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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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

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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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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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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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When a person engages in personal and spiritual growth practices they often begin with reading and gathering knowledge. This is a good place to start for background information. However the knowledge approach has limited potential for change. It can also be relatively slow.

Real life changes in emotions and behavior don’t happen just because you have knowledge. When you decide to speed up your personal process and make real changes you will want to add Perception, Awareness, and Action to your process.

How real emotional and behavior change happens.

You’ve probably experienced an epiphany before, perhaps many times. People describe it as the “light going on.” All of a sudden you have a moment of clear perception that can startle you. In that moment your mind often stops thinking. In that mini awakening you don’t have any more information but you are aware of something new. It may have been right under your nose but you hadn’t seen it quite that way before. Mostly what has changed is the way you view something but it completely changes the picture.

When you have a small awakening like this your conscious awareness is changed. New synaptic channels open in the mind. From that moment on you no longer interpret things in the old way. You make different interpretations from this new viewpoint, draw different conclusions, and make different choices. Your new behavior becomes easy to integrate as you naturally follow your new perception. This is a means to make rapid personal changes.

If you think back to when you had an epiphany you can recall that you immediately and permanently changed.

Perception and Observation

Radical changes such as scientific discovery or creativity often come in an epiphany. Archimedes claimed, “Eureka!”(I found it) when he saw a solution to his problem of how to measure the mass of gold in a king’s crown. He had been struggling over the problem for some time. Then one day while settling into a relaxing bath he noticed how his body displaced the water from the bath. In that moment of perception he observed the relationship between water and an object in a different way. His direct perception of the relationship formed new understanding in his mind.

We should note that he had done some background work on the problem. This is where background information from reading can be helpful. However it isn’t the whole process of change.

The key point is that the awakening that created real change did not happen as a sole matter of knowledge gathering or information analysis. The change happened when he looked at the situation from a completely different view point. He looked at it from the perspective of his bath tub as he lowered himself into it. He saw it in relationship to the water rising. The answer to his problem wasn’t found logically. His realization came as a creative process of discovery that happens when you shift the way you look at things.

Knowledge and Intellect Don’t Facilitate Change

Many times people will be aware of a behavior or self sabotaging pattern that they want to change such as jealousy or anger. They might know when they adopted it, how it was developed, and the motivations behind it. They can also see all the reasons why they should drop this destructive behavior. However all their knowledge and intelligence doesn’t change the behavior. This can be very frustrating until you realize that knowledge does not shift emotions or behavior.

Knowledge can be helpful to define the problem. However that knowledge of definition is not the same as effective treatment.

When it comes to emotions and behaviors you can have all the information but if you haven’t shifted your point of view you still feel trapped by them. This is true even if you have the understanding that it is only a belief about something that isn’t real. This is common in emotional behaviors like irrational fears and unwarranted jealousy. You can have all of the knowledge that the beliefs aren’t real, but until the perspective shifts the beliefs and emotions remain.

This is one of the key differences between knowledge and awareness. Knowledge usually has a very limited viewpoint. Awareness has flexibility and versatility in perspectives. It allows for creativity and lateral thinking outside the box. When you have awareness you can shift your point of view outside typical problem solving paradigms and adopt a different approach to a situation. This is what Archimedes did.

You can do things to Consciously Change Your Perception

A few years back Magic Eye pictures were very popular. At first look, and sometimes second look, the images appear like chaotic pointillism. However, by shifting your eyes the mess of color reveals a three dimensional image hidden within. The picture isn’t really hidden. It’s just that you see it unless you adopt a certain point of view with the eyes to see it. Once you shift your perspective you see something you didn’t notice before.

Seeing with the magic eye effect is similar to changing your point of view so you can see the same thing in a different way. You can notice layers of an issue that you didn’t see before. This is the power of awareness.

When you apply this approach of shifting viewpoints to your personal process you can accelerate your rate of personal change. You will look at your self and emotional issues where you feel stuck completely differently. With awareness you begin to see elements and options that didn’t seem to exist before.

How to Make Changes in Perspective

One of the difficulties in getting someone to see the hidden image in the depths of the magic eye pictures is that you can’t explain how to “see” it. We aren’t use to consciously changing the focus of our eye. We usually leave it to be done automatically by the mind. An explanation of how to change the focus your eye may not translate very well. Even if we know intellectually that we need to focus differently it might be difficult taking those eye muscles out of automatic. Having intellectual understanding about moving the focus of the eye is very different from doing it.

