Most New Year’s Resolutions fail.  After a few months a person is back at their old habits and routines.  One reason well intended resolutions fail is because we are already overloaded.  Our mind is already full of things to think about, our daily schedule is full, and our energy spent on existing routines.  With our attention, time, and energy spent, we don’t have enough resources to successfully implement anything new.

That’s way by the end of the day we just want to sit on the couch and watch TV.  At that point, we lack the energy necessary to get to the gym and push our body through a work out, a night class, or other things that we seriously intended over too much champagne.

Once your new routine is implemented it can bring you more time and energy in return.  However, it takes some personal power to implement the new mental, emotional, and physical habits before you get that energy back.

Some people think it just takes a serious commitment and/or discipline.  However, the energy we put into the commitment and the energy to keep our selves focused has to come from somewhere.

If you are finding making changes difficult, consider that recovering your attention over your mind, some energy, and time, will be a helpful start.   For long term change to be successful you will first want to prepare the ground to make room for new habits.

Less is More

Before you implement something new you must first free up some resources for it to be successful.  Instead of making a New Year’s resolution that adds something to your schedule, make a resolution to detach from something.  Begin to simplify your life by deleting things from your daily or weekly regiment.  Once you’ve freed up some energy, start putting in place small positive changes.

Why make small changes first?  A huge plan for change can overwhelm us, and set us up for failure which leads to self-judgment. To combat this pitfall, start with something small.  Besides, large scale change is really just a lot of small changes added together.

Implement one simple thing.  When you have integrated a small change into an easy habit that adds positive energy to your life, then make another small change.  Depending on the change you are making, 4 to 6 weeks is enough time to build a new habit.

Example:  Do Less for your Body

Refrain from making your resolutions about adding something such as “eat healthier.”   This is an additional, “to do” item that takes energy, and adds stress to the mind.  Instead, make a resolution to eliminate something or do less.  I call them NON-DOINGS.

Delete soft drinks or high sugar or fructose corn syrup from your diet.  If you are already drinking diet soft drinks with artificial sweeteners, delete them.

Put less of that stuff in your body.  Your body will thank you.  You don’t need to think about this as something to do, but rather as something you no longer have to do.     Thoughts in your mind might disagree, but that thought/belief can be deleted also.

Adopt “Non Doings” as a way to change

Think of it as not spending money on unhealthy drinks.  Think of it as not picking up something at the grocery store.  One less thing you don’t have to carry to your car, put in your refrigerator, keep cold, or throw in the recycling.  Your liver and organs have less toxic materials to purify from your body as well.  One simple Non Doing leads to less in other things.  Water is an easier and healthier substitute to sugar and artificial sweetener drinks anyways.

By breaking just one habit, you created a little more time in your week, more money in your pocket, and more energy in your body.   As you learn the art of Non-Doing, or refrain, you find that you have more.

Compounding Change

With your added resources and personal power implement the next “Not Doing.”    After that habit is an easy and natural way to live, refrain from doing something else in your life that bleeds off your energy    With the personal power that you recover from these habits, it is much easier to break each additional habit.  As you recover additional power each time you break an old pattern your speed at making changes in your life grows  geometrically.   The important thing is to start with something small and build.

Do Less with your Time

Perhaps you want to work out at the gym a couple times a week.  Where are you going to get the time for the gym if you don’t eliminate something else first?    What are you spending time doing that you are going to do less of?  If you don’t free it up from somewhere, then you will try to do too much.  Eventually you will become overwhelmed and tired.  When you are tired your mind will begin to return to old habits and you’ll skip the gym workouts.   Perhaps eliminate television or some internet surfing.  We got rid of cable this past year.

Look at where you spend your time and attention that is least worthwhile.  Commit to less.  Changing this behavior doesn’t take much effort.  Actually, because you are doing less of it, it takes less effort.   You actually get some of your attention, energy, time back

If you add something to your schedule without eliminating something first, it will put stress on your mind.  Your mind will feel overloaded and that will affect your emotional well being. It seems like you are doing more, but you feel less about it.

Of course don’t eliminate the valuable stuff like listening to the audio on my site.  But you can play my podcasts on your CD player on the way to the gym or your iPod while working out, so no problem there.

Make Room in Your Mind

In order to break a habit or behavior, you will sometimes have to change the belief in your mind that drives that action, or behavior.

Part of why we waste time on things like television and internet games is that we have beliefs that support the behavior.  Those beliefs fight against the conscious and reasoned thoughts of it being a waste of time.  A belief is a mental construct that we accept as true, and then gets expressed as a behavior.  It usually remains unconscious to us until we raise our awareness and put our attention in it.   We can have thoughts and tell our self one thing, but we act and behave according to our beliefs.

As long as you have a supporting belief about a habit or behavior, it will be difficult to break that habit or behavior.  You will often be able to push away the behavior for a while, but since the mental construct is still in your mind, the behavior will tend to creep back in.  To make a complete and permanent change in behavior, you will have to change the belief at the root of it.

What does a belief look like?

One place beliefs hide is in justifications.  A comment like, “I just need to watch TV for a bit to wind down” is a justification that hides a belief.  At the same time those words are so automatic that they are a habit as well.  The word “need” exaggerates the desire as if it were food, shelter, or water.  This is a distortion that we accept as true when we use such strong misplaced words.  From our dialog and thoughts it then appears that we have not choice.  We NEED television.  When you put your attention on these distortions in this way, you no longer believe your own justifications.

How many ways can you wind down and let go of your stress of the day?   If you only come up with one, then you have found a limiting belief.  If you come up with several, but only actually do one, you found a limiting belief.   Your actions are a big indicator of your beliefs.

Limiting beliefs take up space in your mind, drain your energy with wasteful habits and defensive justifications.  When you begin to do less television, internet surfing, or drinking pop, you will find these agreements poking at you.  They will attempt to pull and poke you back into old habits.

Your old beliefs will propose lots of justifications for going back to your old habits.  This is where awareness comes in handy.  If you have awareness when these thoughts tempt you, you can avoid being hypnotized by them.  Awareness is your best defense against the dark arts of sabotaging beliefs.  It gives you the power to perceive the distortions, exaggerations, and lies behind those words.     With that awareness it is easy to say no to temptation before you fall into an old behavior habit.

