and has helped me realise how this fun and joyful exercise is good for circulation, releasing endorphins, and improving muscle and joint performance.

In my gardening journal, I keep track of each plant when I plant, when I sow, when they grow, when buds and flowers come out, and how the weather affect them. All my plants are my friends - and I observe and absorb their mood and beauty as they write their stories throughout the seasons.

I always mention in my columns that the process of my healing is not about one specific approach, but instead a holistic way to heal mind, body, and soul.

Gardening has helped me to repair, grow and come back to life. It gave me a sense of purpose, and showed me that I am a part of something greater, and have a unique and valuable way contribute to the community.

Gardening has tremendous benefits for people. These are just some of the ways that it has helped me.

•

Hand-eye coordination •

A fun workout •

Providing a sense of responsibility and care •

Releasing anxiety and anger •

Boosts my immune system •

Sharpens my brain •

Promotes an innate sense of nurturing •

Ensures a connection to nature and living things •

Releases high levels of serotonin and dopamine •

Feeling more relaxed, less worry •

Living in the present moment •

Nourishes my spirit

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Lessons learned A good teacher is a gift that inspires long after we leave the classroom’ says Dr Asma Naheed. Here she looks at why the art of teaching is really the art of assisting discovery

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“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

William Butler Yeats

“A good teacher is like a candle, it consumes itself to light the way for others.”

Sais Ata Turk.

T

eaching is the art of helping others to grow in their knowledge and understanding. It is about inspiring young minds and giving them a thirst for knowledge that will carry them through to adulthood. But, more than that, teaching is also never forgetting that each day you might be the only person who touches someone’s life.

Teaching is all about building a relationship with your students. We go to school to learn important things such as how to read, write and do basic sums, but today’s digital world means a lot of the things we learn could be found through the technological mediums of Google, Wikipedia or even Siri.

So, why go to school? What is the role of teachers?

Teaching is really about inspiration, not information. Effective teaching focuses on why and how, not what. The goal should be to spark each student’s imagination, to find a hook in their heart and mind so that are inspired to learn more. The rest is easy, because the student then drives his or her learning.

Teaching involves the giving of oneself to others so that possibly, just possibly, this gift of time and patience will blossom in the heart of another and, even more importantly, might cause others to blossom too.

As a teacher, our role is to ask provocative questions, and to help the students find a path toward answers. Because, if they are motivated to find the path, they will carve it themselves.

Mark Van Doren once said: “The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery,” – which is a great way to think about it. Teaching is the process of inspiring and coaching morals, values, abilities and skills, helping young people grow in order to ensure positive change in their thinking patterns, actions and behaviors, which will in turn create change in the next generation and our society.

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‘The most important thing is to enjoy your life —to be happy— it’s all that matters’ – Audrey Hepburn

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