Self Realized, Shatter Your Limits

Happiness Hack: Spirituality's Power To Transform Well-being

• Linton Bergsen • Episode 95

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Your faith is your ultimate happiness hack personally and professionally. In this episode I discuss how Harvard Professor Arthur Brooks researched the foundations of human happiness, he identified four key habits: faith, family, friendship, and work. You can view his YouTube video at this link https://youtu.be/w8a0T5XLrXc?si=6cz4dgRKJpJcU0xO But there's something profound about faith I suggest that sets it apart—it's the only happiness factor entirely within your control.

Unlike relationships that shift, jobs that change, or circumstances that fluctuate, faith provides an unwavering foundation. It's that "underlying stream of supportive energy" carrying you through life's challenges. The self-realized individual understands this intuitively, recognizing themselves as their own greatest resource while acknowledging the divine presence working with them.

The ancient wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita reveals something equally powerful—fearlessness tops the list of 26 qualities needed for spiritual transformation. When you combine faith with fearlessness, you create an unshakable foundation for genuine happiness. Most unhappiness stems from this gap: knowing your potential but lacking the faith and courage to fulfill it.

Cultivating this spiritual connection requires intentional practice. Through stillness, solitude, and silence, you access your internal "spiritual powerhouse." This isn't religious dogma but practical spirituality—creating space to hear that intuitive voice guiding you toward your highest expression.

Ready to transform your well-being? Make spiritual connection everyday your priority. Step away from society's expectations and narcissism. Expand your soul through a deeper relationship with your authentic self and the divine presence within. Subscribe now to continue this journey of self-realization and discover how spirituality's power can transform your sense of well-being.

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Linton Bergsen:

Welcome to the Self-Realized Podcast with Linton Bergsen, where you will shatter your limits. I am not much into the self-help industry as much as I'm into the self-realized individual, which is you, what matters most to you, how you get there and the obstacles that may be in your way. If you would like to be part of this podcast and part of that discussion, I welcome you here with an open heart, open mind and open arms. So, without further ado, let's get on with the podcast. Thank you for taking the time out of your very busy day to join me on episode number 95 of the Self-Realized Shatter your Limits Podcast. Happiness Hack: Spirituality's Power to Transform your Well-Being.

Linton Bergsen:

In this episode's show notes I have left a link to a YouTube video with Arthur Brooks, who teaches at Harvard University. He's a behavioral scientist dedicated to the neuroscience and social science around happiness. He says that may be a weird topic to teach at a business school. I would suggest not, because everybody wants to be happy at work. I would think here are four habits that he mentions in the 15-minute YouTube video that he feels, due to his research and background, are important to your well-being and happiness. They're in no particular order. The first one he gives is faith, the second is family, the third is friendship and the fourth is work. I'm going to focus predominantly on the very first one, number one, which is faith. How does faith and happiness actually correlate? Well, in the video he suggests the reason being that you need to transcend yourself and make yourself small and the universe large, and that is part of happiness to cut out our narcissism and pay attention and be in awe of what is greater than us. He suggests there are lots of ways you can do that. You can study different philosophies. Obviously, you can take a walk before dawn, cut off all of your devices, get involved in some type of meditation, but you do need to do something to get small and not let the narcissistic world take over your soul. Now, that is his suggestion, based on his research in social science and neuroscience. For those of you who listen to the podcast regularly, you'll know that I've mentioned consistently on different podcast episodes how important it is for you to begin to access and activate that deeper part of yourself.

Linton Bergsen:

Whether you call it spirituality, whether you call it God, whether you have a particular religion that you follow, the actual journey of the self-realized individual is deeply based in faith, establishing the faith in something bigger than yourself, as mentioned earlier in the podcast episode that Arthur Brooks had mentioned in all of his studies of the foundation of habits for happiness. Establishing faith simply means that you believe that there is something working with you in your life that can help you overcome situations and circumstances that are beyond your control. Because you understand through an intuitive process, because faith defies logic, that your well-being, your sense of happiness, is not dependent on external circumstances, not dependent on external circumstances, but your internal awareness of your own faith, of activating something, call it spirit, god, universal consciousness, to work in and with you at all times as a guiding light. The self-realized individual understands they are their own greatest resource. Establishing faith can come from many different areas in your life, many different ways. You can establish it through religion, if that is what you prefer. That is not everybody's path, but if it is your path. Arthur Brooks, as I mentioned earlier on in the episode, he is a Roman Catholic. He establishes faith through that religion, biblical stories, the Bible, Christ. It is obviously a very deeply faith-based book that there is a force, god, working within you and with you to overcome any situation and circumstance that you find yourself in that you may not have a solution to.