Why most Resolutions Fail over time

Most resolutions fail over time because people attempt to change the behavior, but don’t address the belief in their mind.   If you don’t change these lingering beliefs eventually they are likely lull you back into old patterns and habits one day.  Our beliefs are often below our conscious radar of what our mind is doing.  We are not trained how to look at them or even that we should.  To change these beliefs you will have to LEARN how to look at your thoughts and see the beliefs that support them.  The audio program in Self Mastery will help you to do this.

Begin with Less

Begin your resolutions this year with detaching from something that is taking up your attention, time, and energy.  Your emotional reactions and emotional drama can be some of the things you detach from this year.  Once you have carved out some extra time and energy for your self, then consider what you want to do with it.

Before you add something healthy to your diet make room by deleting something unhealthy.  Before you create new beliefs that will add to your happiness, break some old beliefs that create unhappiness.  Breaking old beliefs will free up the power you need to make future commitments work out.

If you want to grow a garden you must first clear the ground of weeds.  If you don’t, those weeds will take the nutrients and sunlight from whatever you plant.  Clearing the space makes it possible for your new creation to grow.  To make effective changes in your life begin by clearing away what doesn’t work.  Then in the empty space that you create, build something beautiful, nurturing, and beneficial to your self and your relationships

May each new year of your life be happier than the last.

I wish you the happiest year of your life.  At least until 2010, when it gets better.

The goal achievement strategy for happiness makes sense because it is how we were trained.  It conforms to our experience about how our emotions were created since childhood.  We’ve learned through repetition and habit since childhood to experience emotions as a reaction to our successes and failures.  By the time we are adults we’ve been living by this conditioned pattern for so long it seems to be the reality.  However, it only appears true if we don’t have the awareness to see the rest of the story.  If you observe children before they become conditioned, you see that they are happy almost all the time, and often for no reason.

Ivan Pavlov’s dog learned through conditioning and habit to relate the sound of a ringing bell to getting food.  In reality, a ringing bell doesn’t mean that the dog will eat, but the dog learned this relationship through repetition.   As humans we also learned to feel emotions through repetition and conditioning.  When we did something that people wanted we were rewarded with praise.  When we failed to meet others expectations we might have been punished, or ignored.

By that conditioning over years achieving goals can produce a wonderful feeling, but it doesn’t mean the two are directly related.  They are only related because the mind has learned through repetition to link them together.   Many individuals have driven themselves to accomplishment only to feel empty and wondering, “Is this all there is?”    This is when our conditioning falls apart and we have to look deeper to find a more meaningful happiness and fulfillment.

Emotional Habits from Goal Achievement

I remember being in 1^st grade and going up to a chart that had all the kid’s names on it.  I counted the number of gold stars by my name.  I remember the euphoric feeling I had when I saw I had more stars than anyone else.  This lasted about four seconds.  I noticed a girl’s name at the bottom below mine.  I counted out the number of her stars.   She had two more stars than me.  My heart sank and I walked back to my seat dejected.

What happened in just a few seconds to cycle my emotions to both ends of the spectrum?  Certainly no actual achievement of failure occurred.

At the surface it appears that my performance, or the gold stars were having an impact on my emotions. I didn’t have the awareness to notice that the interpretation my mind made was the critical factor.  My mind was running stories, expectations, self images, and comparisons without my awareness.    Years later, when I reflected on this experience and others like it, I was able to perceive that it was these automated mental programs that was creating my emotions.

Awareness:  The Ability to Perceive the Invisible

One aspect of awareness is clarity of perception.   In  self awareness it is the ability to clearly observe the dynamics of the mind that were previously unconscious.   If you put into slow motion the dynamics of my mind in front of that chart of gold stars it would look something like the following.

Walking up to the chart of gold stars, I was hoping that I would be number one.  It was a goal I had.  My mind structured the belief that if I had the most gold stars, then I was the best and smartest in the class.  I would be a winner, a success, and therefore lovable.  In reality, gold stars on a chart don’t have any direct value to a 6 year old.  However, my beliefs translated gold stars into being a good boy.  A “good boy” was someone who was rewarded with love and praise. That meant being happy.

When I perceived that I had the most stars, my mind activated the belief that I was good, and worthy of being loved.  My mind generated a positive self image, or recalled an existing one. I believed I was that positive image in my mind.  I then expressed love to that image, because it was worthy of being loved.  I could feel the love I was expressing and it was a wonderful feeling.   In reality my spirits weren’t lifted by the number of gold stars.  The joy I felt was my own love being expressed and felt.  The number of stars was just a conditioned trigger like a bell to Pavlov’s dog.

What I was conscious of at the time was the number of stars, my performance compared to others, and the happy emotions I felt.  I learned to relate my performance and comparison to others as the source of my emotions.  I completely overlooked the aspect of my mind that was doing the comparing.    I had many experiences like this and my mind learned to associate accomplishing goals to feeling good.   I also learned to feel bad when I failed or performed poorly.   I wasn’t aware of the role of my mental imagery, beliefs, or my power to express love and appreciation for myself as a separate action.   These were an automated response that I was not aware of.  I only saw the trigger and assumed that the trigger had the power over my emotions.  At six years old I already relied on the bells of gold stars and achieving goals to control my power to express love and create my own happiness.

When I saw the girl’s name with more stars, it triggered my mind into another automated routine.  If I was not the winner, then I must be the loser.  Quicker than I was aware of it, the mind concluded that I was less than.  My mind displayed a negative self image, and I believed that negative image was me.  I expressed a self judgment and rejection to that image as being unworthy.  Immediately I felt the emotions that accompany expressing judgment, rejection, and unworthiness.  They felt unpleasant.  At the time my mind related my emotions to my performance.  I didn’t know that I had created and expressed them as a reaction to my beliefs about performance.

It wasn’t the achievement of success or being a winner that made me happy.  It was my beliefs that controlled my expression of emotions of love and self acceptance that made me happy.  It wasn’t the failure, or coming in second that made me unhappy.  It was the beliefs that controlled my expression of rejection and judgment that were the cause of those unpleasant emotions.

