The Secret to Happiness (Human Being 101)

The Thriving Roadmap – Overview

The Thriving Roadmap is based on the following principles.

• It’s our birthright to THRIVE … in alignment with other people and the rest of the Web of Life

• Happiness is the feeling we experience when we’re THRIVING
  

• Everyone has the same right to thrive; no person’s well-being is more important than another’s

• The only thing anyone is ever doing, is trying to thrive (however unconscious, misguided, counterproductive, or tragically destructive their strategies might be)

• All human beings require the same essential things (“Life-Needs“) in order to thrive.  Human beings who don’t get their Life-Needs met eventually become ill physically, mentally, and/or emotionally.  Examples of Life-Needs of course include things like clean food, air, and water, but also include things like harmonious connection, touch, belonging, self-expression, and freedom/choice.  Click on the button to the right for a full list of the essential Life-Needs that are behind both the understandable and head-scratching things we humans do, as we try to thrive and feel good.
  

• Once we become adults, our well-being (thriving) is ultimately our own responsibility, and other adults’ well-being is ultimately their responsibility.  It’s essential to learn how to navigate this in healthy ways, to find our way to aligned thriving.  (And, be sure to keep reading for more on how we get there together.)

• Every one of us has within us all the personal power and discernment we need to learn how to personally thrive … with ease.  (Even if we’ve grown up in a culture that has only taught us how to survive.)

• Because we are social beings, human interaction (relationships of all kinds) is the primary medium through which our well-being is nourished … or diminished.
  

• We can learn how to communicate in ways that contribute to our own and others’ thriving!

• We can learn how to create and sustain positive connection!

• We can learn how to thrive, and how to have thriving relationships!
  

Learning how to THRIVE (how to be happy) requires learning how to (in ACTUAL PRACTICE):

• genuinely value and consider (“respect”) our own well-being, remembering that we are ultimately responsible for our own thriving (once we reach adulthood)

• genuinely value and consider (“respect”) others’ well-being, remembering that they are ultimately responsible for their own thriving (once they reach adulthood)

• experience our body sensations and  feelings as they’re happening without avoiding, denying, numbing out, going unconscious, being “captured,” or being overwhelmed by them (see Compassionate Noticing mindfulness group for support and practice)
  

• realize that we are not our body sensations, feelings, thoughts, and impulses and learn how to witness or observe these inner experiences from a consciousness characterized by grounded presence, compassion, and the capacity for authentic choice (see Compassionate Noticing mindfulness group for support and practice)
  

• identify our Life-Needs* (standard NVC practice groups are a good place to learn how to identify Life-Needs)

• learn how to meet our Life-Needs,* including identifying effective inner-world strategies (e.g., learning how to generate the experience of met Life-Needs through memory or imagination, which I call “basking” or “self-sourcing”) as well as identifying effective outer-world strategies (e.g., making genuine requests of other people and/or engaging effectively with resources, places, circumstances, and/or events).  (See Thriving Fundamentals, Healthy Boundaries, and Presence Practice to support your next steps on your journey.)
  

This brief Thriving Roadmap overview only begins to touch on a landscape that is as vast, complex, and varied as we and our relationships are. 

It’s been my lifelong passion to explore, discover effective tools and practices, and navigate the landscape of being human in life-giving, connection-supporting ways that support everyone’s aligned thriving.

I can offer clarity, guidance, and well-managed, shared humanity as you learn how to use the Thriving Roadmap to cultivate your own unique aligned thriving. 

Ready for more?

Enter into a whole new world of aligned Thriving in just over 90 minutes, with the acclaimed Thriving Fundamentals Program.  (Your delight is 100% guaranteed.)

I have been in therapy … for years. [Thriving Fundamentals has] helped me heal more TODAY than I have yet. Thank you so much! — G.H., Portland, OR

Or, feel welcome to apply for a complimentary Thriving Breakthrough Consult.

However you choose to begin, I look forward to sharing this wonderful, challenging, luminous, heart- and soul-nourishing human journey into aligned THRIVING with you.

Blessings on us all,

* Traditional Nonviolent Communication uses the word “needs.”  Here’s why I use “life-needs” instead.

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