A more effective way to shift the eye is through taking certain actions or tricks. If you hold the image to your nose, look beyond it, and then slowly move the picture away, it can help your eyes make the shift. Notice that this is an action. It’s not an intellectual explanation of how to shift. Holding the image to your nose is a way to break the automatic focusing habit of the eye and shift your perspective.

It is in the process of taking new actions that you can
change perspectives and create personal change.

The Value of Perspective in Relationships

When it comes to difficulties in relationships the suggestion is often “try to look at the issue from the other person’s perspective.  This is nice advice.  It’s also usually wasted.  Most people have not developed the skill to do it effectively.  To look at an issue from another’s perspective requires that you drop all your beliefs, opinions, and emotions, and then put on the virtual reality of the other person’s beliefs, opinions, and emotions.  This is not an intellectual exercise.  It’s like developing a magic eye for relationships and something not many people have taken the time to learn how to do.

For those that are able to shift their perspective, you can immediately develop a respect for another and their point of view.  The additional perspective will automatically change the tone, attitude, and emotion in your communication.  The attitude of conflict will drop with your perspectives of right/wrong and good/bad.  When you can drop the right/wrong perspectives in relationships it is easy to create more love, respect, and happiness.  You can see depth in a person that you didn’t see before.  The critical challenge is to develop your magic eye for people by being flexible in your point of view.  To be clear it doesn’t’ mean you have to give up what you want.  It just means you don’t use fighting and conflict as a means of getting it.

If there was ever a place where a shift in point of view would dramatically change emotions and behaviors it is in personal relationships.
Habitual Patterns of Perspective

We expend and waste a lot of our energy in habitual patterns. There are also habitual patterns in how we see our self, relationships, and the issues we feel trapped in. You know you are trapped in a limited perspective when you keep making the same interpretations and drawing the same conclusions. That limited perspective can blind you from other options and choices that can lead to your happiness.  One of the biggest traps is not recognizing the importance of point of view in these patterns.
To make real changes in behavior and emotions begins with a change in point of view. When you learn to consciously shift your point of view you can see those options and choices in moments instead of struggling with emotional issues for weeks and months. Just like learning to see the magic eye images, it will take some effort to learn how to shift your perception at will. However once you learn to develop this skill you will be able to fast track your personal and emotional change.

Action is the path to personal change

For practical steps in changing your point of view and developing your awareness practice the exercises in the Self Mastery course. The first couple sessions are free. Session 1 and 3 introduce you to the issue of point of view while sessions 5, 7 and 10 accelerate the process.

Making real changes in your self and your life happens faster when you consciously change your perspective in a ways that expand your awareness and your emotional choices.

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I spoke with James the other day who was trying to figure out what he should do about his relationship. He and his girlfriend had broken it off again and he didn’t know if he should give up or try whole heartedly to commit. It was a pattern he had done before.

He was frustrated because he couldn’t come up with an answer to his question. It was especially frustrating because James is an educated, intelligent, and professionally successful guy.

James had a number of beliefs that created impossible conflicts for him to make the right choice about his relationship. He didn’t see those core beliefs. He also didn’t see that he was asking the wrong questions. He was operating unaware of what his mind was doing to him. Kind of like those cats reacting and chasing the red dot reflecting on the floor. They don’t notice the person moving the laser pointer around that is in control.

Should I end the Relationship

If he ended the relationship he was facing the prospect of being alone. Related to being alone his mind constructed a scenario of being lonely, depressed, and in grief over the loss of the relationship. His mind didn’t have another chapter to that future story. To avoid the painful emotions his assumptions projected his mind darted to staying in the relationship as a solution.

Should I Stay in the Relationship

His mind had set up an impossible structure of being with this woman. Actually it painted a terrible picture for being with any woman. James has a number of beliefs about what it means to be a husband and father. It would require him to spend all his energy trying to be the “perfect husband” in order to fit the image he had fabricated in his mind. James felt overwhelmed at the task. He felt he wasn’t up to it. Based on those expectations the Inner Judge in his mind concluded he wasn’t good enough.

His mind also projected that the responsibility wouldn’t allow him freedom and flexibility in his career choices if he had to provide for a family. He saw it as an unending treadmill with little room to do other things he enjoys. James felt trapped by that picture of his imagined future. In that picture he was both feeling trapped and feeling unworthy.

“What should I do?”