Conditional Love and Happiness

At 6 years old I was already conditioned to create love, or self rejection as a reaction to my beliefs.  My emotional shifts weren’t dependent on a bell like Pavlov’s dog, but by the number of symbols on a paper chart, a grade, or what someone said or thought of me.  The beliefs and images in my mind were regulating which emotions I expressed and felt based on those triggers.

In my dejected state I decided to try harder to prove myself worth.  Some people might approve of this reactive motivation to succeed as a way to make a person grow.  There is a valid case for goal setting as it spurs a person to action.  However, if this is a person’s primary logic, it is pretty limited.  It’s based on the idea that the only way to improve is through self rejection.  As if we will become better through verbal beatings.    It doesn’t consider other forms of motivation that don’t involve self judgment.  Secondly, what if the other kids in school let their mind operate with the same criteria for self acceptance and self worth?  Only one child in the class, or school, could feel good about themselves at any given time.  By that criterion more than 90% of children would have to conclude that they are unworthy.

The Habit of Chasing Happiness

In spite of the problems with this logic, I continued to unconsciously live by these patterned beliefs generating my emotions.  Through college and career I was continually chasing all the goals and success strategies that I could.  When I achieved a goal, I celebrated and felt good about myself.  At least for a short time anyways.  This perpetuated the assumption that achieving goals would reward me with the emotions of love, acceptance, and happiness.  When I failed to meet the goals others set for me I felt like a failure.  This was true even if their goals were unrealistic.  I was so conditioned to play the game that I didn’t realize the faults of it.

This continued until I became aware of these beliefs and changed them.

This limited paradigm for achieving happiness is reinforced by people selling success formula programs.  They make a strong case for setting goals, motivation, and persistence etc.  Because most all of us have been conditioned in a similar way this philosophy of achieving happiness through success appears true.  However it completely ignores the role our beliefs have in determining our emotions.    Even if we achieve a life long dream, our mind can shift our expectations and requirements for feeling good about our self within the week.  When it does so, any joyful feeling or sense of worth is lost.

Beliefs Determine Your Happiness

What goes on in the internal world of your mind has more to do with determining your happiness than any external factors.  That includes succeeding or failing at your goals.   Self judgments, beliefs in certain thoughts, and false self images are what directly affect your happiness.  Even when external goals are achieved or lost it is what you believe about your self that will determine your emotions.

This is why a person who has accomplished much can feel unworthy, unloved, and believes he has failed.  At the same time a man who has little to show in the way of accomplishments or achievement can be happy beyond measure.

Is your Love for your self conditional, or unconditional?

Life is rich with diverse experiences, challenges, and surprises.  You will not be able to bend everything in life to meet your hopes and goals.  If you rely on the achievement of goals to determine how much love and acceptance you express, your happiness will be limited.  However, if you develop awareness of what your mind is doing, you can manage expectations, dissolve false images, and change your core beliefs. Then your mind becomes flexible and it will no longer regulate how much love and self acceptance you are allowed to express.   You can choose your own triggers, and control the gates that allow your love and joy to come out of you.   The result is that your love happiness can flow to your self and others without conditions and without limits.

For practical steps to identify and change your beliefs,  consider listening to the Self Mastery Audio program for learning how.

Generally I find I can either answer questions I have by listening to something you’ve already recorded or by simply realizing the question was bogus to begin with, but every so often I stumble on something that lingers.

I believe I’ve mentioned a girl I have pretty strong feelings for. I had *a lot* of agreements about relationships and love that I’ve had to cut through, but I’ve noticed I don’t feel the same about those subjects as I did before. The mind will try to pull me into drama over little things, but it does succeed very often anymore.

But I do notice the feeling itself is different. I’ve noticed a lot more love in my every day experience, but the way I feel for this girl is just… Different. I enjoy the feeling and no longer believe I have to stop feeling it because we aren’t involved romantically.

So I suppose I’m asking if love is a feeling that has–for lack of a better term–different flavors or colors. I wouldn’t consider this question particularly necessary to answer, but it leaves me curious.

Thanks again.

Degrees of Love

Dear Degrees of Love,

Love has many varying flavors, and degrees of intensity.  Every musical note, sound, and voice can have a different quality of love. It is endless.  Each color, plant, animal can have a different emotional quaility.  This is why there are many aspects of happiness.  Sometimes is is an uproarious laughter, and sometimes it is a quite state of compassion and acceptance.  Both are pleasant, but in different ways.

As you cut through the agreements about relationships (beliefs usually of need)  we find out our neediness changes.   Our love becomes more generous and less selfish.  Our desire is for the people we love to be happy and there is less and less need that they have to be with us.   This is a more unconditional love.

Certainly these articles have value for social book marking sites that help promote the material and can generate money for the writer. Bloggers and writers on the internet are encouraged write and market their articles in this fashion because they grab people’s attention. These list formats also seem effective in getting their material propelled to the top of social book marking sites. It turns out to be good marketing promotion and possibly a revenue generator for the writer, but also a disservice to their readers.

How Do You Learn?

We don’t learn much from lists. If you have read one or more of these articles, then how many items from that important principles of life list do you remember? What struck you so deeply about that paragraph that you integrated that idea into your life?

A list, even with a short paragraph of explanation, is a data point of information. One of thousands we generate or consider each day. The mind has difficulty remembering those data points unless they are meaningful. Without a context that relates to something meaningful in your life that list item floats away. Of the tens of thousands of thoughts we consider in a day a list has little or no impact. That data point of information becomes lost in the noise.

Now consider this. If the reader devotes ten minutes of time to read the article that’s 10 minutes of value. If the list has 10 items that are important then the reader has to divide his attention between 10 different ideas.  The writer has just reduced the value of each one of his ideas by one tenth. When the reader divides their attention between 10 different important points, the impact of any one of those points has lost 90% of its impact. If the writer has really done their research and compiled a list of 20 Important…_____ for Success, then each one of those items can only get 5% of a person’s attention.

