Happiness is far more than a positive feeling that comes and goes. Science is now proving that happiness is a skill that you can develop.

Course objectives:

List some enduring benefits of happiness.
• Describe the negativity bias of the brain.
• Summarize how our brains can make us happy and also create suffering.
• Practice guided exercises for tapping your innate capacity to nurture and encourage yourself.
• Utilize meditation to shape your brain over time to experience more joy and be more at ease in everyday life.
• Apply techniques that re-wire the neural pathways in the brain to experience deeper and more lasting happiness.
Bridging neuropsychology with the great contemplative traditions, Meditations for Happiness brings you a series of practices that allow you to literally rewire the neural pathways in your brain to experience deeper and more lasting contentment.

On part one, Dr. Hanson discusses the nature of happiness, its role in our evolution, how our brains both make us happy and create suffering, and how we can use and shape our brains over time to experience more joy and ease in everyday life. He then guides you step-by-step through more than a dozen meditations and exercises including:

A Happiness Trip—explore the many shades of positive emotions that relate to your happiness
• Gratitude—an antidote to threatening thoughts and feelings
• Taking Refuge in What's Reliable—root your happiness in the safe harbors of things you can truly count on
• Coming Home to Happiness—a relaxing session to ease your body-mind back to its natural state of calm and contentment
"Emotions come and go, but true happiness endures," teaches Dr. Hanson. With Meditations for Happiness, he helps you build a foundation of skills for realizing the happiness you desire.