The world of the mind and imagination is a fascinating place. You can easily lose your attention there and feel lost and powerless. The belief system in the mind constructs a picture of being alone and unhappy. The belief system also makes assumptions about a committed relationship and projects being burdened, trapped, and unhappy in marriage. After constructing these two unhappy scenarios the mind then asks, the question,

“What should I do?”

There is something particularly crafty about this question in this scenario. Layered into the question are hidden assumptions that point the attention to look only at these two previously constructed possibilities. Cats are a lot like this with that laser pointer. They lose sight of everything else around them. Their ability to focus is one thing that makes them great hunters. It’s also what makes them chase reflections and miss the bigger picture. Cats are so focused on the reflection they can’t see who is moving that laser light.

James puts his attention on trying to find an answer to that very simple question. That one question has trapped his attention.

He follows a direction of logic until he imagines the possibility of being alone. When the emotional body begins to perceive the unhappiness of this projected future it begins to look for another way. It’s a natural instinct to avoid emotional pain, even if it is from reflections in the imagination.

He considers committing to the relationship for the rest of his life. It’s the only other option his mind offers. His core beliefs have constructed an image of what he is supposed to be as a man. It includes perfect husband, protector, emotionally available, supportive, and a bred winner financially. He should be “like a rock”.

According to this Image of Perfection there’s no room for not knowing what to do in any situation. There is no latitude to be human. There too little room to enjoy his life, and have fun within this imagined box his beliefs have built. If he doesn’t meet this image he is a failure according to his inner judge. The Image of Perfection is so high that failure is certain. The imagined emotions are too unbearable to consider. His mind jumps to another reflection of light darting past in his mind.  He has to get out of the relationship. The cats run the other way down the hall.

When James looks for an answer he isn’t going to find anything solid. He’s chasing reflections of imagined futures that his fears and core beliefs are projecting. Since his fears and beliefs of not being good enough are projecting the future everything looks bleak. He feels trapped and yet compelled to answer.

He doesn’t look beyond those two options because that one question has trapped his attention. “What should I do” implies that there is a “right” answer and that he should choose it. It assumes that one of the two scenarios in front of him is “right”. It assumes the other will be wrong. Oddly enough neither question addresses his happiness directly. Happiness in life is left as an indirect consequence of choosing the “right” answer.

That question puts his whole future happiness into one choice. With that much weighing in the balance the question makes itself more important. It becomes vital that he find an answer. He focuses his attention even more into the possibilities of those two answers hoping to see something he missed before.

It’s like the cat trying to put his paw on the red dot.

What James fails to realize is that the question and assumed answers has trapped his attention. The construct of beliefs is a much bigger trap than the relationship could ever be. At least in relationship there is always the prospect of break up or divorce. His mind doesn’t offer alternate options. When the attention is trapped by beliefs and assumptions like this a person doesn’t have the awareness to see other options.
Cat’s are a lot like this when they chase reflections of light. Sometimes they chase the light reflection from my watch all over the office as I type. Their instinct to hunt that spec of light down is pure survival instinct. Humans are like that. Since the time we were very little we spent years in school training to find the right answers to questions that other people asked. We spent years learning to answer questions as if our survival depended on it.

What we didn’t learn

We never learned to ask the questions. We were not trained to ask our self better questions so that we can come up with a better answer. We never learned to question the question. Because we didn’t control the questions we never got a chance to direct where our attention went. We just chased answers. We even jump to find answers when our own mind asks the question. We chase the reflection instead of grabbing the pointer.

The problem that James faces is not that he is stupid and can’t figure out the answer. The problem is that he doesn’t hold the laser light. He is not beginning with useful questions. “What should I do?” doesn’t have an answer that will make him feel happy and fulfilled.

What will help James is to stop chasing reflections of light and get hold of the source. He’s got to get hold of the laser pointer in his mind that is asking the questions. It’s the part of his mind leading the show. When he starts asking better questions he will stop chasing dead ends.

Ask a better question Get a Better Answer

Do I want to be happy? How important is it?
Have I ever been happy when I was alone? Is it possible for me to be happy with other people? How much of my happiness is dependent on me? How much of my happiness is dependent on another person? How much of my happiness do I want to be dependent on another person? How do I change the balance?

What do I want to feel emotionally? What do I want my relationships to feel like? What can I do to feel that way all the time?

Free Will - Does James have a choice to be happy?