When an item only gets 5 or 10 percent of a person’s attention, it’s not likely that it will be very impactful to them. They will soon forget all of what is on that list. We remember things that are meaningful. Things are meaningful when they apply to our life, or fit into the context of other things we know or find important. Reading lists, no matter how well written, don’t do that for us.

Metaphors can give context

Imagine that you are sitting at your desk and a good friend hands you a few nuts and bolts. She doesn’t tell you why. She just walks away. You know this is strange because this friend doesn’t normally do things like that. You don’t know what these nuts and bolts have to do with you so you get rid of them. You’ll spend more time wondering about your friend’s odd behavior than the bolts.

Now imagine that when she hands you the nuts and bolts she tells you, “I found these on the ground in the garage where you park your car.”

With those words she is telling you the story of how the nuts and bolts relate to you in a meaningful way. The nuts and bolts that you were going to throw away now have context. They are no longer loose bits of unrelated matter. They connect to your physical safety and well being.

Those articles about 8 life principles, 11 ways to make your self happy or 33 ways to be healthier are usually written in an informational or academic way. They aren’t presented with a real connection to a person’s life. Without that context a person isn’t likely to remember the data points through the weekend. If you can’t remember an item from the list 4 days from now did it really do you any good?

In effect the writer has provided temporary information but hasn’t added any value to the reader. The writer has held the reader’s attention with their clever writing but not delivered much in the way of value to the reader.

A writer delivers real value when their readers become connected to the information in a way that they become motivated to take action. Contextual meaning to a person’s life is one way mechanism that can lead to action. It is only through action that we make meaningful changes in our life.

Stories give context and relevance

The sentence, “I found these underneath your car” is the story that paints a picture. In that picture you can see how the different elements fit together and you are part of the picture. This story, even though it is one sentence, connects those nuts and bolts to your physical safety. The value of stories is that they give context and relationship to those individual data points.

To help understand the importance of stories in our conscious and unconscious decision making process I suggest reading Sources of Power and The Power of Intuition by Gary Klein. He has done an amazing amount of research in how we use stories in our mind to formulate decisions.

We Remember Stories

Cultures pass down history through stories. We remember stories but we don’t remember lists. We can remember stories for years. Great spiritual teachings have passed down through generations with stories.

Moses had to write the Ten Commandments down in stone so that they could be referred back to. He couldn’t trust his people to remember them. However people still tell the stories of his day because those are remembered.

Your “Top Ten Reasons to…” article might make the front page of Digg, but that doesn’t mean that it will have any lasting value to the reader. It might be good that it is written down so that people can continue to refer to it. However if they have to continually refer to it, then they haven’t integrated the principle into their life very effectively. This is to say that they haven’t incorporated it into their actions and behavior.

Emotions Drive Change

People’s behaviors are driven more out of emotions than intellectual data points. If we want to change our behavior or actions it is much more effective to do it through the power of emotions? There are a few exceptions to this, but these are the exceptions. What you are likely to find about the exceptions is that they apply to situations where people have already moved through their emotional attachment and resistance issues. Lists rarely touch people’s emotions or their emotional attachments.

A story as an example

Have you ever tried to persuade a smoker to give up their cigarettes? Have you ever talked an alcoholic out of drinking? You can talk to them about their health, cite statistics on lung cancer and liver disease with no change. If 10 good health reasons don’t get them to change a behavior then telling them 100 good reasons will just make them angry.

Why do they get angry when you share your facts figures and intelligent reasoning? They want you to stop bothering them. Getting angry at you is a way to change your behavior towards them. Couldn’t they just tell you to stop pestering them with reasons? Yes, but it’s not as effective as the emotion of anger.

First of all let’s consider that your behavior towards them has an emotional basis. Your reasoning with them is likely due to your emotional attachment to their health. Your emotional attachment is compelling you to provide them with a list of reasons to stop.

If they simply asked you to stop, you might keep giving them your reasons because you “FELT” it was important. Your emotional agenda was more powerful than their logic. To overcome your emotional agenda they use more powerful emotions. They use anger to get your behavior to change.

If they get angry enough you might become afraid. When your fear is greater than your emotional attachment to changing them you’ll shut up and back away. All your reasons to persuade them got trumped instantly with one emotion. That emotion instantly changed your behavior. Your behavior change is emotionally motivated.

More interesting is that after the emotional change happens, the mind then comes up with good reasons for the change. Very often justifications come after the fact.

Emotions are more persuasive than information

If a writer wants to affect change in people then he will have to affect their emotions. Information is not enough. The longer your list the more you engage the readers intellect in a way that disconnects them from their emotions.

And if the reader is really interested in making changes to improve themselves they might be better served by reading fewer lists. Making changes in your life will require good principles and reasoning, but those principles will have to be paid more than a passing glance of a paragraph. They will also have to be coupled with good emotional connections and motivations.

Without that emotional motivation there is no new action or behavior change and therefore no real benefit. Change doesn’t have to happen through emotions, but it often does. Big life changes usually involve a great deal of emotion. Small life changes usually involve a small amount of emotion. Why are the emotions so important? You have to break the emotional attachments that hold the resistance to change. You also have to create new emotional connections for behaviors to stick. For more understanding the importance of emotions in making behavior changes read the article in Breaking Emotional Eating Habits.

How we really learn and change

People’s behavior is driven more by emotions than by information. The information that does motivate them does so because it affects them emotionally. It connects to them in a way that is meaningful to their lives. This is more likely to be done through story than through lists and principles.

If you are writing or sharing with the intent to improve peoples lives then I suggest you include some relevant context to the points you are making. You will probably also want to impact people at an emotional level. Stories that touch upon people’s emotions are just one way to do that. Spiritual masters knew this. That’s why they often placed their teachings within stories or parables. They provide context that help connect those images to our life so we could draw upon them later. Those stories are also remembered long after items on the list are forgotten.

Related Material

Breaking Habits of Emotional Eating

Self Help Advice - Warning!!!

Emotional Eating - Addictions to Food

David is working through the issue of his unhealthy food addiction. He often binges on sweets like ice cream, candy bars, and soda pop. This isn’t a matter of simple stupidity. He’s a smart guy, a software engineer that stays busy working. He knows they are bad habits and he is aware of a list of negative consequences to his health. In spite of this and a desire to change, his food addiction behavior has challenged him for years.

