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Secrets To Happiness

Published by Gary April 29th, 2008 in Happiness, Emotions, Self Awareness and Impeccability. 1 Comment

Happiness is the emotional experience created by you expressing the emotion of love. In every moment of joy and peace in your life you were creating love and expressing it. Feeling different qualities of happiness at different times is because there are millions of variations of love that you can express.

Have you taken time to contemplate where your emotions come from? Actually they don’t come from anywhere. You create them. When you create sadness you then feel the sadness you create. When feel anger it is because you created that emotion.
Misunderstanding Your Emotions

We are not used to thinking of our emotions as something we create. Common syntax of language produces the misinterpretation that emotions come from something or someone external. How many times have we heard or said words to the effect, “He/She makes me so angry/frustrated/sad.” Or perhaps the same reference to the opposite emotions. “He/She makes me so happy.” This phrasing is so common in language that we overlook the disempowering paradigm it creates.

Thoughts like these imply to your mind that an external circumstance like traffic or another person is determining your emotional state. Your belief in words with these assumptions can have a hypnotizing effect. Their impact builds through time and repetition until it really appears that it is about someone or something external. When mental patterns like this occur other hypnotic beliefs are forming as well. You are also creating a false self image as a person powerless over your emotions.

By believing a few symbolic words and their underlying assumptions, it can feel like love, joy and happiness are beyond your reach.

Aside from creating a victimizing paradigm of beliefs it also induces an interesting compensating strategy. If your happiness is experienced as a result of external people or events then you will attempt to control people and events in order to be happy. The reverse happens when you interact with people who live by this emotionally powerless paradigm. They will attempt to control you in order to satisfy their external need for happiness. Living by these beliefs generally puts emotional strain and drama on a relationship.

From Interpretation to Expression

People will say that their spouse or partner makes them happy. This is a misinterpretation. It’s really their expression of love for their wife, husband, or lover that is creating their state of joy. When they no longer love that person, nothing that person does will “make” them happy. At that point they might say that their ex is “making” them angry or upset. Also not true. They are making themselves angry or upset with the story they believe and express about their ex.

Years later they might have forgiven their ex about the issues of the past. They look upon that relationship as a growth experience and perceive it with gratitude and fondness. Their ex may not have changed much over time but the emotional expression towards them has. How we feel emotionally about someone is our creation. How we feel changes depending on how we express our story about them.

The secret element determining your emotions is in the interpretation of the story you believe and express. The facts might be the same but how you interpret them changes your emotional experience.

Some people say that time heals all wounds. This isn’t true. People can take anger and resentment to their grave. What heals emotional wounds is changing your belief in the interpretation of the story you have about someone. When you adopt a different interpretation, you change the expression of emotions. The challenge here is that you really have to change what you believe. Saying it is not enough.

One way of changing your story about the past is forgiveness. Forgiveness changes your interpretations and frees you from continued expressions of judgment and anger. You have the power to change your interpretation and emotions quickly, slowly or not at all.

The Secret World of Interpretations

If two people experience the same event they can have completely different emotional experiences. The difference is in the interpretation the mind makes. If two people are caught in the rain one might laugh at himself for forgetting his umbrella. The other might judge himself and feel like an idiot. The difference between being happy or unhappy is not controlled by circumstances like the weather, but by belief in the interpretation.

The mind is fast. It makes an interpretation in the instant between perception and emotional reaction. In that hidden moment the mind constructs a virtual reality of assumptions and calculates opinions, judgments, and reactions.

When you realize you forgot something the mind retraces where the item is, imagines how things should have happened, imagines what you should have done, makes a comparison between what you did and what you should have done, judges you based on the comparison, creates a negative self image, and then condemns you for being that false image it manufactured in it’s secret reality. Without awareness the only part you notice is the concluding comment, “I’m such an idiot,” and the corresponding emotions.

If you have awareness and pay attention you can intervene in that secret world of interpretation. Changing the interpretations your mind makes in that virtual reality will change the resulting emotional expressions. Until you unlock and change those interpretations, part of your happiness will remain a secret from you.