At the level of awareness that James is operating on it won’t make much difference to his happiness how he chooses. No matter the choice his mind will second guess himself afterwards with doubting questions. The voice in his head with questions will cause him to wonder if he made the “right” choice. His mind will imagine different scenarios and produce insecurity, fear, and unhappiness about his choices. His Inner Judge and Victim will conclude he was wrong with either choice. It’s just how that part of the mind operates until you become aware enough to change it.
The Pursuit of Happiness

The motivation for the “should” question was always about being happy. The real question was, “What should I do so that I will be happy in my life?” It’s just that when you shorten it you get caught up in a different question. The emphasis changes from being happy to being “right.” Your mind puts in different assumptions and you chase impossible answers up and down the hallways of your mind.

Cats chase reflections of light hoping to catch their prey. They don’t have the awareness to notice who is holding the light source. People are a lot like cats. People chase answers to questions that trap their attention and spin them in circles.

If you want a happier outcome in your relationships and your life don’t just chase better answers. Get a hold of the light source and control where you point your attention.

For exercises in gaining control over your attention, changing core beliefs, and changing the emotional experience of your life, listen to the free audio sessions in Self Mastery.

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Suggested Listening - Hidden Assumptions in Questions - MP3 Audio Download. This is from a previously posted podcast.

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The most important aspect to master when dealing with a liar is your emotional reactions. You can’t always change the behavior of a liar, but you can change how you feel and react to them. Once you learn to change your emotions about a situation you begin to see a lot more options.

If you are honest with the situation you will realize that your happiness is more important than their behavior anyways. The motivator for wanting someone to stop lying is so that you don’t end up unhappy.

Change begins with Awareness

The first step in dealing with liars or emotional issues is awareness. With awareness you can deal with a liar without being upset. We’ll start by understanding how someone becomes a liar to begin with.

Our social conditioning has trained us to be liars to some degree. In some ways it is required of us. When you are aware of how people are socialized your expectations change. As your expectations change the judgments in your mind dissolve along with your emotional reactions to them.

This doesn’t mean you learn to condone lying or agree with it. You just no longer have emotional reactions about it. When you are aware that someone lied to you because they were trained by other people and circumstances you won’t take it personally. You then have an opportunity to deal with the situation in a way that isn’t driven out of emotional reactions.
We learned to lie in order to be polite and respectful.

Just for starters we learned to lie in order to be polite. When we were kids, and we visited relatives or friends we ate whatever they served for dinner even if we didn’t like it. If we really hated it we might have slid it under the table to the dog so it looked like we ate it. When the host asked, “How was the meal?” we did the polite thing and told them how much we enjoyed it.

We lie so we don’t get punished or hurt

When I was in grade school I was visiting my friends house after school. One of the cool things we did was climb onto the garage roof and jump off into grass. My friend’s mom came home later in the afternoon and asked us what we had been doing all afternoon. We didn’t mention the jumping off the roof part. We lied to our parents so we didn’t get punished.

We lied in order to build trust and loyalty

If kids are playing and they break something they try to hide it. If they are playing with something that they shouldn’t play with they don’t confess the truth. Children don’t want to be punished so they lie or withhold the truth.

As a kid if we broke something like a vase while playing we made pact with our friends or sibling not to tell. When the parent asked what happened to the vase we answered, “I don’t know.” We lied to our parents in order to maintain the trust and loyalty of our friends. Of course parents don’t give up that easily. Usually kids will succumb to the pressure of their parent’s questions and tell the truth eventually. This turns the promise of loyalty and secrecy with our friend into a lie.

Without awareness we trapped our self in a conflict of agreements. You either kept the promise of secrecy to your friends by lying to your parents. Or, you told the truth to your parents and your loyalty with your friend became a lie. We end up with either our parents or our friends not trusting us.

Later in life we learn some advanced lying techniques

Lie to people with Power

Learning to lie to parents when we are kids leads to lying to other authority figures later in life. When the higher ups in the company propose a new direction or program do you tell them what you really think? Or is it easier to be quiet and not create the conflict with people who have power over your paycheck. Even when they ask for your input it makes a lot of sense to not rock the boat. It is easy to couch your words and only hint at your concerns. Depending on the power and emotional reactions of the person perhaps you keep your mouth shut altogether.

Maybe you have a relationship with your boss where you can speak freely and that can be great. But do you speak with that same freedom to the vice presidents and owners above your boss. Most people don’t. If people give their “honest opinion” their behavior is often considered inappropriate or political suicide.