It wasn’t an issue when he was younger because he exercised a lot and burned it off. That isn’t the case anymore. Due to his age he can’t exercise the same way and so his eating behavior is overtaking his weight and this health. Over the years he’s attempted multiple approaches like NLP and therapy and only gotten temporary results. He still covets his sweets and gets defensive when he considers giving them up.

David started in on the Self Mastery course on line and began to become aware of some factors behind his behavior that he hadn’t seen before. A couple coaching phone consultations for some added clarity and David developed more understanding about what was driving his addictive eating. David was surprised to find out that his junk food addiction wasn’t really about the food. David’s eating patterns were really about emotions.

David has a mind full of fears and self judgments that nurture a steady state of anxiety. As relief from his anxiety his unconscious mind has carved out a space and time where he can experience peace and calm. In those moments he is so focused on his food that the fear, anxiety, and self judgment is suspended. That space of peace and calm happens when he devours his donuts, ice cream, Dr. Pepper and candy bars.

Some might call it comfort food. I see that as a vague description that hides other issues. For starters what is it that one needs comfort from? It is in these explorations into ones emotions and beliefs that we find the devil in the details. That answer usually involves emotions and the core beliefs they stem from. In David’s case it is the fear and anxiety stemming from self judgments. Although he doesn’t usually notice this layer because he is so busy with the compensating strategy pleasing everyone around him all the time in hopes of getting their approval and acceptance.

Following rules or programs didn’t work

David had tried to follow some simple rules and principles about eating healthy many times before. This generated an intern conflict that he tried to win but always failed. He would get cranky, and even angry, and fight himself until he gave into his food addiction. Afterwards his inner judge would tell him he was weak for giving in. He ended up feeling like a failure. Of course the emotional consequence of this type of inner dialog would drive him towards more comfort food.

Why did he always fail to follow his own healthy eating rules? Because taking away his ice cream and candy bar was also taking away his emotions of peace and calm. The love he expressed towards his ice cream and candy bar gave him a feeling of peace and calm. These were the moments of the greatest joy during his day. To David’s belief system giving up sweets was equivalent to giving up the happiest moments of his day.

David doesn’t create much in the way of love and happiness outside of his eating moments. The anxiety from an internal dialog of self judgment and fears create an emotional desert. His love for sweets was an oasis in the midst of that emotional emptiness.

What would you do if someone wanted to take away the happiest moments of your day? You might get defensive or even angry about it. We’ll that’s the emotional attachment that David was unconsciously dealing with. His intellect wanted to take away his treats, but his emotions wanted to be happy. The emotions won time and time again. Even if it was physically healthier for his body, his belief system had emotional attachments related to his food. His intellect would lose out to the core beliefs driving his emotions.

At the surface it looks like a logical choice for his health of his body. But as David gained self awareness he realized it was an unconscious choice for his happiness. The unconscious choice for his happiness kept winning out even when it was tied to poisoning his body with sugar. David couldn’t recall when he had made the beliefs that associated snack food filled with sugar and emotions of peace and calm, but the beliefs were there.

Steps towards changing Emotional Eating

Sometimes we hope to change certain behaviors in one step as if there were some switch to flip. Usually when there are multiple intertwined beliefs it is necessary to make changes in steps. One of the traps that David will have to change is making the expression of calm and joy solely dependent on the trigger of food. To break this pattern he will have to retrain his emotional system to express and create those emotions at other times. Starving himself emotionally until he gets a sugar snack is part of the belief system routine. If he becomes satisfied emotionally during other parts of the day, he won’t be starved for the emotional eating version of peace and calm. .

Changing Food Habits or Behaviors

For most people changing a habit or behavior is much more challenging than deciding to adopt a new routine. Not only do you have to adopt a new pattern in your actions, but you have to invest some emotions into the new habit. You also have to challenge the emotional attachments of the old habits. In David’s case this includes what he is doing with his emotions when he is away from food.

These attachments exist as thoughts and beliefs that connect certain emotions to food. There are also certain emotions to not having his snacks. In David’s case the emotion of peace and calm is associated to ice cream and donuts. Only after David builds new ways to create peace and calm will he will have a solid chance of dropping his eating addiction. One effective way to do this is to dissolve the self judgments. These create a lot of the fear and anxiety that make it difficult to have the enjoyment of peace and calm during the regular day.

David already knows what he should and shouldn’t eat and why he should do it. This is usually true of people with food and emotional eating addictions. It isn’t just a matter of deciding to do something and doing it. It is more subtle and powerful than that. It’s emotional.

Serious about Change

To make real change you will have to break the old emotional attachments and build new ones. To do this you will have to identify and break the core beliefs that drive these various emotions. This kind of self reflective work requires a bit more introspection than passively reading a book or an article. Your beliefs aren’t in a book, they are in your mind and that is where you will have to look.

Practicing awareness of your beliefs and emotions, including the unpleasant ones, isn’t always glamorous work. Nor does it fit with the positive image that we like to have of our self. Emotional awareness is often uncomfortable, particularly when it has to do with fears, guilt, shame, or anger. Because our natural instinct is toward happiness our mind tends to shy away from this self reflection that is required for change.

However there is tremendous benefit when we deal with these emotional core belief issues. Once they have been addressed we can live free of those uncomfortable emotions and behaviors every day of our life for the rest of our life. That’s a long and rewarding return on your investment for a short bit of up front work.

Emotion is much more powerful than logic. Emotion can be a powerful force that inspires us to action and to create something marvelous. Through limiting core beliefs emotion can also create attachments that cause us to feel trapped and unable to change. The key to unlocking these emotional attachments is to inventory and change the core beliefs they are built on. When you learn to master what you believe, you are able to master your emotions.

Mastering your emotions makes it easy to change any habit or behavior at will.

For lessons on identifying and changing your core beliefs you can sign up for the first Self Mastery audio sessions for free.