Most people have had their mind conditioned to interpret that happiness will result from doing things they are supposed to do or come from achieving certain goals. In this way the mind perceives love and happiness as something to be pursued and attained. That’s a very limited interpretation that fails to recognize the power you have to create emotions such as love and gratitude.

The pathway to your expression of love is the interpretations, beliefs, and perspective in the mind. It is those interpretations in the mind that control whether you will allow your self to express love, or if you will express emotions based in fear.

When you change the interpretations in that secret world of the mind, you unlock the doors that hold back your happiness. You are then free to let your love come out of you.

For practical steps you can take to take control of this secret world of assumptions and beliefs in the mind, and gain mastery over your happiness, download and listen to the mp3 audio in the Self Mastery program. The first sessions are free.

This article is posted at http://pathwaytohappiness.com/happiness/2008/04/29/secret-happiness/

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Where Do You Focus Your Attention?

Published by Gary April 18th, 2008 in Happiness, Core Beliefs and Self Mastery. 0 Comments

There’s a lot of talk about the importance of focusing on the positive. There is certainly value in focusing your attention on the positive. However, like anything, too much of a good thing, can work against you. There are times when it is valuable to focus your attention on the negative.
The idea being pedaled is to stay positive about your goals, and don’t let the negative distract you. I’m familiar with the examples used to illustrate the point, but it doesn’t make the point true all the time in every instance.

Do you have absolute control over your attention?

First of all the axiom assumes that all people have complete control over their attention. This just isn’t the case. Most people haven’t been introduced to the idea of controlling their attention. They haven’t practiced it, and they aren’t skilled at it, particularly when it comes to dealing with their emotional situations.

Very often people will focus on a positive aspect of a bad situation and then four, or fourteen minutes later their mind has wandered back to the old negative story.

When you attempt to follow the axiom “Stay focused on the positive” you are set up for failure. Not because you are a failure, or undisciplined, but because you have not practiced and developed the skill of controlling your attention. This is particularly challenging when in the midst of unpleasant emotions.

Focusing your attention without distraction for as long as a day is roughly equivalent to running a marathon. You need skilled and effective training before you could expect to do either. (In the Self Mastery Audio Program there are exercises and practices to gain and control your attention.)

Without the development of this skill you are set up for failure. If you expected to succeed, in spite of no instruction, training or practice, you are probably in for a dose of self judgment from the voice in their head. If this is you, then stop it. Quit trying harder to do something that doesn’t work.

But let’s put aside the issue of controlling your attention. Let’s take another look at this philosophy of focusing on the positive all the time and see where it falls apart.
Not Every Situation is the Same

The philosophy assumes that the persistence that worked for one person will work for everyone all the time. It assumes that you should apply this approach to every situation. There’s a part of the mind that loves this simplicity and likes to believe it is somehow true. This is also the same part of the mind that is prone to believe in illusions.

Different situations call for different strategies. Just because a persistent positive approach worked in one case, doesn’t mean it will always work. There is such thing as irrational exuberance. Look at the cycles in the real estate or stock markets. There’s a wrong time to assume the positive about the markets, a relationship, or be overconfidence in your abilities.

When Positive Focus Strategies are too General

Suppose I’m out sailing in a boat and I discover there is a leak. I’m taking on water. I don’t think I should be focused on the beauty of the day, the sun on the water, or the wind in my hair. Sure that would be “more positive” and fit with a live in the moment philosophy, but it goes against my survival instinct. I’m going to put my attention below decks on the water problem. Focusing on the negative is the best use of my time.
If a young child is having difficulty with math, should they just give up on learning long division? Perhaps they can do some problems well, but they keep making mistakes with others? Should they leave the difficult ones alone and focus on the positive of what they do well? Maybe they should just focus on the subjects they feel more positive about like English and History. I’m going to assume that people espousing the philosophy don’t mean it in this way, but they leave it open for misinterpretation when they are not specific.