Not many company cultures can handle an honest assessment of the negative side of an issue without an emotional reaction. With people who don’t take 100% responsibility for their emotions their upset will be your fault in some way. The paradigm of power over our livelihood combined with the instability of emotional reactions suggests that we lie by omission.

In all fairness it is also a rare person who can give an honest assessment of the down side that affects them without it partly motivated by their emotional reaction.

A Liar doesn’t want to hurt people’s feelings.

In personal relationships we lie so we don’t hurt the feelings of the people we care about. Suppose a couple is sitting at a restaurant and an attractive woman walks by. What does a man say when his partner asks, “Do you think she’s pretty?” Can the man say, “She is gorgeous?”

He can be honest if he is with a very secure woman. He can also be honest if she has pretended to be a very secure woman. (lied about her security) He can also be honest if he doesn’t care about sleeping on the couch for a while.

Men lie to women at times so that they don’t hurt the feelings of the people they care about. Men might also lie because they don’t want to be punished by the people that love them. Women lie to men for the same reasons.

You might dismiss all these examples as being “white lies.” These are small lies told to be tactful or polite. But the motivations for lying don’t change when the stakes get bigger. If a person cheated on their spouse would they hide it from them in order not to hurt their feelings? If your friend was cheating on their boyfriend would you tell the boyfriend? Would you tell him if he asked?

The motivation for lying increases in direct proportion to the emotional reaction and potential emotional pain.

We lie when we are in Emotional Denial

When something hurts our feelings we cover it up and say it is no big deal. When we are upset or sad we say we are fine. When our heart is broken we can get mad at our ex, yet we will say we don’t care about them anymore. It’s a lie.

If we didn’t care it wouldn’t matter so much emotionally. If we really didn’t care we wouldn’t be so hurt and angry. The truth is it hurts so much that we tell our selves we don’t’ care to avoid and deny the emotional pain. We lie about the emotions we feel to pretend they are not there. We lie to our self in an effort to feel better because we don’t know a different way to let go of the pain. We attempt to lie our way to happiness.

The best way to deal with people who are liars

The first and most important thing is to manage your expectations. When you have awareness of how people were socially conditioned you have an opportunity for compassion. With awareness your understanding expands and your judgments dissolve. Be honest and aware enough to recognize the socialization patterns that people face growing up. Also be aware of the consequences that telling the truth might incur.

When you realize the extent of social conditioning you gain a greater understanding for why people compensate with lies the way they do. The emotional reactions you had behind the judgments aren’t there any more.

In relationships you are responsible for your half of the emotions.

Taking care of your half means noticing where you are lying. If you are upset with someone for lying it is because you believe they should be telling the truth. Your expectation is that they should drop all their years of social conditioning overnight.

You believe they should adopt a new behavior and become a person you expect them to be. You believe they should be the image you hold in your mind about them. They are not the image in your mind that you want them to be. When you want another person to live according to your expectations you are lying to your self about who they really are.

Use Awareness to Deal with your Lies

Being aware of the image in your mind of another person and your beliefs about who they should be will give you an opportunity to change your beliefs. Being aware of the deeply embedded social conditioning that programs a person to lie will help you drop your misplaced expectations of another. Dropping your false image of them and managing your expectations will go a long ways to dissolving your emotional reactions to someone else’s socially conditioned behavior.

If you are having emotional reactions about someone who is lying then you will need to deal with your half. Your half includes the lies in your mind about who they should be.

Why People Lie

People lie because they have been conditioned through emotional reactions. Emotional reactions aren’t intellectually logical. They are more powerful than that. That’s why people lie in spite of it being the logical or intelligent thing to do. People will stop lying as they learn not to fear their own emotions or emotional reactions from others. Learning not to fear your emotions is a beginning step to being honest that leads to Self Mastery.

If a person isn’t skillful and effective at dealing with their emotions it is unwise to expect them to change the behavior of lying.
I’m not condoning, justifying, or defending lying. I’m attempting to expand the conversation. If you are going to deal with liars or your own lying you will need to deal with the emotional reactions that drive the behavior. Whether the pattern was learned from the past, or you are afraid of consequences of being punished today it is about the emotions. When people learn how to master their emotions they won’t fear honesty and the Truth.
Boundaries

When you have dissolved your emotional reactions to someone that is lying then it becomes a simple process of boundaries. But that doesn’t mean that you need to wait until you have dealt with your emotions before you put up boundaries. Putting up boundaries is a good way to protect your self from your emotional reactions until you clean them up.