Linton Bergsen:

In the beginning of the episode I mentioned that there were four things that Arthur Brooks had mentioned and I do hope that you have time to look at the video, it's only 15 minutes that he had looked at establishing, through his own research, habits for happiness. They were number one faith, number two, family, number three, friendships and number four, work. I'm going to make a suggestion to you about happiness that I feel very strongly about. The number one habit that you need to establish and cultivate is faith, and the reason I say that is is because your happiness really cannot depend on family, friendships or work. I would disagree with that, because family members, their behaviors and situations can change. The family you were born into you may not even get along with. Friendships can change. People can turn on you. Certain friendships work for a while and then may not work at all, depending how you evolve and they evolve. Work environments can change. You can have a job one day and have no job the next. So all these other habits contribute, I understand, to your happiness, but they're not as important as the number one habit to cultivate, which is faith.

Linton Bergsen:

Why? Because faith is the only thing you have complete control over as to how you act and not react to circumstances you find yourself in. That's why I have it as a number one happiness hack. It's the only thing you really do have control over how much of it you have or don't have and that is a shortcut to happiness, which essentially is what a hack is. It's giving you a shortcut. Cultivating faith is a hack to happiness, which essentially is what a hack is. It's giving you a shortcut. Cultivating faith is a hack to happiness. It's not always seen that way, but if you contemplate that for a moment, I think you would agree.

Linton Bergsen:

If you have faith and you understand how to maintain that faith through different disciplines prayer, meditation, quiet time however, you decide to maintain your spiritual engine, your deep resource within yourself that is your center, your powerhouse of calm, collective thinking and action, then, from a place of faith which you control, you can deal with the fluctuation in family relationships, friendships, work, health, all these different environments that will change around you that you cannot have any control over. So, disciplining yourself and understanding that, spending time alone, which I talk a lot about, spending time in solitude, visiting, acquainting yourself with the spiritual powerhouse that is around you, within you, wanting to constantly and continually communicate with you, making that a number one priority is the single most important contributing factor to happiness in your life. And the reason I say that to you is because when you develop faith, when you own faith within yourself and that faith is inside of you that, no matter what happens, you can handle any situation that comes up, because you know that through faith all things are possible, because you've tested it out, you've built the muscle and you've put the time into developing faith through the only way you can, which is stillness, solitude and silence, to hear the voice and feel the presence of that which loves you the most. You can call it, as I've mentioned, god, you can call it spirit, you can call it universal consciousness, but you know when you feel it, because it defies all explanation. And that's really what cultivating faith allows you to have in your life is to have a sense of well-being and happiness, even though external circumstances may not be quite as you would like them to be your happiness.

Linton Bergsen:

The hack for happiness, as the episode is called, is developing faith, making that your number one priority. Not making money, which is important. Not developing friendships All these things are important or focusing primarily on family relationships, because all of those can change in a moment. The number one hack for happiness is saying to yourself I need to prioritize my time alone. I need to prioritize my time in prayer. I need to prioritize my time in building faith. I need to prioritize my time in prayer. I need to prioritize my time in building faith. I need to prioritize my time when I'm building my time alone, activating and accessing my intuition, which comes from activating and developing your faith. Intuition and faith go together that still small voice that speaks inwardly to you in your darkest moments about what you should and shouldn't do, comes from developing faith. There is a flip side to faith that is important to understand for your own happiness is that in order for you to have faith, you're going to have to have a certain amount of fearlessness.

Linton Bergsen:

Now, for those of you who are familiar with the Bhagavad Gita and the discourse between Krishna and Arjuna the Bhagavad Gita being the great scripture from India that a lot of people mention and talk about in spiritual realms and just generally when it comes to talking about philosophy and well-being, the Bhagavad Gita comes up very often. If you're not familiar with it and you feel so inclined, you might want to pick up a copy. Take a look at it. It's a very interesting discourse between Krishna and Arjuna and the philosophy of life. In the Bhagavad Gita, there are 26 qualities that are suggested for an individual to transcend into the higher realms of consciousness and develop themselves beyond just the everyday material life, spiritualizing their existence at a deeper level. In order to do that, if I asked you to spiritualize your existence at a deeper level, what would be the number one quality out of these 26 would you think would be at the top of the list? In the Bhagavad Gita? A lot of people sometimes say love, understandably. Actually, the number one quality required to spiritualize your existence is fearlessness. That is, what is the number one quality out of the 26.

