You Can Happy No Matter What !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All that you achieve and all that you fail to achieve
is the direct result of your own thoughts.
- James Allen

Human beings are thinking creatures. Every moment of every day, our minds
are working to make sense out of what we see and experience. While this may
seem obvious, it is one of the least understood principles in our
psychological makeup. Yet understanding the nature of thought is the
foundation to living a fully functional and happy life.

Thinking is an ability - a function of human consciousness. No one knows
exactly where thought comes from, but it can be said that thought comes from
the same place as whatever it is that beats our heart - it comes from being
alive. As is true with other human functions, thinking goes on whether we
want it to or not. In this sense, "thought" is an impersonal element of our
existence.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THOUGHT AND FEELING

Every negative (and positive) feeling is a direct result of thought. It's
impossible to have jealous feelings without first having jealous thoughts,
to have sad feelings without first having sad thoughts, to feel angry
without having angry thoughts. And it's impossible to be depressed without
having depressing thoughts. This seems obvious, but if it were better
understood, we would all be happier and live in a happier world!

Virtually all the clients I have worked with over the years have begun their
sessions like this:

Client: "I feel very depressed today."
Richard: "Did you recognize that you were having depressing thoughts?"
Client: "I didn't have negative or depressing thoughts; I just feel
depressed."

It took some time before I recognized the problem in our communication. We
have all been taught that "thinking" means sitting down to "ponder," to put
in time and effort, as if we were doing a math problem. According to this
idea of thinking, a person who wouldn't dream of spending six hours
obsessing about a single angry thought could nevertheless feel quite
"normal" thinking fifteen or twenty angry thoughts for thirty seconds at a
time.

"Thinking about something" can occur over several days or within a passing
second. We tend to dismiss the latter as unimportant, if we recognize it at
all. But this is not so. Feelings follow and respond to a thought regardless
of how much time the thought takes. For example, if you think, even in
passing, "My brother got more attention than I did - I never did like him,"
the fact that you now feel resentful toward your brother is not merely a
coincidence. If you have the thought, "My boss doesn't appreciate me - I
never get the recognition I deserve," the fact that you now feel bad about
your job came about as soon as that thought came to mind. It all takes place
in an instant. The time it takes to feel the effects of your thinking is the
same amount of time it takes to see the light after turning on the switch.

The ill effects of thought come about when we forget that "thought" is a
function of our consciousness - an ability that we as human beings have. We
are the producers of our own thinking. Thought is not something that happens
to us, but something that we do. It comes from inside of us, not from the
outside. What we think determines what we see - even though it often seems
the other way around.

Consider a professional athlete who "lets his team down" by making a
critical error in the last championship game before his retirement. For
years after retiring from the sport, he dwells on his error for a moment
here and a moment there. When people ask, "Why are you depressed so much of
the time?" he responds by saying, "What a fool I was to make such a mistake.
How else do you expect me to feel?" This person doesn't see himself as the
thinker of his own thoughts, nor does he see his thinking as the cause of
his suffering. If you suggested to him that it was his thinking that was
depressing him, he would, in all honesty, say, "No it isn't. The reason I'm
depressed is that I made the mistake, not that I'm thinking about it. In
fact, I seldom think about it anymore. I'm simply upset at the facts."

We could substitute any example for our ex-athlete's error: A past
relationship, a current one "on the rocks," a financial blunder, harsh words
we said to hurt someone, criticism leveled at ourselves, the fact that our
parents were less than perfect, that we chose the wrong career or mate, or
whatever - it is all the same. It's our thinking, not our circumstances,
that determines how we feel. We forget, moment to moment, that we are in
charge of our thinking, that we are the ones doing the thinking, so it often
appears as though our circumstances are dictating our feelings and
experience of life. Consequently, it seems to make sense to blame our
unhappiness on our circumstances, which makes us feel powerless over our
lives.

WE ARE THE THINKERS OF OUR OWN THOUGHTS

Unlike other functions or abilities that we have as human beings, it's hard
to remember that we are the thinkers of our own thoughts. It's easy to
remember that our voices are the product of our ability to speak. It would
be virtually impossible to startle ourselves with our own function of speech
because we are so aware that we are the ones creating the noise. We could
scream and yell and rant and rage, but we still wouldn't be frightened by
the sound of our own voice.

The same could be said about our ability to ingest and digest food. You
wouldn't eat something and then wonder why you had a certain taste in your
mouth - you are always aware that you are the one who put the food in your
mouth.

But thinking is different. William James, the father of American psychology,
once said, "Thinking is the grand originator of our experience." Every
experience and perception in life is based on thought. Because thinking
precedes everything and goes on so automatically, it's more basic and
"closer to home" than any other function we have. We have innocently learned
to interpret our thoughts as if they were "reality," but thought is merely
an ability that we have - we are the ones who produce those thoughts. It's
easy to believe that because we think something, the object of our thinking
(the content) represents reality. When we realize that thinking is an
ability rather than a reality, we can dismiss any negative thoughts that
pass through. As we do so, a positive feeling of happiness begins to emerge.
If we harbor negative thoughts (pay too much attention to or dwell on them),
we will lose the positive feeling and feel the effects of the negativity.
Here is a typical example of how thought can be misunderstood and how this
lack of understanding affects us - the "thinker." Let us pretend that you
accidentally spill a glass of water on the floor of a restaurant and look up
to see that a man, two tables over, has flashed what you believe to be a
disapproving look. You respond with anger. "What's the matter with that
guy," you think. "Hasn't he ever dropped anything? What a jerk!" Your
thoughts about the circumstance make you frustrated, and end up ruining your
afternoon. Every few minutes you remember the incident, and as you think
about it, you become angry. But the truth of the matter is, that person didn't
even see you drop the water. He was in his own world, reacting to his own
thoughts about an error he had made at work earlier that day. He couldn't
have cared less about you. In fact, he didn't even know that you existed.

