The Happiness Virus — Catch it if you can!

Teri Degler • August 31, 2021

A while back I read a short piece in The Toronto Star on some fascinating scientific research.* The researchers – from Harvard and MIT – had wanted to find out if an analytical model that was originally designed to track the proliferation of contagious diseases could also track the spread of emotions like happiness and sadness. To make a long story short (and undoubtedly sacrifice a little accuracy in the process!) in order to do this they collected data on the moods of both patients and the people around them that had originally been amassed in an extensive, long-term study on heart disease. They then plugged this data into a program that was designed to predict and trace the spread of infectious disease. In the end, according to The Star, the researchers not only found that they could track the spread of emotions, they also discovered “a correlation between an individual’s emotional state and those of the person’s contacts…In other words, it appears that you can catch happiness. Or sadness.”


Reading this helped clarify a feeling I’ve had for a long time whenever I get involved in a conversation about how “bad” things are – global warming, ozone depletion, the recession, the horrors of the recent oil spill…. Every time I’m in one of these discussions I feel like there is a black cloud emanating out of me and everyone involved, and I have this awful sense that the conversation is, in itself, somehow making the situation worse.


Let me make it clear that I am not talking about informed, intelligent discussion about disasters and terrible situations that is aimed at spreading important information or – especially – fostering urgent action that needs to be taken!!!


I am talking about a kind of re-hashing of how bad things are – particularly when the listing of horrors is being used as a sort of ‘proof’ that the Armageddon thought to be predicted by the things like the Mayan Calendar is definitely on its way.


We certainly need to keep important information about the horrors in the world flowing – the way amazing organizations like Avaaz.org do. We need to take action – and keep taking action. But we also need to catch ourselves when what we are doing is, in fact, not spreading important information or encouraging activism, but allowing ourselves to sink into – and spread – despair. [As an aside, let me say that I can’t for the life of me figure out why some people seem to be perversely pleased that Nostradamus-type predictions for disaster appear to be coming true!!]


While Gopi Krishna was one of the great visionaries who made these types of predictions, he also made it clear that the coming of this disaster was not inevitable and that “Armageddon” was not an absolute foregone conclusion. There was a cosmic scale that could be tipped. A sufficient manifestation of the divine love – he would have said kundalini-shakti – could not only generate the light and love that would balance out the darkness, but could also foster the level of enlightenment that would, in turn, provide divinely inspired solutions to the world’s problems.


In the meantime, let us – trite as it may sound – focus on the positive. Spread the love, the light, the hope…. As that corny, but wonderful, Johnny Mercer song from the 1940s puts it:


You’ve got to ac-cen-tu-ate the positive
Eliminate the negative
And latch on to the affirmative
Don’t mess with Mister In-Between…
You’ve got to spread joy up to the maximum
Bring gloom down to the minimum
Have faith or pandemonium’s
Liable to walk upon the scene….



*The piece printed in The Toronto Star was written by Rachel Bernstein and originally published in the Los Angeles Times. The original article describing the research can be found in Proceedings of the Royal Science B. I’ll be checking this out and seeing if there is anything else of interest to be gleaned from this research.

New book on Gopi Krishna launched

By Teri Degler • June 21, 2023
Gopi Krishna—A Biography: Kundalini, Consciousness and Our Evolution to Enlightenment

Blast the Rubble

By Teri Degler • July 27, 2022
Blast the Rubble from the Pathway to Joy Yesterday a young woman was talking to me about her boyfriend breaking up with her. She was hurt and sad about the break-up but it seemed to me she was even sadder about how this was going to affect her in the future. “I’m afraid,” she said, “that I am going to start putting up walls.” Up to this point in her life she said, “I have gone into every relationship with a completely open heart – no holds barred; just absolutely open to exploring all the possibilities….” She was not, she thought, going to be able to do that anymore. “That’s what happens, you know,” she said as only a 20-something can say to a seemingly clueless 60-something, “people reach a point where they put up walls. They do it to protect themselves.” This probably doesn’t seem to be a particularly startling insight to most of us. But what I think was truly insightful about this young woman’s observation was that she was truly and deeply lamenting it. These carefully constructed, impenetrable rock and mortar constructions were going to limit her: close off her openness; curtail her spontaneous joy. As long as these walls existed she would not be able to feel love, to experience it, to be awash in it the way she once had. And even if a time might come when she’d feel safe enough to tear them down, she would find rubble strewn over pathways that once would have been free and easy traveling… We all know that erecting walls doesn’t just keep us from feeling hurt; it does to our emotions exactly what chopping off the red from one end of a rainbow and violet from the other would do to our vision. But we might not think about the fact that it also restricts our creative ability. It’s like one of those laws you had to memorize in high school chemistry class: The degree to which you suppress your emotions is inversely proportional to the degree to which you are able to express yourself. In my workshops I sometimes say, “There’s no art without heart”. Corny as this saying may be, it remains true. So let us examine ourselves. Ask a hard question: “Do I truly feel with the intensity that I once did?” If the answer is no, be brave, seek out old hidden walls, tear them down, and clear the rubble from the pathways to your heart. Then take up paintbrush, pen, drum, or dancing shoes and express your Self.

Body Love

By Teri Degler • July 27, 2022
Body Love, Oh Body Love I’ve been going to the same gym for many, many years. In the women’s section there is a large, wide-rimmed whirlpool. Women loll about, stretch out, submerge themselves, or just dangle their feet in the hot, bubbling water. Almost everyone is naked. Some are towel-less; some are towel-wrapped. This distinction does not blur over time. The women who are happy naked, remain happily naked. The women who are not, are not. I am among the latter. For many women there is not any great significance to being in this group. Some are just naturally modest; for others it’s cultural or just a way of being raised. There is, however, a great significance to being in the other group. All of these women are, to one degree or another, comfortable with their bodies. Some are trim, fit, and slim. There are even a few who preen a bit – not in any sexual way – but as if to say, “Hey, I’ve busted my butt to get this butt, and I’m proud of it!” Others are frankly, honestly, openly, unashamedly obese – and, as I slip up my towel and slide my body down in a move so carefully orchestrated that it leaves not an inch of naked flesh exposed – how I envy them. Once submerged, the tune of that old Supreme’s song “Baby Love” often comes to me. Only the words aren’t baby love; they are body love, oh body love, I need you, oh how I need you. The irony of the fact that I still don’t completely accept my physical self is that I have spent the last three decades of my life working at being in my body. The idea that the body is a temple is fundamental to my spiritual practice. It is based on the ancient yoga philosophy that says the human body is a microcosm of the cosmos and, as such, is being propelled along its spiritual path by the Divine – known, in this tradition, as Shakti. The human body is, in this sense, a container for creative force of the cosmos. A spiritual path like this shouts out the need for being able to be in and thus experience the body. I have come to believe that this is true, not just for my path, but for all spiritual paths. Elements of Christianity, Judaism, and many other traditions teach the idea that the Holy Spirit – call it prāna, chi, ruach ha-kodesh – is the power of the divine that is with us, the power that calls us, moves us…. Clearly the more comfortable we are with our bodies, the more easily we can be in them – feeling and responding to this holy force.
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