Happiness – it’s that feeling of well-being or ecstatic joy that improves our quality of life, but for far too many people, it’s fleeting at best. The Metrotown branch of the Burnaby Public Library is hosting a talk on happiness with Gwen Gnazdowsky, a public speaker who runs One Conversation Coaching. Gnazdowsky has a background in social work and life skills coaching, she’s also trained nurses on assertiveness, and she delivered a TEDxBCIT talk on the subject. Her upcoming event is titled: Happiness is a Paradigm Shift. She will be at the Bob Prittie Metrotown branch, at 6100 Willingdon Ave., on Monday, May 4 from 6:30 to 8 p.m. There’s still space to register. Sign up by calling 604-436-5400.
Can you tell me a bit about your library talk?
It’s about a paradigm shift, the fastest way to getting to happiness. I’m going to be dealing with emotional programming and helping people understand how emotional programming gets set early in life.
When you talk about paradigm shift, what are you referring to?
I’m referring to recognizing what your core belief system is and coming up with different interpretations to the stories of events that happened in your life.
Do you find a lot of people’s happiness is hindered by childhood experiences?
Yes, I do. The Chinese have a saying: Show me a six-year-old boy, and I will show you a man. It’s very interesting how we got locked into these belief systems and we have been making things up as children. We believe them to be true.
What’s the best advice for realizing happiness?
I would say share your secrets, because secrets are what keep you stuck. I know in my life, my secret was I worried and feared I wasn’t special. And of course, I never shared that with anybody because that’s a little bit embarrassing, and it would be humiliating to share that with people. But now I share it all the time. And my sharing about it helps other people share with me what’s going on for them.
Do you find when you share something it doesn’t have that negative power over you anymore?
That’s correct. Also, to paradigm shift, it’s like coming up with a different interpretation to why we came up with those kind of stories about ourselves. People have: I’m not smart enough, I’m not good enough, I’m not special enough, I’m not lovable, stories like that. I’m not worthy is another big one.
Is happiness something you can have all the time or is it something ephemeral?
I wouldn’t say all the time but a whole lot more of the times than I used to. ... I would say before I would be unhappy 80 per cent of the time, now I’m unhappy 20 per cent of the time.
There’s a lot of injustice in the world. Is it reasonable to expect to be happy all the time?
That’s kind of comparing realistic with happiness, and I totally get people have suffered terrible injustices in life. So I don’t mean to minimize that, but we are, ourselves, more powerful and empowered if we are the ones who are taking control of our own mind set. If we are going to say: how can I turn this around, how can I learn from this, how can I create my own happiness in spite of this happening? And you do see a lot of people who suffer incredible loss and injustice and manage to turn their lives around or turn to a place of being compassionate and grateful, and all of those kinds of things. I think it’s worth the effort.