Related Material

Feeling Deprived: Food Beliefs

What is awareness and what does it have to do with changing your behaviors, habits and emotions? A good part of awareness has to do with perception. People who are aware see things that others don’t. They also have a context to put those little bits of information into that help them form a clearer picture. Without the small details and the larger context to make sense of things you can get pretty lost and turned around in the mind. This is what usually happens when people attempt to change a negative thought, or emotional reactions.

Here’s a story from The Power of Intuition by Gary Klein that illustrates how awareness helps to understand a situation and the importance of seeing what others don’t.

The Invisible Adversary

The Marines conducted a training exercise for inexperienced corporals and sergeants at Camp Pendleton in California. John Schmidt is a former Marine who is highly skilled at making sense of tactical situations and was observing. The instructors controlling the exercise, and acting as the enemy, called in mortar attacks, sniper fire, and mine explosions to decimate the team. After this had gone on for a while, an instructor asked a Lance Corporal what kind of adversary they were up against. “I don’t know,” was the response. “The enemy is just clobbering us.” Further questions to probe more deeply pointed nowhere. To the Lance Corporal it was undifferentiated mayhem.

To John Schmidt it was obvious that the Marines, were facing at least a platoon, and more likely, a company of about 150 to 200 soldiers. He knew this because of the mortar rounds, there had to be forward observers to call them in. Mortars are weapons that usually belong to companies or battalions not to platoons. John was keeping track of the number of enemy contacts that had been reported. If he could account for a platoon based on actual contacts, there were probably many more soldiers they hadn’t encountered. Therefore, they were almost certainly facing a larger force than a platoon. The area covered by these different contacts suggested that they were facing a company. Furthermore, the mining of the team’s path showed their adversary planned a defensive operation and a commitment of effort. This implied a force that was certainly larger than a squad. The mortars, mines, and snipers, all seemed to be trying to channel them off the path and into a nearby field that was probably the intended killing zone. (The Power of Intuition p. 139 by Gary Klein)

When people first attempt to make changes in their mind, whether it is thoughts, emotions, or beliefs, they are inexperienced. Much like these young corporals and sergeants, they don’t know what they’re up against. They get clobbered and they don’t even know why. If you are going to win over the adversaries in your mind then you will need to become aware of them and how they really operate.

Eliminating Negative Thoughts

Beginner attempts to change negative thoughts or emotions are often done as if it were a cut-and-paste operation in your Word document. When a negative thought occurs a person will try to make the case against it and prove that it’s not valid. They take the opposing side and push out the negative thought as if to delete it. Then they fill in a positive affirmation, thought, or supportive belief in its place. They might feel better for the moment, but later they can’t figure out why that old negative thought keeps recurring.

Using the metaphor of a garden, thoughts are the leaves of weeds that we can see. When we pull the leaves off a weed it appears that we have solved the problem. However, when you look below the surface, you find that the roots of that weed are still there. Beliefs are the roots of thoughts. If you want to permanently remove a certain thought, you will have to remove the beliefs the thought is rooted in.

Attempts at changing a thought without addressing the belief is like tearing the leaves off a weed and leaving the roots intact. If you can’t see the beliefs in your mind you will have a tough time changing the thoughts. It’s important to get a clearer picture of what you are up against.

The difference between thoughts and beliefs

Example of a negative thought: “I shouldn’t have done that.”

To the casual observer, this appears to be a single thought of self judgment. However there is a system of beliefs at the root of this thought that are invisible. For starters, this judgment is a comparison that finds us wrong. Assumed in this comparison is some other action that would have been “right”. This “right” action is often not spoken in the words, but implied.

There is also the element of faith or belief in that assumed right action. The defined wrong action and the hidden “right” action for both have some faith invested in them. Without faith in this other mental construct, there would be no basis for comparison that leads to self judgment.

The Inner Judge

The part of the mind that speaks the judgment, “I shouldn’t have done that”, we could call the inner judge. It’s not the total mind, just one aspect. If another part of our mind were to disagree with this judgment, then that different part of the mind can easily be seen. This can happen if we have the opposing thought, “That’s not true. It was good that I did that.” However, if there’s no disagreement with the inner judge, the judge stands alone, and it appears as our only voice. This can make it difficult to see this inner judge character as only one aspect of the mind. Instead we tend to think of it as “me.”

Even when there is no disagreement with the inner judge there is still another part of the mind at work. It is the part that silently agrees with the judge. We call this the victim. The victim part of the mind accepts the criticism from the inner judge. When the judge and the victim agree it is also difficult to perceive these parts of the mind as separate from you. Without the awareness of where you stop and the beliefs and voices in the mind begin you will have a difficult time with these adversaries.

Awareness: The Context for Thoughts and Beliefs

What appears as one thought, “I shouldn’t have done that”, is really made up of several components that comprise a belief system. Aside from the negative thought there is:

1) The invisible force of faith you put in that negative thought.

2) The criteria of what is right or expectation that we compare our self to.

3) The invisible force of faith that we put in the criteria of “right”.

4) The inner judge part of the mind that is making the comparisons

5) The voice of the victim that accepts the comparisons of the inner judge.

6) Then there is the resulting emotion of unworthiness when this self judgment is accepted to be true.

The emotion is the consequence of believing the negative thought of self judgment. That emotion can also be a trigger for another set of beliefs such as, “I shouldn’t feel this way,” or “I wish I didn’t feel this way.” Belief in these thoughts can create more emotional reactions. When uncontrolled in the mind this can lead a person into uncontrolled downward spiral of emotions.

Set Up for Failure

When you attempt to change those negative thoughts with a cut-and-paste operation, you are likely to fail. You are pulling a leaf off a weed but leaving the roots in tact.

Each thought is sourced in a belief, and most beliefs are networked with other beliefs. The victim voice in the mind is often in automatic agreement with the judge voice. The judge voice is echoing the comparison based on the belief in the criteria of what is right or successful. The negative thought, “I shouldn’t have done that,” is just the common sense conclusion to these other beliefs. It may be the only part you hear, but it doesn’t mean that it is the only part to the problem.

