In Part III, we will continue on this eternal subject of how you can feel happiness more often. Since we know we can't be happy all the time, and we can't be depressed all the time either, what can we do to change the ratio of happy/unhappy? Even though we are wired for survival first, the good news is we have the inborn ability to be happy, and whatever level of happiness you are experiencing now, you can be happier. All of these methods, ideas, and emotional factors are presented to make you aware that you have options, choices, and tools to increase your level of happiness. There will always be disasters and disappointments that rain on our party of good state feelings. But everything we've offered here can serve to strengthen your resiliency to better recover from any attacks on your happiness.
Internal Programming or Conditioning
As mentioned in Part I, what we believe to be true exerts power and influence over our outcomes and results in any of our 8 goal areas. There are some people (hopefully not you) that think they have never been truly happy. Some don't believe they deserve happiness; they carry perspectives and viewpoints that have been programmed since childhood.
"Who am I to seek happiness when we live in such a terrible, evil world?"
"These are my conditions that must first be met before I can ever be happy!"
"I would feel guilty if I were to gain too much happiness. What would my friends and loved ones think?"
"Money can't buy you happiness." and on and on the justifications go …
In Part II, we were just getting into the "shortcut "concept of: Decide to be happy now. Think about this, happiness can only exist in this current point in time; not in the past, and not in the future. Impossible, you say? Try this simple exercise. Think of a pleasant memory from your past, a time when you really felt all the positive emotions of being truly happy. It could be anything. The time you got your driver's license, graduated from college, experienced your first kiss, won an award, or got married. Where is your point of reliving that happy experience? If you think about it, it is not in the past; it is right now! Now, move your thoughts and feelings to some future point in time. Think of an experience, event, or accomplishment you are looking forward to in the future. It could be ten minutes or ten years. It might be graduating with an advanced degree, having children, or stepping on the scale at your ideal weight. Where is your point of happy-state feeling? That's right, here and NOW. And where is the one point in time you have authority and control over? Right now!
"You don't find happiness; you connect to it." - T. Harv Eker
There's a famous mantra that says, "For things to change, you must change." It's a good concept but too vague. WHAT needs to change? Our thinking. Still too vague.
What defines our future? Our present moment thinking.
There's more to it than that, but for right now, let's focus on this high-level precept. When your angry or frustrated, it's always because of your response to references to your value system. And even if you never deliberately sat down and listed your values and beliefs, you still have a value system in place and running. Your value system frames all your decisions and responses to what's good, bad, beautiful, or ugly. Whether by design or default, it defines your reality. Take some time to reflect on what your value system is made up of. What are its priorities? Is it moving you forward or causing you harm? Does this have anything to do with your level of happiness?
Your feelings are your self-appointed guide. (Gear 5)
Your feelings and emotions in the present moment frame and direct your future, whether it's for the day, week, month, or year. In Part I, we described one of the core three factors of happiness: to align with your core values at some level.
Attention - Awareness (Gear 1 )
In Part I, we learned that we average 60,000+ thoughts a day. Researchers also tell us we lose our attention 6-10 times every minute! It's really no surprise when you think of how many distractions we are bombarded with every day: 2,500 TV channels, YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, Pluto, Tubi, Internet "clickbait," and on and on. Pinterest can be a fun diversion and give you a momentary fun feeling, but it also can be a time-wasting distraction.
Energy Streams Where Attention Beams
In The 7 Gears Between Cause & Effect book, the first Gear is about Attention-Awareness and how it affects our outcomes, results, and life conditions. Let me ask you right now, are you focusing on what you do want or what you don't want? Be honest because your attention is pointing either at one or the other - always. Every waking moment! Start practicing this exercise today. As odd as it sounds, be aware of your attention. It's not hocus pocus; it's focus, focus. Practice being mindful of where your thoughts are at. Are you thinking plus or minus?
Faith-Belief (Gear 3)
When doubt and worry creep into your thinking and are dwelt upon at great length, your thinking becomes clouded with a negative attitude, a state of mind, a pattern controlling thought and action. A negative attitude that becomes a habit is a powerful negative force to reckon with, as it will influence your performance level.
There's a story about a traveling salesman who's been on the road for a week and has had no success selling his product. After calling on several potential clients, nobody wants what he's been attempting to sell. One evening he gets to his hotel room and calls his wife. She senses how down and out he is and says to him, "Don't worry about how sales are going. I have some great news! We just won the lottery, and what you're doing doesn't matter that much. We can celebrate when you get home!” The following day and for the rest of the week, he was energized, happy, full of excitement and joy. Of course, his mood change carried into his presentations, and by the end of the week, he had more sales than ever before. When he got home, he bursts through the door and says "yahoo!! Where's the money?" To which his wife says, "I sensed that you were really feeling down, and so to cheer you up I made it all up." After he calmed down enough from an enraged moment, he changed his perspective and thanked her for helping him make the best week in sales he ever had.
Now, here is the question. What really happened here? For one brief moment, he believed he was rich. But what else? His expectation created elation. He felt very happy, didn't he? What is the lesson here? As we said at the top of Part III: What we believe to be true exerts power and influence over our outcomes and results in any of our 8 goal areas.
Emotion-Feeling (Gear 5)
Emotions and feelings are the motors that contain the energy that moves us either forward or backward in our 8 goal areas. For those of you who are thinking "goal areas? What are the 8 goal areas?"
Everything you do in your life involves these 8 goal areas; financial, educational, relational (personal, business), career, family/home/recreation, mental/spiritual, physical / vitality-health, and last but not least service, that is giving back to your community.
Every waking day we are running through the gambit of emotions and feelings, up, down, hot, cold, angry, happy, unhappy, etc. The point here is that our emotions and feelings have a direct impact on our overall happiness. And that there are ways and methods to harness them all. Check out The 7 Gears Between Cause & Effect to get an understanding of some of those observations.
Happiness - Brain Science
We've established that what we all want is to feel good. As brain scientist & researcher Dr. Joe Dispenza often says, "Thoughts are the language of the brain, and feelings are the language of the body." Meaning our moods and feelings are the results of constant mind-body interaction. Happiness at times can involve more than just getting to a mental-emotional state of bliss or contentment.
There are levels of depression that are not just a condition of the mind but actually involve some form of imbalanced body chemistry. This is an area that goes beyond the scope and space of this basic series. But it's important enough to include. The role serotonin, endorphins, and adrenaline play in our moods and feelings are known. Recent research has discovered that at the most basic cellular level our bodies have "messenger molecules" that are a type of "code" in what are called neuropeptides which have a direct effect on our moods. A low level of these "chemicals" can override any positive self-talk or attitude tuning exercises. Diet, stress at work, ongoing arguments, anxiety, too much caffeine, etc. can drain our feel-good cocktail. The good news in all of this is that there are certain things we can do to eliminate this problem.
We are not done yet! There's more to come in How To Achieve Happiness – The Elusive Butterfly Part IV