Unfortunately, all of us have experienced this kind of situation many times.
We forget that we are only thinking. We fill our heads with false
information, which we then interpret as "reality" instead of "thought." If
only we could remember that we are the thinker. If we really could
understand that as we think about something, we feel the effects of our
thoughts, during this episode at the restaurant, we might have been able to
recognize that it was our own thoughts, not another person, upsetting us.

To understand the principle of thought and how it applies throughout the
human experience is a valuable gift. We need not constantly be in conflict
with our environment and with those around us. We can maintain a positive
feeling of happiness, because we no longer feel compelled to seriously
follow every train of thought that comes into our heads. You may have no
control whatsoever over what another person does, but you can be immune to
the adverse effects of your thinking about him, once you understand that you
think "thoughts," not "reality." Your thoughts, not your circumstances,
determine how you feel. An absence of negative thought brings forth a
positive feeling.

If you don't understand this principle, it may seem as though thinking is
determined by what the outside world is doing. But it's actually the other
way around. Our thinking shapes our experience of life. The way we think
about something and, most important, the way we relate to our thinking, will
determine its effect on us. The outside circumstance itself is neutral. Only
thought brings meaning to a circumstance. This is why the same circumstance
can, and will, mean entirely different things to different people. In our
restaurant example, had you dismissed your negative thoughts, the incident
wouldn't have mattered to you. In a healthy relationship to your thinking,
you would have your thoughts, but you wouldn't "run with them" and allow
them to upset you.

OUR RELATIONSHIP TO THOUGHT

A person's understanding of the relationship between thought and reality can
be put on a continuum:

"My thoughts represent reality."---------------------"My thoughts are only
thoughts."

On one side is thought as "reality." Clinically, this would be a psychotic,
a person who would never use the word thought. A psychotic actually
experiences every thought as reality. To him there is no difference between
thinking and reality. If he thinks he hears voices telling him to jump out
the window, he tries to do it; if he thinks he sees a monster, he runs from
it. Regardless of the content of his thoughts, he believes them to be
reality, 100 percent of the time.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is the person who understands the
thought process - a person who epitomizes mental health and happiness - a
person who doesn't take his own, or anyone else's, thoughts too seriously -
a person who rarely allows his thinking to bring him down and ruin his day.
A person on this side of the scale can have any thought run through his head
and still understand that "it's only a thought."

Most of us fall somewhere in between these two extremes. Very few of us take
all of our thoughts so seriously as to be considered psychotic.
Surprisingly, however, even fewer of us truly understand the nature of
thought enough to fall on the far right of the scale. Most of us don't
understand that we are the thinkers of our own thoughts - we do it to
ourselves. Perhaps at times we see it, but only selectively. Our minds will
create numerous exceptions to this principle, which keeps us from the
understanding we need to implement it in our lives. For example, you might
be feeling low one day and have the thought, "I'll never be able to finish
this project." Rather than saying to yourself, "Oh there go my thoughts
again," and putting an end to the negativity right then and there, you might
continue on the same train of thought. You'll say, "I knew it when I
started; I never should have tried this project; I've never been any good at
this kind of work and I never will be," and so forth. Proper understanding
of thought allows us to stop these everyday "thought attacks" before they
beat us up. Recognize these types of thoughts as static on the television
set - as interference. There is no value in studying and analyzing static on
a TV screen, and there is equally little value in studying the static in our
own thoughts. Without a proper understanding of thought, the smallest amount
of static in our minds can spiral and grow until it ruins an entire day or
even a lifetime. Once you see your negative thoughts as static,
interference, you can dismiss them - they are no longer serving your needs.
In the example, the negative thoughts about your ability to finish a project
are certainly not going to help you finish it.

We all produce a steady stream of thoughts, twenty-four hours a day. Once a
thought is forgotten, it's gone. Once it's thought of again, it's back. But
in any case, it's just a thought. In a practical sense, this suggests that
to think about something doesn't mean we must take the thoughts to heart and
react in a negative way. Pick and choose which thoughts you wish to react
to.

Most of us are capable of understanding this principle for other people, but
not for ourselves. Take the case of a frustrated freeway driver. Another car
cuts him off and almost causes an accident. A thought passes through his
mind: "I should shoot the driver of that car." What has occurred is a
thought, passing through his mind. Most of us would dismiss it as a silly
thought. We would all prefer that drivers be more careful, but we wouldn't
take our violent thought very seriously. A psychotic, however, may not be
able to dismiss the thought so easily. He fervently believes that any
thought that comes to mind is reality and must be taken seriously.

While we can empathize (if not laugh) at the folly of taking such a thought
seriously, we all do the same thing, in different forms and extremes,
hundreds of times each day. Each of us, in our own fashion, confuses our
thinking with reality. We can see other people's thoughts (like the freeway
driver's) as being "just thoughts," but we almost always fail to see our own
the same way. And why do our thoughts seem so real? Because we are the one
who creates them.

Excerpted from You Can Be Happy No Matter What Copyright © 2004 by New World
Library

Shared with Love and Light, Rosalie xo