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Beginning in childhood, we all learn both subtle and obvious lessons about what is supposed to make us happy. Our media and culture promote consumerism, individuality, fame, beauty, youth, wealth and success. So, even if our lives are relatively comfortable and secure, our contentment can be undermined by negative self-talk that we are not good enough, that we need to be blonder, thinner, loved more, have a bigger house, a different job. We can be tortured by regrets about the past and worries about the future. As William Shakespeare wrote, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
We spend our lives chasing after positive feelings and avoiding negative ones, and most of our behaviors are based on attraction to things that make us feel good and aversion to things that cause pain. But all of our perceptions of our experiences are truly subjective. Thought patterns are conditioned reactions imprinted from an early age by family, community and culture. We observe and experience everything through the personal lens of our own unique conditioning, beliefs and history. As no two people will remember the same event the same way, memories of the past are always completely subjective and fictional. And our perceptions tell us that all problems, suffering, fear and anger are caused by something external to ourselves. As infants we learn that complaining brings relief of our discomfort from an outside source. We become addicted to the brain chemicals released with high emotion, drama, and victimhood. But our unhappiness is really caused by our own internal perceptions, interpretations, judgments and reactions.
Studies show that happy people live longer, healthier lives. Fear, anxiety and anger stimulate the body to release stress hormones that depress the immune system, damage organs and cause aging. Positive thinking, compassion, gratitude, and optimism all stimulate the brain to flood the body with endorphins that make us feel good and promote health.
The power of our thoughts to create our reality is profound, as demonstrated by the placebo response. The placebo effect is known to positively affect people who merely believe they will benefit from a drug or treatment. Positive expectations can allow them to experience healing or pain relief from a sugar pill. But the power of belief can create more than just the perception of relief from symptoms. Recently published results from a Harvard study showed that hotel cleaners who were informed that their work was good exercise were later fitter and trimmer than their work peers. After four weeks, workers in the informed group had lost an average of 2 pounds, lowered their blood pressure by 10 percent and had reductions in their percentage of body fat and the size of their waists in relation to hips. Thinking made it so.
Having a positive emotional state is possible if you are willing to drop habitual ways of negative thinking and discover your ability to positively affect how you experience events. Deeply-held beliefs define you, and left unchallenged, determine the course of your life, and doom you to repeat the same negative experiences again and again.
Is your husband a slob, are you too fat, not smart enough, is the world unfair? Only if you believe it is true. You sentence yourself to perpetual discontent by holding onto such beliefs. Past experiences and cherished beliefs cause us to re-act to every experience within the context of the past. When you approach a difficult relationship filled with preconceptions, you sentence both yourself and the other person to an endless repetition of the same problematic interactions. You confine both yourself and others to a limited, negative definition of what the relationship and each of you is like. If you can have an open mind you allow yourself and others the freedom found in the possibility of new ways of interacting and reacting. The next time you pick up your husband’s dirty socks, instead of thinking “He’s a pig. Poor me that has to clean up after him,” make an effort to stop that thought before it fully forms and instead think of your affection for him and consider your sock-picking-up as an act of love. Your brain will get a shot of endorphins instead of stress hormones and you feel better about yourself, your husband, and life in general. This thought switching can be practiced throughout the day with anything that you consider to be a chore, a burden or obligation. Turn your resentment into an opportunity to identify and acknowledge a blessing in your life.
Feeling unhappy and upset because people or the world at large fail to live up to your expectations is muddled thinking, and these illusory beliefs disappear when you really look at them. Letting go of expectations, judgments, and hidden assumptions about the world is truly spiritual work. As we realize that our thoughts are not real, that judgments and expectations are self-created illusions, we rise in spiritual consciousness. Those willing to ruthlessly examine and shed old programming are rewarded with a radically altered world view along with the realization that they can affect the reality they experience. The mere intent to identify and release self-limiting beliefs is the driving force for spiritual growth. This is demonstrated by the success of Twelve-Step programs, which are a highly effective means for personal growth and spiritual transformation. Acknowledging that you are powerless to change anything except your own mind is a powerful insight and the catalyst for changes to your habitual thought processes that can lead to radical improvement of your relationships and daily life. The deep realizations that you are responsible for your own happiness and that the only person who can make you miserable is YOURSELF, are astonishing and truly life altering.
Observe and examine your thoughts and look for opportunities to challenge your assumptions and opinions and move past them. Be open to the possibility of experiencing events and relationships with an open, unprogrammed mind. Practicing meditation can help you to observe your stream of thoughts and to become focused and calm. There are a variety of meditation techniques that can give you the space and time to identify habitual streams of thought that are self defeating, illogical, and limiting. This quiet time can allow you to observe the calm, still presence between and before thought, which is your true nature, your true Self. As your mind becomes quieter, as you let go of constant mental criticism, judgments and worry, your experience of life becomes softer, subtler, and more open to wondrous possibilities.
Broome Community College regularly offers a short non-credit meditation class. The BCC catalog can be accessed online at www.sunybroome.edu . Every semester, Broome Community College also offers a variety of classes on spirituality, personal growth and self discovery.
Many spiritual teachers have written about the opportunity to let go of illusion. Reading the published work of contemporary, living spiritual teachers such as Eckhart Tolle, Byron Katie and others can inspire and support your journey to happiness. Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now, stresses letting go of thoughts of the past and worrying about the future to be fully present in the quiet stillness of this moment. Tolle’s books and talks are available on CD and he will be making a rare East Coast speaking and teaching appearance this fall in NYC on October 19 and 20. Tickets to hear him speak are available through the Omega Institute (www.eomega.org) . Byron Katie is author of several books and has developed a 4-step process she calls “The Work” that facilitates working through and eliminating thoughts and beliefs that make you miserable. Her website www.thework.com has free materials and resources to help you learn and practice her technique. Both Tolle and Katie had disastrous personal lives and were in the depths of despair when they awakened to the truth that their own thoughts were illusory and the only source of their unhappiness.
Want to be happy? Surrender the thoughts that keep you from it. Learn to meditate. Read some books that shake your world. Find a spiritual teacher. Be willing to let go. Enjoy the journey….
Karen Kris Madsen is Program Administrator for open enrollment for Continuing Education at Broome Community College. Several years ago Karen experienced health problems that lead to the realization that the person she thought she was would not get better. This insight lead to a deep willingness to let go, and the universe then provided opportunities to learn, grow and be well. |
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