Linton Bergsen:

So, looking at today's episode title Happiness Hack: Spirituality's Power to Transform Well-Being I would suggest to you that we look at a couple of hacks here that allow you to transform yourself and your well-being and using spirituality's power to do so, that, using faith and fearlessness together, you can have a very happy life. Contemplate on that for a moment. If you think about having a happy life and accomplishing what it is you really want to do with your life, would you not agree with me that you have to have faith, a happy life and accomplishing what it is you really want to do with your life. Would you not agree with me that you have to have faith and be fearless in order to feel alive and able to complete anything that you set out to do? So if you were to begin to really work on happiness and begin to have some real hacks to make it work, you will begin to work on your faith and your fearlessness. Does that make sense to you? If you agree, then you know the reason maybe you're not as happy as you would like to be right now is because you're living in fear and you don't have enough faith, because there's no way your dreams can manifest into reality if you don't allow faith to override fear to be all you can be.

Linton Bergsen:

It is greatly underestimated, when we talk about hacks for happiness and spirituality's power to transform well-being, that those two predominant factors faith and fearlessness are keys in order for you to have true happiness, to own and work with and apply in your life the faith part of it. We know. We can obviously read about that in scripture. We can hear about that in spirituality. We know we may have faith, not only faith in something bigger than ourselves, as suggested earlier, but faith in ourselves. And taking literally a page out of the book of the Bhagavad Gita, which is a great scripture and renowned worldwide for its vast knowledge and wisdom, that the number one trait to you transcending yourself on a material, human level and living and being all you can be is fearlessness. So we have, if you would like to say in a biblical sense or in a general sense. We know that faith is a big part of what's recommended religiously, spiritually, in all our lives. Have faith. We hear that a lot being fearless is also a very big spiritual component that we hear in other scriptures.

Linton Bergsen:

Once again, combining both is a true hack to happiness, not always talked about, but now I'm pleased to say that there is neuroscience and social science that I've left for you in the show notes, as mentioned earlier, that you can refer and reflect on as to it being more mainstream and people realizing that. Okay, in my workplace and in my life, faith is a very important part of my fundamental happiness, of my fundamental happiness. I've added fearlessness in there because personally, in my own life, I don't see how you can really be happy if you're not prepared to confront your fears. Walk into the unknown, be everything that you can be and step into this world and into this life with faith and hope in yourself and your future to become everything you know you can be. And I say that you know you can be because wouldn't you agree that a lot of times you're unhappy or feel unhappy because you're not living up to your own potential, that you don't feel you're being all that you can be, that you're not really connected with why you are here, your sense of purpose? You know there is more to your life than you're actually experiencing and living and a lot of times the only reason that you are not living your purpose is because you don't have enough faith in yourself and you're filled with fear. Don't have enough faith in yourself and you're filled with fear.

Linton Bergsen:

So cultivate faith and overcome fear. Take some risks. Begin to cultivate a relationship, as mentioned earlier in this episode in something bigger than yourself. Make it your number one priority. Get away from society's expectations, get away from the narcissism and expand out your soul and go on a deep soul journey, which is the journey of the self-realized individual, the embedded soul, the pure spirit of you, and work on that relationship within yourself, because that's where spirit resides and spend the time, effort and energy prioritizing what it is you need to do for you and your own well-being.

Linton Bergsen:

You cannot cultivate faith without downtime for yourself and building a relationship with something other than just human beings, something outside of this realm of existence, because that is where faith lies. Prioritizing that, I cannot emphasize enough, is a game changer and will change how you face every situation in your life. It is the only thing you can count on is the faith that you have cultivated as a stream, an underlying stream, and that's what it's going to feel like when you encounter situations and circumstances in your life, an underlying stream of supportive energy that you cannot logically explain, that you have no control over. Faith is an enormous current of energy, but, like anything, you have to plug into it. That is what I already want you to apply from this episode. Spend time plugging in to something bigger than yourself. Make it a priority. Let it flow through your system, through your nervous system, so it becomes an integral part of who you are. And when you need faith, it'll be there because you've put the time into cultivating it and faith overcomes fear. And when you have both of those working with you and for you in your life. You will find that they are beautiful hacks for your happiness and are the keys for you unlocking your spiritual power to transform your well-being.

Linton Bergsen:

I sincerely appreciate you listening to the podcast. Please subscribe so you do not miss any upcoming episodes. Whatever platform you're on, please leave a rating and review. I would greatly appreciate it. Any additional information on me, Linton Bergsen and my five-star reviewed book, Purposeful Vision is available at selfrealized. com. Which is all one word. You can also leave any comments or suggestions on the website. I look forward to connecting with you very soon and take good care of yourself.