EMMA SEPPÄLÄ PhD is author of The Happiness Track, founder of FulfillmentDaily.com, and Science Director of Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education.
As I began teaching, I awakened to a sense of timelessness and happiness I had never before experienced. No matter how I felt before class, I always felt fantastic during and after—and it wasn’t just exercise endorphins. This was the first work experience where I didn’t feel the time go by or even look at the clock. In fact, I had to be careful not to go overtime. I could have gone on for hours. What I felt was nothing short of fulfillment. Wow—had I found my dream job? What would my parents say if, after supporting me through four years at Yale, their daughter announced that she was going to become a professional Pilates instructor? They could have saved themselves a lot of money.
Over time, I realized that it wasn’t Pilates that made me fulfilled, it was the act of teaching and sharing something that helped others be happier and healthier. I felt expanded, elated, loving, and joyful at the idea of helping others find fulfillment—and it was this realization that has led to all my professional teaching, research, and writing.
This story is from the September/October 2017 edition of Spirituality & Health.
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This story is from the September/October 2017 edition of Spirituality & Health.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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ONE WORD TO BEAT WINTER BLUES: BIOMIMICRY
CREATURELY REFLECTIONS
THINKING ABOUT RESTITUTION
THE HEART OF HAPPINESS
WAITING IN LINE
OUR WALK IN THE WORLD
ENTER THE SAUNA
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the trail of ATONEMENT
One Ashkenazi Jewish family escaped pogroms in Russia and then flourished in South Dakota, but the “free land” of their new homestead had been unfairly taken from the Lakota by the United States. Generations later, a celebrated investigative journalist set out to tell the truth of the Lakota and her family, calculate The Cost of Free Land—and pay it back.
STALKING YOUR Mind
Stalking the Mind is part of an ancient Indigenous American Medicine Way to tame your guilt, fears, and shame. What we’re “stalking” are our thought patterns and beliefs that seem to create the opposite of happiness and wellbeing. It’s a powerful psychotherapeutic journey of healing without the diagnosis or labels.
LEAVING MESA VERDE
After 21 years of service at Mesa Verde National Park, RANGER DAVID FRANKS recently guided his last tour of the pueblos and cliff dwellings. He says he was fortunate to assist the archeologists with a variety of work and never lost his amazement with their ability to figure out how and when things happened. The question he still wrestles with is much deeper: Why they left?
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PEGGY LA CERRA, PHD, downloaded a health app to aggregate her medical records and was stunned to see the phrase \"aortic atherosclerosis.\" What she did next is a helpful model for all of us.
ARCHETYPAL ASTROLOGY
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WELLNESS IN THE WILD
Spa aficionado MARY BEMIS takes the [cold] plunge at Mohonk Mountain House.