The Path to Happiness
When I talk about becoming happier we often times not only need to have more positive feelings but we need to eliminate the negative ones. Fears and anxieties essentially stop us from becoming happier since we can only have one emotion at a time. If we are feeling anxious then in that moment we are not also happy.
Anxiety and fear are our friends when there is actual danger around us. But do we really need to feel anxious in the grocery store or getting on an airplane or driving a car? Or maybe your anxiety is not so much about where you are but instead what you are doing. Many people fear public speaking more then they fear death. That is a strong fear. So what can we do? How can we eliminate or reduce these feelings and improve our quality of life?
In the next several days I will be writing about the tools and techniques that work best to overcome fears and walk along the path to happiness.
Popularity: 1% [?]
True Happiness
Plato, Aristotle and even Freud studied happiness. The Dali Lama has written a book on the subject. Everyone wants it but how do we know if we have it? If the purpose of life is in fact the pursuit of happiness as most philosophers, psychologists and behavioral specialists agree then why is it so hard to define?
Happiness is a word that is used to define an experience. There lies part of the problem since no two people will have exactly the same experience of an event. No two experiences are alike since no two people are alike. Is being happy about how your life is going right now the same as feeling happy while watching kittens play? Or when you tell someone you are happy for them, are you actually feeling happiness? Maybe or maybe not.
For myself I have found happiness in many different ways. When I began studying hypnosis and meditation I found an increased ability to have more positive feelings. It became easier to push away self doubt and fear and move forward. I find these techniques to be instumental in helping my clients find more happiness however they define it.
I have been working with a lady to lose weight. She has lost about 55 lbs in the last 7 months. When we discuss her experience she tells me that she likes the hypnosis not because I make her eat differently, but instead she said that what ever I am saying in the hypnosis process makes her feel happy and when she feels happy she doesn’t feel like eating too much or stuffing herself with carbs. She just feels good and no longer needs to eat to feel better. In her case happiness is the cause and not the result of losing weight.
For some being happy might be having finacial freedom, to someone else it might mean having a love relationship or helping others. Until you know what it is for you it is hard to define what it is exactly.
I have many clients who have the if-then disease. They tell me that if they can lose 50 pounds or win the lottery then they will be happy. The problem is that even when they get the thing they think will make them happy it doesn’t.
So how can we be sure of the meaning of happiness and can we have the “state” if we can’t define it?
Popularity: 2% [?]
Choosing Better Thoughts
My mother started me in my quest to be more positive at an early age. “The Power of Positive Thinking” and other similar books were part of our home library. But does thinking more positive make you happier? Or maybe people who are happier just tend to be more positive. Is happiness the same as optimism? If we don’t know what it is how do we know if we are indeed happy?
Growing up, I was labeled “Pollyanna” by my little sister. I really didn’t realize at the age of 12 that I was that positive a person. I remember feeling pretty lonely, bored and unhappy. But her perception was that I was unrealistically happy. Which of course I hated at that time. However I believe that it was that ability even when bored and lonely to find something positive that has made me so resilient in life. To some degree I was better at choosing the more positive thoughts
Louise Hay is an author and speaker who has spent her life demonstrating the power of positive thought. She agrees that we can and do choose our thoughts. It is her contention that she cured her cancer with positive thought. But is this idea helpful to others? How does the average person become more positive and happier in their lives. Is it possible to change your happiness set point?
I believe it is. Throughout my life I have used self-hypnosis, hypnotherapy and NLP to increase my ability to be positive, resilient and yes, happier. By using hypnosis to develop better focus and the ability to subconsciously increase my positive self talk I have increased the amount of time spent in the state of happiness.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Happiness and Hypnosis
Happiness has been in the new’s recently. People want to feel happier and why shouldn’t we all feel good? Books like “Stumbling on Happiness” and”The Happiness Project”are very popular now in part due to the negative news and economic downturn. I am writing a book titled “The Power of Choice” and it includes my ideas and experiences in transforming my life and increasing my clients levels of happiness by increasing there ability to chose better. I have used hypnosis and NLP to develop myself and yesterday I described my first experience with hypnosis.
It is pretty obvious why I wanted to change my state of mind. I wanted to feel different. Growing up in a fairly isolated place tends to make one introspective. All of that inward focus in childhood can be unhealthy. My mother tended to give mixed messages. On one hand she believed in positive thinking. She read Dr. Norman Vincent Peale’s book “The Power of Positive Thinking” and encouraged us to be positive. On the other hand she was anxious and put her fears squarely onto the girls in our family with the message that “we could be killed” if we attempted to ride a bike or go sledding on a big hill or take a walk by ourselves. I believe that I was mildly depressed in childhood and if I had been in elementary school now I would have been diagnosed with ADHD. Instead I simply spent a large part of 1st grade in the corner with my desk.
When it comes right down to it, what I wanted was to feel happy. That’s what everyone wants. Right?? I read books and tried to be happy. In college I tried some other avenues as many of my age did back in the 70’s but to no avail. I always came back to me. At some point it came to me that if I wanted to be happier I didn’t need to change my circumstances so much as I had to change myself. The way I thought had to change. What I focused on needed to become what I wanted to have and not all the things that weren’t working.
I explored meditation, and have practiced yoga consistently now for over 30 years. These two things have helped tremendously. But being a person with a strong drive to improve they just weren’t fast enough for me.
Popularity: 1% [?]