When you distill life strategies down to one sentence you lose and distort meaningful elements like context, application, and exceptions.

There’s a time and place to Focus on the Negative

A student struggling with math could potentially gain more by focusing on what they are struggling with. For the greatest benefit they might want to focus on the specific causes of those problems. What faulty reasoning are they applying that is creating the mistakes? What mental images and abstractions does their mind construct that distorts their understanding? How much sugar did they have during the day affecting their ability to concentrate? If they put their attention on the specific part of the process that is getting them to produce bad results they can change it.

The problem isn’t the wrong answer. Getting the wrong answer is a symptom of something distorted in their reasoning. Focusing on the faulty logic producing those mistakes is where they can gain the most value.

Focusing on the positive like History, English, or the problems they can do easily won’t serve them as well. It fits the “Focus on the Positive” mantra but is a disservice when poorly applied. If a teaching isn’t presented with a proper context, it can be misapplied and cause more problems than help. This is often the case with spiritual or self help teachings.

(In this math example I’m assuming younger children and basic skills. As you get older you are going to have to select an area of expertise and focus your attention there.)

Self Reflection on the Negative

If I’m not achieving my goals I want to know what I’m tripping over. I want to know the faulty logic that drives sabotaging behaviors and produces negative results. I want to put my attention on the negative so I can figure out what is in my unconscious decision making process and make changes to it. I can’t change something that I’m not aware of. If I attempt to always focus on the positive I’ll never be able to make these important changes.

There is real value in focusing on the negative, or what is sometimes called the darker side of our self. However that is still too vague. When you focus on the negative, you have to be precise in what you are looking at or you can waste a lot of time and get no where.
In the sinking boat story, it is the water that will sink the boat. However it doesn’t do much good to focus on the water. The water is a symptom of the real problem. Focus your attention on finding the leak that is letting all the water into the boat.

You can bail the water and that can help for a while depending on the circumstances Bailing is a good temporary compensating strategy that can buy you some time, but eventually you will have to rest, and who will bail then?

A compensating strategy is a short term, hold things over, and make your self feel better, without really addressing the core issue approach to the problem. The real solution is in finding and fixing the leak. This is the specific part of the negative that should get your attention and bring you the most benefit.

Jealousy and Anger – Example emotional reaction

The emotional reaction of jealousy is something that can sink a relationship. Jealousy can produce anger and other controlling behaviors. Attempting to change the anger and controlling behavior is like focusing on the water in the boat. It’s just the symptom of an underlying problem. Underneath that layer of anger and jealousy is likely a feeling of insecurity. Putting your attention on that issue brings you closer to the leaking emotions.

If you spend time exploring and understanding the issue of insecurity you will find that one of the elements is rejection due to self judgment. If you thin slice self judgment you find specific beliefs that cause the self judgment. (I explain these in detail in the Self Judgment audio) The structure of core beliefs that generate self judgment is the hole in the boat.

You can’t address jealousy until you address the underlying insecurity. But you can’t address insecurity until you address the contributing self rejection from self judgment. Restructure those core beliefs and you no longer have the overflowing emotions of jealousy and anger to bail out.

It’s not enough to focus on the negative.

It’s not enough to focus on the negative. If you want to make changes in your emotional reactions you will need to focus on the cause within the negative. You have to bring your attention to those causes with clarity and precision. The exercises in the Self Mastery program guide you through developing these skills.

I’m not advising that you focus on the negative all the time. That’s too general and to be helpful we need to be more specific than that or we get into trouble. I’m suggesting that you focus on the beliefs and assumptions creating the negative emotions. I’m also suggesting that when you do this you do it with the skills necessary to change those beliefs. It is best to be specific about these things.

Some people will look at the process of identifying and changing core beliefs and interpret that it is a lot of work. At least that is the assumption their mind will make as a reaction. When they make this observation I don’t think they considered how much work the alternative is; Working the rest of their life to compensate for the emotional reactions sinking their happiness.

