Our philosophy
The Happy Company has no political or religious affiliations. Our philosophy is based on our own life experiences and, for better or worse, we have in many ways »reinvented the wheel« in a deep desire to find our own personal expression of a perennial human philosophy.
Still, in finding a way to express ourselves we have found inspiration from many classical writers in the area of personal growth such as Abraham Maslow, Paulo Freire, Erich Fromm, Rollo May, Martin Buber and Carl Rogers. We have also been inspired by contemporary writers such as Mihály Csikszentmihályi, Marcus Buckingham, The Dalai Lama, Stephen Covey, Deepak Chopra, Sondra Ray, Louise Hay, Sue Gerhardt, Gordon Neufeld and John Taylor Gatto.
Having no religious affiliations does not mean having no spiritual interest. We believe that man is an intrinsically spiritual being, whether we acknowledge this or not. Every person needs to find their way to relate to their spiritual essence through personal belief systems, religion, nature or otherwise. The key is in respecting everyone's right to their personal belief. We have found inspiration in works such as A Course in Miracles, The Bible, Tao Te Ching and also in the texts of Desmond Tutu and The Dalai Lama. We have also been inspired by the examples of leaders such as Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King.
Other inspirations have been people we have had as teachers in mentoring or in training programmes. Jonas got started with his mentor Mike Pegg. Together we were first inspired by The Loving Relationships training and Sondra Ray and Bob Mandel. Since then Binnie A. Dansby has been, an still is, a great inspiration through her Source breath work.
We believe we are all here in life to discover our true humanity. In order to do so we need to find the voice of our true self within, and dare to challenge our comfort zone to expand beyond our psychological inhibitions and life-diminishing thoughts. As we grow we will become more aware of the limiting thoughts of our culture and will need to find ways to handle this through creativity or social change. Today we are many people on a planet of limited resources, we need to rise in compassion and creativity to handle the future of mankind.
Jonas Himmelstrand & Tamara Himmelstrand