Use of boundaries also means you might want to put a boundary on what you believe. Stop believing what they tell you. Living by the assumption that a liar will tell you the truth is just another way of lying to your self.

For exercises in how to deal with your mind, including emotional reactions, expectations, and changing beliefs download the free audio sessions in the Self Mastery course. I also suggest you listen to the free mp3 audio podcasts on Awareness and Consciousness.

Interesting story about the challenge of radical honesty versus lying.

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Be a Dreamer, Just Don’t Get Lost in Your Imagination

When I refer to an “optimist” I’m talking about people with an overly developed “look at the bright side of things” or “focus on the positive,” kind of attitude. I don’t recommend doing that. I’ve discovered that an attitude that only focuses on the positive is out of balance with reality.  ometimes you might go so far as to call it denial. It’s a pretty limiting and unrealistic way to look at the world. You tend to miss a lot of opportunities for improvement, success, happiness, and truth.  I find that to be truly wise requires a healthy skepticism.
Overly optimistic people drive down the road working to keep their attention on the positive outcome at the end of the rainbow. Their mantra is “Whatever I focus on I create.” I don’t’ buy this. When I drive down the road I like to enjoy the scenery and keep an eye out for the potholes as well. I don’t’ think I create pot holes by being mindful of them.   They are already there. I just think I have a better chance at avoiding pot holes when I can see them.

At the same time I’m not a cynic or pessimist either. I prefer to do my best and look at everything with open eyes. This might seem like common sense, but actually it’s not that common. I don’t buy into the idea that I am any good at it or even any better than anyone else at it. If I did I might set myself up for a blinding dose of over confidence and optimism.  That blinding aspect can cause you to run into a very painful reality.
Importance of Honesty and Facing the Brutal Facts

In the best selling book Good to Great Jim Collins outlines in wonderful detail characteristics of successful leaders. One of their characteristics is the ability to honestly face the brutal facts. Collins shares the example of David Maxwell becoming the CEO of Fannie Mae in 1981. At the time the company was losing $1 million dollars each business day. David Maxwell faced the brutal facts and began making uncomfortable decisions to change the company. When Maxwell left in 1991 the company was making $4 million a day.

Facing the brutal facts might just seem like the common sense thing to do. My experience is that it’s not that common. If it was common then why didn’t David Maxwell’s predecessors do something long before his arrival? Perhaps they thought the economic conditions would turn around. Whatever their thought process was it paralyzed them from taking effective corrective action.

Jim Collins shares numerous examples of other companies that had the same relevant factual information but did not accept what it was telling them. They balked at the facts and embraced a more optimistic story instead. Their approach allowed them to feel a little better emotionally until the economic realities hit them even harder.

While one characteristic of successful people is their ability to honestly face the facts. Another characteristic is their gumption not to be overwhelmed and paralyzed by the challenge they face.

What does this Mean to Practical Matters of Your Life

When people pump up the idea about being more optimistic, hopeful, or looking at the bright side of things I’m skeptical of what they are doing. I don’t know if they clearly see what is happening around them. Their mind might use that optimism to hide from an honest assessment. It seems only necessary to prop things up with an optimistic attitude if you are compensating for some negative belief or dark perspective underneath.

If something is really the truth you don’t have to pump your self up to believe in it. I don’t need to convince myself that the sun will come up in the morning. It’s the truth. I don’t need to be optimistic about the sunrise or make myself believe that it will happen. When something is the truth you don’t have to invest your belief in it because it will happen anyways.

Practical Money Matters

On the other hand people who spend more money than they make and run up credit card debt have got to be optimistic people. They really have to believe in a bright future so as not to notice their debt. They have to tell themselves a pretty optimistic story like, “The Lord will provide,” in order to feel okay about their debt situation. If they weren’t optimistic about the finances they might curb their spending habits.

Maybe they put off dealing with the debt because they want to avoid feeling uncomfortable emotions. This seems a lot like emotional denial but might just be an overdose of optimism. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.
It’s Not a Lack of Intelligence

I’ve personally seen people with PhD’s run a company into the red and then still not make any changes to the operation. They weren’t alone in this either. They had other very smart people around them that supported the optimistic paradigm. They held strong to the belief that things would change even though nothing did.