Emotional Issues

There’s a lot of pop advice for emotional issues like insecurity, jealousy, and anger. Focus on the positive is just one example. That approach is just too simple, and general to be effective. Like most one liners, it doesn’t address any of the causes to those emotional issues. It doesn’t address or change the underlying assumptions, and interpretations that the mind is habitually making.

The approach to “Focus on the Positive” is often used as a compensating strategy. It gives the appearance of making things better. You feel better when you focus on positive things, but only temporarily. The beliefs at the root of the problem are still there and keep creating problems. Kind of like that hole in the boat, or that faulty math logic that keeps producing the wrong answer.

Dwell on the Negative

There are those that say, “Don’t dwell on the negative.” They say it without regard for the finer points. They say it in a way that tempts people to ignore the causes of their problems, and thereby repeat them. That kind of general advice without a proper context can be dangerous. You run the risk of applying the axiom to every situation without checking to see if the circumstances are applicable or measuring how effective the strategy is.

The persistence of thinking you should “Focus on the positive” will hypnotize you into ignoring the real causes that created the negative situation to begin with. Ignore those causes and your emotional drama patterns in your history will likely repeat. Pay attention to what caused the negative reactions and you open up a gold mine of discovery for self awareness and personal growth.

Practical exercises in gaining control over your attention as well as identifying and changing core beliefs can be found in the Self Mastery Audio Program. The first few sessions are free.

This article is posted at http://pathwaytohappiness.com

All copyrights reserved.

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What Should I do After Graduation?

Published by Gary April 16th, 2008 in Happiness, Self Awareness, Ask Gary, Fear and creativity. 0 Comments

Ask Gary

I would really appreciate your help with a question. I’m graduating from high school this year and trying to figure out what I should do.

When reading about your background, I noticed that you have a degree in Mechanical Engineering. I have been accepted to a University for that very program. I’m going into engineering because of the many doors it opens and for the money but I don’t feel optimistic about it. I think I would prefer to do a skilled trade. I’m afraid I will get stuck doing a monotonous job if I don’t go to University however.

You said that you had a miserable career because you went into engineering? I would value your opinion on this: Should I get a degree in engineering? How does it affect your life in terms of relationships, etc.? I’m really worried - I don’t want to lead myself down a path of misery.

Thank you, Alex

Dear Alex with a Future,

I didn’t have a miserable career experience because I studied engineering. I’m not sure how that got interpreted. Engineering is an education that has served me very well in many ways. It was a conglomeration of things that created my misery at that time in my life. The biggest factor was that I was unaware of the world of emotions and beliefs that I was living in my mind.

The second biggest factor was working 80-100 hours a week at something that I wasn’t enjoying any more. I enjoyed it for a number of years, loved the challenges, and the action. (Ran nuclear power plants and drove an aircraft carrier) But not having balance or time to do things that I enjoyed eventually left me drained and unfulfilled. (I should note that I didn’t have time to discover what things I enjoyed.)

At the time I didn’t understand the importance of putting my happiness as a priority. I had just assumed that if I was successful, and in the “right” relationship, then I would be happy as a consequence. This was a set up for a big disillusionment.

“Should I get a degree in engineering?”

Expecting someone to answer this question is disrespectful to your self. You are the only one that is responsible for the decisions you make. Other people are not. You will live with the consequences of your choices. No one else will. Make the decision for your self and not because someone else says it is a good idea or not.

At the same time be aware of your inexperience at making such choices and take the time to consider what other experienced people have to say. They will have awareness and insights that you have not yet accumulated. This can be of great benefit. Always remember, in the end, it is your decision.

Planning for an Unknown Future

In working through a decision that involves such a long time frame, recognize that you can’t know the future. Therefore you can’t know if it is the “right” decision before you take action. Some roads you have to go down, explore and see if they work for you.

For this reason it is most important to give your self the freedom to change your direction later. Your comment, “I don’t want to lead myself down the path of misery,” sounds like it has assumptions based in fear of being trapped. That fear alone will paralyze you from taking any action. It also sounds as if you are not allowed to change your choice once you commit to it. This kind of mindset and inflexibility in your choices is what creates the feeling of being trapped.