Attempting to change the thoughts you can see won’t effectively get rid of the beliefs. To effectively change the negative thoughts you will have to change the beliefs that you don’t see. That’s why awareness is so important. Without awareness you won’t be able to see into that invisible world of beliefs where the real issues lie.

Reality

If you’ve attempted to stop or change your negative thoughts and haven’t been successful it doesn’t mean you are a failure. Your results aren’t a measure of your performance, discipline, or personal will power. More likely they have to do with your experience, awareness, and the tools you are using. Developing the awareness to find a belief, and skillfully remove it is a bit more involved than pushing aside a negative thought.

It’s a lot like being up against a company or battalion. It doesn’t mean that you are beat, it just means you had better gain a greater awareness of what you are up against. Then get the training and reinforcements to do the job of changing your core beliefs instead of being distracted by the negative thoughts.

The process begins with self awareness. Developing awareness will give you the ability to see more clearly these hidden beliefs. Without that ability of perception you won’t be able to see where those negative thoughts are coming from. And it’s darn difficult to stop an enemy that you can’t see.

For exercises and practices in raising your awareness and changing core beliefs I suggest the Self Mastery Audio program. The first few sessions are free.

I have been hearing a lot about LSD lately and the effects of it on the mind and how it can expand consciousness. From what I heard it can give you the same results as years of self mastery work and meditation. It sounds pretty far fetched. I was just wondering what you think about using LSD or other drugs to advance consciousness on this spiritual journey.
Being Curious AJ

Hi AJ

Drugs can have an impact on your brain and you will likely have an experience from that. What that experience will be you won’t get to know in advance.

I suppose that if you took a pot of coffee and poured it on your computer and monitor you would get an interesting experience as well. There would be a show of sparks, smoke, and possibly even an electrical fire. To a young child, or the inexperienced or naive this could be seen as a magical and profound show. To someone a bit more familiar with electricity and shorting out electrical circuits it will be foolish, dangerous, and an expensive waste of electronics.

In the same way you can have different experiences if you pour chemicals on the synapses of your brain. However at what price? As far as I know those parts of the body are not replaceable. You get issued one brain with that body so you might want to seriously consider how much risk you take with it.

My personal opinion about using drugs to elicit spiritual and conscious expansion is this. I don’t recommend it. I’ll go so far as to discourage the use of drugs for spiritual growth and consciousness purposes. These are a few of my reasons:

1. I first suggest starting with the awareness of what beliefs in the mind propose this avenue of curiosity. What beliefs dictate that you need or would benefit from an artificial substance? What part of this belief system implies that you are not powerful enough to create change on your own? What it is it about these beliefs that discount your use of skillful practice and discipline?

2. Then there is the down side risk of letting your self lose conscious control and possibly injuring your self on just a physical level.

3. I don’t see how one progresses to a Spiritual Self Mastery by losing conscious control through substances. This is just a bit contradictory. I don’t know what your version of “self mastery” is but it doesn’t fit mine. Self Mastery has to do with gaining conscious control of your mind, not abdicating power of the mind over to a substance.

4. Now consider the upside of a drug induced spiritual experience of conscious awakening. You are likely to attribute the source of your conscious raising experience to the drug. In the belief system of your mind the drug becomes the power necessary to open the door of consciousness. This perspective indirectly creates the belief that you are less powerful. The paradigm results in disempowering your self. I don’t see this as a path to gaining conscious control over one self and mastering one’s life.

The Spiritual Journey

Stopping your internal dialog and accessing expanded levels of consciousness is challenging. It is even more challenging to do without skilled guidance and a mentor. It’s why I suggest people get skilled guidance. I’ve attempted to make some of that guidance easily available on this web site through the free audio and the Self Mastery program. It certainly is not all the guidance everyone will need for every circumstance and question, but hopefully it is a starting point.

For me that guidance came in the form of my mentor, don Miguel Ruiz over many years. The guidance of my mentor was invaluable in my journey. Through his words, wisdom, and perspective he lent me his consciousness.

He was also able to provide one of the most powerful and addictive substances for my personal growth and spiritual progress. That substance wasn’t a drug, it was unconditional love. The power of unconditional love was so addictive that I made every effort to be in his presence as much as I could. But what was more powerful that sharing his unconditional love with me is that he taught me how to grow my own.

I understand that desire for that feeling of love that is often called a spiritual experience. I haven’t done any recreational drugs in my life. I really don’t have any desire to. I feel the unconditional love that I create and I don’t’ have any desire to pour artificial chemicals on that. The added benefit of using love to facilitate your expansion of consciousness is that you don’t have to come down from it.

Dear Gary,

I have an experience to share instead of asking a question this time.

I was doing the journal exercise and looking at a particularly intense recent emotional experience. I sensed that I was hitting on some very strong beliefs and even though I could journal out a lot of what was going on in my head, assign it to the various parts of my ego, I still found myself stuck in that point of view. The Judge concluded that I simply couldn’t make the agreements dissolve right then and there, and therefore, this was pointless. Through a chain reaction of agreements, it told me that I wasn’t going to figure this out. (I just got Session 11 of the Self Mastery series, so I see that lie hidden in the vagueness there.)

The frustration built up as the Victim accepted all of those self-judgments, and–to borrow a metaphor you’ve used–the elastic bands began to pull me back into old habits. I went to try and sleep. I had gotten stuck in this unsolvable intellectual conundrum of whether or not I could bring a particular person back into my life. I felt intense fear that this person would not allow it.

Then a funny thing happened…. a shift in my point of view

My mind just shifted. I thought that no matter what happened in that situation, I could be grateful. I could be grateful the person considered my request; grateful that she would say yes; grateful that she’d say no; grateful that I had my past experiences with her and that my memory functioned enough just to be able to remember them. I could even go one step further: to be grateful that my mind had the ability to make me feel misery by entertaining false beliefs as being true. The emotion I felt was so powerful, it actually brought me to tears. I’ve never experienced anything like it. In that moment, I was so grateful, I couldn’t contain it in my self.

What is incredible to me about that situation is that I made no specific effort to shift into gratitude. It just happened. What is even more interesting is that I’ve had other less intense moments like this where I simply shift and see the same situation completely differently. I’m not going at it consciously and I didn’t set out that day to do that.