Facing those brutal facts isn’t a matter of academic intelligence or education. Those situations come with such an emotional and behavior dynamic that they don’t teach in school. It’s not an academic or intelligence issue. It’s an awareness issue.
Managing your own emotionally driven behaviors is not something that they teach in an academic setting. Without the awareness of how deal with emotional issues people temporarily make themselves feel better by ignoring the reality and hope for a more optimistic tomorrow.

The Dangers of Optimism In Relationships

If you are in an abusive relationship or emotionally controlling relationship being optimistic becomes a dangerous trap. If you are hopeful that your partner will change you are less likely to leave or even ask for help. It is the image in your mind of your partner changing that becomes an illusion that you will cling to. Focusing your attention on that illusion can blind you from honestly assessing the situation.

One clue to this type of behavior is trying to make the relationship appear better than it is to your friends and family. Perhaps you only tell them about the best parts of the relationships and are afraid to share the parts you are embarrassed about. This is a sign that you are avoiding the facts.

Unhappy Relationships

It doesn’t have to be as dramatic as an abusive or controlling relationships. It might just be an unhappy relationship that you feel stuck in.

More than one woman I talked to recalls having serious concerns as she approached her wedding day. She downplayed her concerns and the possible pot holes in the road ahead. She propped up the stories of optimism and hope and forced her self to focus her attention on her hopes. This way she could deny the feeling in her gut until after the wedding. Eventually reality hit and shattered her illusions.

Optimistic about Money

A similar dynamic occurs when we invest money in a stock and then watch it sink. There is a temptation to tell your self; “It will turn around. I’ll wait for it to come back to my buy price and then sell it so I don’t have a loss.” If someone asks, “Why don’t you sell it?” The answer might be, “I don’t want to lose money on this investment.” They some how feel better believing they haven’t lost any money. They imagine that their money is still there even though the value has dropped.

In spite of feeling better temporarily you are paralyzed into being poorer by your illusions of optimism. Later the judge and victim in the mind may kick in and you will be tempted to believe self criticisms for such behavior. This can lead to a downward emotional spiral.

The High Price of Optimism

The philosophy of facing the brutal facts is crystallized with Jim Collins’ interview of Admiral James Stockdale. Adm. Stockdale was the highest ranking POW in the Hanoi Hilton during the Vietnam War. He was tortured multiple times during his eight year imprisonment from 1965 to 1973.

Jim Collins found him self getting depressed just reading the story of Adm. Stockdale’s imprisonment. Collins had the opportunity to ask Stockdale about his experience and how he maintained his spirits and attitude during his ordeal. It was Adm. Stockdale’s answer that helped Jim Collins clarify the dangers of optimism and how it obscures our ability to face the facts that can lead to great success.

“”If it feels depressing for me, how on earth did he deal with it when he was actually there and did not know the end of the story?”

I never lost faith in the end of the story,” he said, when I asked him. “I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.”

I didn’t say anything for many minutes, and we continued the slow walk toward the faculty club, Stockdale limping and arc-swinging his stiff leg that had never fully recovered from repeated torture. Finally, after about a hundred meters of silence, I asked, “Who didn’t make it out?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” he said. “The optimists.”

“The optimists? I don’t understand,” I said, now completely confused, given what he’d said a hundred meters earlier.

“The optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.”

Another long pause, and more walking. Then he turned to me and said, “This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

“To this day, I carry a mental image of Stockdale admonishing the optimists: “We’re not getting out by Christmas; deal with it!””

(Reference http://jimcollins.com/lab/brutalFacts/index.html#)

The important point I want to make is that there are different forms of optimism. Being aware of the subtle differences between forms and attitudes of optimism can be the difference between great success and emotional denial. Choose your form of optimism wisely.

For insights on awareness listen to the free mp3 audio in the podcast area. For exercises and practices on increasing awareness, controlling emotions, and changing core beliefs start with the free audio in the Self Mastery Program.

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Words to read on the internet, blogs, books, and magazines articles,
Talk from the news, friends, parents, radio, television, and their own chatter
Thoughts from the different voices in their head with conflicting points of view

Their mind is filled to the degree that it has become a world of white noise. The screen is so busy that very little of what people listen to or read changes their life.

When any real wisdom with the potential for life changing realizations gets through, they give it so little attention that it only has the impact of a quick blip on the corner of the screen.

Lisa pointed out that it didn’t sound like words had lost their meaning or power. To her it sounded like people had lost their ability to listen.

I heard her.

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