What is an Education For?

My technical education has served me well and still does. I’m comfortable learning programming on my own website because of programming classes in college. One of the ways I see the structure of people’s belief systems is much like a mechanical engineering system. I see how different parts of the mind interact and trigger one another as if it were diagrammed in a schematic. In school I learned how to think in terms of inter-related systems. That skill helps me to understand things like emotional dynamics in relationships. It turns out that I learned a lot of skills in my engineering classes that could be used elsewhere.

Getting an education doesn’t mean you are limited to working in that field. One of my favorite jobs was in sales. I got to visit different customers and help them solve their problems. It was like learning a new puzzle and solving it every other day. The job was a sales job, but it was made easy because of my technical competence and experience in engineering. It was at that time I discovered the challenge of working with people and my interest piqued in that area. That is something that I couldn’t have known before and only found through discovery and exploration from technical sales.

If you think of an education or degree as something that locks you into a career for the rest of your life, then you will feel trapped, and sabotage the opportunity.

But what happens if you see education as preparation for a journey into unknown worlds ahead? Twenty years ago there wasn’t an internet, and only a few people worked in computers. You don’t know what new fields of business and science will emerge in the next 20 or 40 years. No one does. The most prepared for success may very well be the most flexible and creative minds. How will you prepare your mind in this adventure of life?

How can you best prepare your self to adapt to a changing world? This is what an education is for. (Many educators don’t take this approach.) The goal of an education is not to limit you into one small area defined by a degree. One of the goals of an education is to make you more prepared and more adaptable to any area of life.

Consider these two scenarios in terms of flexibility, opportunity, and choices. If you get a college degree, how easily can you transition into a trade. If you go into a trade, how easy is it to transition into management, or engineering later?

You have choices

You can’t know if something isn’t good for you until you check it out. At 18 I chose mechanical engineering as a major even though I wasn’t even sure what mechanical engineers did. I just wanted to know how things worked. I couldn’t have understood what I was getting into until I got into it.

It is only once you have experience that you can make an informed choice. The irony is that you can’t get that experience until you make uninformed choices. That informed choice may very well be to get out and find a different path. But at least at that point it is an informed choice. That’s what happened for me in the military, and in a couple other pursuits. I got excited and got going on something and when I learned more about it, I decided it wasn’t for me. With each new experience I was able to make better choices. You can’t predict the future. You can’t know what will be most fulfilling for you in your life and what won’t. That’s one of the exciting parts of discovery in this adventure. See the Dan Gilbert video about people’s expectations on happiness for more on this point.

What should I do after I Graduate?

Some people approach questions like this as if they can know the “right” answer before they explore the experience. This comes from too much pattered book learning. Too many times our mind has been patterned with the scenario that there is only one right answer, and it has already been defined before we make a choice. It drives the feeling to check the answer guide in the back or confirm our feelings with an expert to ensure we make the “right” choice. This isn’t my experience when it comes to making choices about the future. And when I think about it, choices that affect the future are the only kind there are.

Trial and Error - Discovery and Exploration

So much of the journey in life is trial and error. But that approach only looks acceptable if you remember that you have the right to change your choice. Your awareness that you have a choice, and that you can change it, will give you a sense of freedom, and power. Not to be aware of these opportunities will leave you feeling trapped, powerless, and helpless in any choice you make.

If you don’t like the term “trial and error” because the voice in your head generates too much fear of failure, then you can think of it as discovery and exploration.

Increase your Awareness by being Grateful

Be grateful for the opportunities that you have. Be really grateful. I pretty much enjoyed my service in the military with the exception of the last few months. In the end it wasn’t really bad, I was just tired. I was ready for change and I wanted a different path. The problem was that in the military I just couldn’t give them 2 weeks notice and leave. I had a several months left, and considering the consequences, no real choice about it. That was a situation of not really having choices and being somewhat trapped.

