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The One-day Happiness Experiment
From disasters such as the coastal oil spill to family matters that have to do with simple survival and having a roof over one’s head, it seems like we are experiencing crisis and challenge with increasing harshness and frequency. Life can be viewed as an ongoing emotional storm of money and security worries, and what may appear to be confirmation of our inability to find a more civilized way of being with our own selves and each other. In response to the daily pressures of life, some turn to addictive distractions in a vain attempt to deal with daily life. Brief escape options are many: drugs, television, toxic foods, alcohol, or just losing yourself in a string of escapist fiction. Our communal body of humanity on Earth is in the process of discovering that these diversions from reality are not worth the price of resorting to them. After the high or numbness wears off, the bills still need to be paid. When the hangover is finally history, the pressure is felt again to either deal with life as it is or to find another temporary escape from what is in front of you. Life can become an apparently endless loop from anxiety to addictive indulgence to anxiety. Our addictions don’t make us any happier, they just give very temporary relief, and when that relief wears off, we are often even less happy than before. Most of us are hooked on something that either hurts ourselves or somebody else. We might find ourselves getting into the habit of letting off emotional steam by treating our loved ones in a cruel way, stealing from a neighbor or employer, or finding some other way to synthetically feel better about ourselves at the expense of someone else. We get artificial happiness when we could be experiencing the real thing. I ask you to pause here for a moment and ask yourself: “What I am I addicted to that harms myself or another?” An addiction can be a repeated behavior or taking some substance into your body to excess—either too much or too often to be good for you. Please close your eyes and pause to consider this now. It could be that you have some “small” addictions, actions that you don’t repeat frequently enough to make it hard to deny that they are addictions. You attempt to fool yourself, but you know that you are addicted. Maybe it is something more “benign”---sugary or crunchy stuff, for example---that you use to try to stuff the pain of life. To calm the body, you are willing to stir up negative emotions like shame, guilt, or feeling not to smart for what you are doing to yourself. And that’s not a road to happiness. Folks in the psychological profession will tell you that these kind of addictive distractions are vain attempts at self-medication, that we are doing these things to ourselves because we want to feel better. We want satisfaction quickly, and we are willing to sell out our common sense and self-esteem for a little quick relief that goes away very fast. Here is a one-day experiment that can boost your happiness fast. It takes a little guts---courage---to do it, but the effects may surprise you. For the next 24 hours, just choose to see everything that happens to you as a lesson from the wisest of teachers. Drop the idea that life is just some huge thorn in your side, like a little monster glued to you that just keeps jabbing you in the ribs. When a challenging emotion or craving is experienced, stop and ask yourself four very simple questions simple questions: 1) What is happening with me here? 2) What emotions am I feeling now? 3) Am I willing to let these emotions be fully felt? (Then take three deep long breaths.) 4) What important lesson can I learn from this? The first question brings awareness. The second sparks emotional presence. Number three is about allowing what is happening, not feeling like you have to stuff it with something. And the last one asks you to see the gift in the experience, no matter how challenging it is on the surface. If you see life as a punishing mountain of frustrations, you will just experience more frustration, cutting off your own access to happiness. Though your willingness to see your life as your teacher, you set up new pathways for a better life. Consider this now, please, at length: We are all here to learn how give and receive love fully. Could it be that the point of life could be so simple? Why would it have to be complex? Who made up that rule? Please stop now, close your eyes and contemplate again the words in bold above. If we all have the purpose to learn how to give and receive love fully, how might that best be realized? One powerful way is to see your life as your teacher, taking in the love that is easy to absorb, and responding with love to emotional challenge. Take just one day where you respond to everyone as a wise teacher. Can you see the benefit of being just as grateful for someone projecting harsh anger towards you as you are for the most tender caress of your face? Each is an opportunity to practice your loving response to life. It’s what we all came here to perfect. You just might find that you want to keep the four questions with you for more than a day, because I think you will find value in them. And today, or sometime soon, you might want to carry around just one more question with you that can have a proven and wondrously powerful effect on your mind if you simply choose to remember it often: “I wonder how easy it can be to be happy today?” Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com Having lived through extended times of depression, lonliness, homlessness and manic stretches, it is my professional and personal goal to help as many people a as possible to find more calm and happiness in their lives. I have developed a simple, easy-to-use system to help people find these things where so few choose to look: within themselves. For free sample pause sessions and a complimentary 70-page ebook that introduces the Pause Button Process, go to www.yourpausebutton.com/ |
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