About half the world population lives on less than 2 dollars a day. They have a lot fewer choices. Many days they don’t have a choice of what to eat, or if they will eat.

If you practice being grateful for the choices you have you will be more aware of your power to make choices. That awareness will give you a sense of freedom, and allow you to see opportunities that others don’t. The less grateful you are, the less awareness you will have of your choices. With less awareness of your choices you are more likely to feel trapped and powerless. Practicing gratitude and appreciation for the choices you have will help you stay in touch with that source of power.

As a reference to making better decisions I suggest reading Source’s of Power by Gary Klein. He has awareness and insight into how the mind really makes decisions. In Klein’s book The Power of Intuition he provides several practical techniques for improving your decision making process. It’s not going to be much help in the “What should I do after Graduation” type question, but you will be making many more decisions in your life. You might as well be aware of how your mind does that so you can improve the process.

Gary

For a practical guided meditation in Gratitude listen to the first free session of the Self Mastery Program.

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Consciousness

Published by Gary April 7th, 2008 in Happiness, The Mind and Self Awareness. 0 Comments

Consciousness

There’s a lot we could say about what this brain researcher realized about the mind during her stroke, and her recovery. One point is that we have many different modalities with which to perceive the world. Whether we define our self by the limit of our bodies, or as a field of consciousness, changes how and what we perceive. Jill Bolte Taylor experienced a stroke. As a brain researcher she got to experience more than just the brain, but also the mind, consciousness, perception, and emotions.


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How the Mind Affects Your Happiness

Published by Gary September 27th, 2007 in Happiness, Emotions, Core Beliefs, The Mind, Self Mastery, Self Awareness, Managing Expectations, Emotional Suffering and Emotional Denial. 13 Comments

Understanding the Mind

As humans we live in two worlds. There is the external physical world of work, family and friends that we travel in. Then there is the world of our mind and imagination. It is a virtual reality that can appear and feel just as real. When it comes to your emotions the virtual world of your mind can be more real.

If you are seeking to create greater fulfillment and happiness in your life most sources will point to making changes in your external world. However it is changes in the virtual reality of your mind that will make a lasting impact on your happiness and fulfillment.

Those suggestions to find what you love, do what you are passionate about, and achieve your goals will lead you towards happiness. However without addressing how the virtual reality of the mind affects your emotions you can still end up disillusioned and empty. The importance of addressing the role of the mind in your happiness may be difficult to grasp because even the opinions in your mind will point to changing your external world in order to be happy.

What Your Mind Doesn’t Want you to Realize

Most everybody has heard that money doesn’t make you happy, other people don’t make you happy, and that you have to make your self happy. Very few people will tell you how. Your mind will propose that happiness has something to do with the success and accomplishment in the external world. This is exactly what the mind wants you to believe and act on.

As long as you are more focused on the external world of success and accomplishment your mind can avoid giving up the control it has over your emotions. The mind is a dynamic and living entity that has an agenda of its own survival ahead of your emotional well being.

As you put your attention on the dynamics of the virtual reality of the mind it begins to lose control and power over your choices and thoughts. The process involves first becoming aware of the mind and the projections it makes. More self awareness will result in being aware of your self as separate from your mind that is generating thoughts and opinions.

What your mind doesn’t want you to realize is that your happiness and life fulfillment is really determined by what goes on in the world of the virtual reality. At the most essential level of emotions your happiness and sense of fulfillment in life has very little to do with accomplishments in the external reality.

The virtual reality of your mind is likely to disagree with these statements.

Your Happiness and Unhappiness is Created Internally

Take a circumstance such as being fired from your job. In the moment you might feel like it is the worst experience of your life. Those feelings are really created by the self judgment, criticism, and beliefs in the mind. There might also be blame and anger at your former employer. These opinions about the event are generated in the virtual reality about being fired. It is these opinions and beliefs that drive the emotions.

Now imagine that a few years have passed. You have moved on and circumstances are better in your life. Your virtual reality will interpret being fired as a beneficial turn of events that helped facilitate a better life. It was an event that was necessary to bring you to your current state of enjoyment. The story projected in the mind changed and so did your emotions.

Did the event actually change? No. You were still fired on that day at that time for the same reasons. However since your opinions and beliefs about the event changed so did your emotion. Your emotions are created by the beliefs in the virtual reality of your mind and are independent of the event. Most people only change their interpretations over time. However with awareness you can change the opinions and beliefs in your virtual reality in any moment.

How you feel in terms of happiness, fulfillment, and satisfaction is not a function of success, failure, or other external factors. Happiness and fulfillment is determined by the opinions and beliefs in your virtual reality about your accomplishments and perceived failures. After all success and failure are just description labels projected by the mind. They can change with time or perspective.

Shifting Priorities

When you understand the significance of how your virtual reality impacts your emotions it will become more important to create peace and quiet in your mind. Depending on how important it is to be happy, you might even conclude that changing your opinions, beliefs, and fears is more important than your external goals.

Without accomplishing a shift in the virtual reality of the mind external success will often be empty emotionally and leave you wondering, “Is this all there is?”

The Measure of Success is Emotional Happiness

You can be a success in your field, make lots of money, and receive accolades from peers and authorities in the external world. However if your internal world of imagination dictates that you are not good enough or a poor performer you will hear the stories of failure in your head. You will feel the emotions of a failure in your body.

If you are unable to satisfy the critical voice of the Inner Judge in your head no amount of external rewards will be satisfying.

Numerous studies indicate that wealthy people are not much happier than the middle class. Once a person’s basic needs are met there is very little change in a person’s happiness as they gain wealth. What these studies don’t explain is the lack of difference. That’s because these studies don’t reveal the aspects of fear, judgments, criticisms, and beliefs, that make up the virtual reality of people’s minds. These elements of a person’s mind do not change because of a change in their wealth.
The Conflict Between Worlds

When there is a disparity between the image of success that others have and the image of failure in your mind you will feel a conflict brewing. They believe you are a success and yet you know your self image in your virtual reality as a failure. It will seem as if they don’t really know you and this will create a feeling of disconnection. You will feel like you don’t deserve the attention and compliments. You may end up feeling like a fraud to them.

A simple example of this is when someone tells you that you are beautiful or talented. A person that doesn’t feel congruent to this on the inside with their beliefs will feel uncomfortable and dismiss or minimize the comment. In this way their worlds appear and feel more congruent.

Most people most of the time will dismiss the evidence that contradicts their virtual reality. Sometimes this is called denial. At other times people will sabotage their success in the external world just to rectify the incongruity between worlds.

Hollywood is filled with examples of people who achieved acclaim only to feel empty inside. They often seek an internal high through substance abuse only to have it ruin their hard work and everything they have built. When they crash it appears again that their virtual reality was telling them the truth.The virtual reality of the mind is all too willing to sabotage and destroy external success and accomplishments in an effort to maintain continuity and control.

The Illusion of Fulfillment and Happiness

As people strive to be happier and more fulfilled they purse what they believe will make them feel better. More specifically this is the virtual reality’s version of what will make them happy. What the virtual reality equates to happiness does not necessarily equate to happiness in the real world.

In essence the virtual reality claims that happiness is to be created by changing the external world. When achievements are made and goals reached there is often euphoria albeit temporary. The long term internal feelings of dissatisfaction generated by the opinions, criticisms, and judgments of the mind remain unchanged. The virtual reality solution to this return of dissatisfaction is setting higher external goals.

When a person has little awareness they chase whatever goal their virtual reality proposes will make them happy. As you gain awareness you begin to be a skeptic of the thoughts and proposals in your mind. You turn your attention to changing the how the virtual reality operates.

Anecdotes Don’t Help

Some people refer to the distortions in the mind and claim that “People see what they want to see.” These simple explanations are just projections of the virtual reality about the virtual reality. The result is that the mind has added another layer to the virtual world with that belief.

For the person that gets called into their boss’s office their mind may project visions of getting reprimanded or fired. When they get there they might find they are getting a bonus.

A person might project that their partner is cheating on them. In their virtual reality they create a movie of their partner leaving them abandoned and alone. Their virtual reality generates emotions of fear, jealousy, anger, and loneliness. In reality their partner might be madly in love and devoted to them. But they don’t have a relationship with their real partner. They have a relationship with the person in their virtual reality. They treat and act towards their partner according to the beliefs and images the virtual reality projects.

In these scenarios it is not a matter of people seeing what they want to see. People do not want to see visions of being reprimanded, fired, or abandoned. It’s not that simple. The virtual reality of the mind is active and has taken on a life of its own. It projects scenarios continually throughout the day separate from our wants and desires. When these projections in the mind are based in fear the result is unhappiness.

People do not see what they want to see. People see what their virtual reality projects. This isn’t so dangerous by itself unless a person believes what their mind has projected. Without belief in these images they have no power to produce emotions or reactions.

Changing Your Mind is Not Easy

The mind is like a many headed hydra. Often when you attempt to cut off one head two heads grow back. The same thing happens in other places in life. When we prune a tree or bush many buds shoot out with limbs that remain. When you attempt to squash negative thinking the same can occur.

When you attempt to describe, justify, judge, or explain why the mind does what it does you are often adding layers of opinions and projections to the virtual reality. In effect you feed it and make it stronger when you attempt to apply simple anecdotes to the process of changing the mind.

To make changes in the way your mind projects stories and images in your virtual reality is counter intuitive. In the beginning you can not go directly attack it and attempt to cut out everything you don’t want. Without skilled techniques and guidance it is likely to bush out and seem bigger and more difficult than before.

To really change what the virtual reality projects requires that you become skillful in slicing it apart in a way that it doesn’t grow back.

To change the patterns of the mind and currents of emotion might seem like a daunting task. At least that is what the virtual reality projects as if it were truthful analysis.

Whether it is easy or difficult is irrelevant compared to the consequences. Your happiness for the rest of your life weighs in the balance.

Challenge Your Mind

The virtual reality of the mind is alive. It has a life of its own and it is seeking to ensure its own survival. If you are unsure of this simply attempt to make all your thoughts silent for a few minutes and see how the voices in your head behave.

They typically become unruly, tell you to stop wasting your time, this isn’t important, and the guy writing this article doesn’t know what he is talking about. Everything will be an attempt to change the subject or sabotage the process.

The person that becomes a skeptic of these thoughts and recognizes their automatic reactive nature has a chance to change their world.

A Quiet and Peaceful Mind

The difference between happiness and misery begins with changing the quality of images and story projection in the virtual world of your mind. When you go beyond the simple projection of happy stories and images you find another world. In the state of a quiet mind the virtual reality is silent. The visual images and projections are nil. You see the external world as it is. When you do you find out that it is beautiful.

You do not paint upon it your judgments, criticisms, fears, justifications, or even opinions and descriptions. When the internal virtual reality is dissolved so are the voices in your head that keep you from peace and quiet. Only when you dissolve the virtual reality of your mind do you have a chance to live in the real world. In the beginning this may only happen in brief moments. With practice it becomes a normal way to live.

When the mind is tamed and dissolved there is no longer the unhappiness, frustration, anger, or sense of emptiness that it often tempts us into. You are able to see the world as it is, and people as they really are. There is the realization of and perception of beauty as the fog is lifted and your eyes open to this clarity.

Happiness and fulfillment obtained solely from focusing on your external reality is fleeting and may leave you wondering, “Is this all there is? To discover a greater and more lasting happiness you will have to follow a path of dismantling the virtual reality of the mind.

Only through dismantling the false projections of your virtual reality are you assured of being free of emotional suffering in the changing circumstances of your life.

For more insights into the relationship between the mind, emotions, and beliefs listen to the free mp3 Audio podcasts on Awareness and Consciousness

For specific exercises in Self Awareness and changing the core beliefs behind the virtual reality of the mind practice the exercises in the Self Mastery Audio Program.

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