The emotion of the experience I described only lasted a short time, though. The elastic of old habits eventually pulled me back to a more familiar emotional state.

So, I don’t suppose I have a question for you today. I ask a lot of those and instead would just like to share an experience with someone who is going to appreciate the magnitude of what it meant to me.

And also, I’d like say your most recent podcast on breaking habits and addictions was a great listen. The metaphor of the elastic bands really helped put shifting one’s perspective into, well, a different perspective.

I’ve found that I really don’t have anyone in my day-to-day life that I can talk to about this process. While I know many wonderful caring people who will listen to me, they simply aren’t familiar with the ideas you’re presenting. I could explain them, but I feel they use up a lot of my personal power. This isn’t to say I feel lonely in this process. Rather, I understand that what I’m doing is immensely personal and that someone else isn’t readily going to understand what that experience means to me. I consider it my path and while some can help me keep an eye out for obstacles to expect, I know I’m the only one who can and will walk it.

Much gratitude, as always.

B. B.

——————

A few thoughts on this course subscribers experience.

His emotions didn’t shift by accident. His emotions shifted because his point of view shifted. It didn’t shift in the moment of doing the Self Mastery exercises, but the exercises had a lot to do the change. The exercises in awareness and changing emotions helped knock down those walls so that he could slip easily through the opening when it was time.

Changing core beliefs, stopping the voices in your head, and shifting your emotions doesn’t usually happen the way you expect it. And that can be a good thing as long as you don’t let the expectations of your inner judge dictate your actions and intent.  Sometimes shifting your mind is like one of those tricky puzzles.  You work at it, and work at it, and then, boom.  A new perspective opens up and you see the key that unlocks it.  The funny thing is that easy solution only seems to appear after you have put your hard work and effort into the change.

You have the power to create happiness through the expression of love and truth. You also have the power to create emotional suffering in your self, and in others depending on how you use your word. When you hurt your self or another there is a way to ease and heal that suffering in your self and in another. That way is forgiveness.

What is your definition of happiness?

Happiness is a state of emotion. Happiness can be experienced in many different variations such as euphoric laughter, the spiritual bliss of overwhelming love, or just a calm quiet peace. One indicator of happiness is how little chatter there is in your internal dialog. In the happiest moments of your life, you are not thinking. You might have been keenly aware of what was going on with your self, or fully engaged in the situation around you, but your mind was probably very quiet.

What are some important factors in achieving happiness? Why?

The most important factor in achieving happiness is the expression of your love coming out of you. It is expressing the emotion of love that creates the various forms of happiness. That’s a very simple answer, and very natural to do as a child, but as one grows older it becomes more difficult. As people grow older they acquire many fear based beliefs in their mind.

If you are not happy, and you want to be, then the important thing is to identify and dissolve the fear based beliefs in your mind. This is not a one step process. It will require that you develop and practice skills of identifying false beliefs in your mind, and detaching from them. Once you detach from your fears it will be easier to express your love. One of the skills you will need to do this is the control over your attention. Some people learn this from meditation, but there are many other ways.

Do you believe that money can buy happiness? Why or why not?

Money can buy a very basic level of happiness. In this society money is the means for your basic physical needs, such as food and shelter. It is very difficult to be happy, peaceful, and calm when your body is hungry, and without shelter. It is possible but very difficult. There is usually too much primal and instinctual survival fear to overcome in order to be happy.

Once you have enough money to address your basic needs, then money has very little impact on your happiness. That is why many people are still unhappy even though they have everything they need. There are many wealthy and even successful people who are depressed, some even to the point of being suicidal.

After supplying you with basic survival, money doesn’t dissolve any of the fear based beliefs in the mind that interfere with expressing love.

If you were given $500,000 dollars to spend on ANYTHING to make you happy, what would be the most effective choice to use the money on? Why?

The love coming out of me is independent of the activity of trading cash for material things. I’m already happy. Spending money wouldn’t do anything for my happiness. I’d much rather invest it. I have everything that I need. If I invest it wisely I will have what I need for a rainy day as well.

How would you spend the $500,000 if it were entirely up to you? (Regardless of how your happiness would benefit?) Why?

Again, I would invest the money. If you told me that I had to spend it, I would buy stocks or real estate.

If it does, what role does religion (having faith in a God) play in achieving happiness?

If you perceive yourself as one single human in the world and look out at the immensity and the apparent chaos of the world, you can easily feel overwhelmed and powerless. There’s a comfort in believing that there’s a force out there orchestrating it all in a sensible way. This is just one way.

What does having a religion benefit in terms of self happiness? What does it take away?

Religion or spiritual groups can be very supportive for people when they are in need. A community of people is our human nature and we are generally happier interacting with a community. Churches and religions can provide this community that much of society is without.

Religion also impacts people in other ways. One of the dynamics of the mind is that it asks a lot of questions. The mind wants to know an answer all the esoteric questions that it generates, such as, Why are we here? or What happens when the body dies? Religions provide people answers to the many questions that the mind asks. When the mind has an answer its’ “need to know” is satisfied. This satisfaction of the mind can help a person to feel better. However the part of the mind that has a “need to know”, doesn’t care if the answer is the truth or not. Because of this many people accept answers and walk around with religious beliefs that are false.

For instance one of the beliefs that people can have is that God might punish them in Hell after their body dies. This is a lie. If people believe this lie, then they live in fear and unhappiness their whole life for something that will never happen. In spite of this fear, their mind feels secure that it knows what will happen. The real comfort from all of this is the Truth and Love. Truth and Love transcend that mind’s need to have an answer.

Do you believe religious people are generally happier (or unhappier) than non-religious people? Why or why not?

Studies have shown that people who participate in a religious organization are statistically happier than those who don’t have any spiritual affiliation. One of the reasons for this is that it creates an environment where they can express their love in numerous ways. It is the expression of love that creates happiness for a person, not the religion. A person without religion can take a walk in nature and love all the beauty in nature. Just by walking in nature they can achieve happiness with no beliefs at all.

If it does, what role does having healthy relationships (friends, family, coworkers) play in achieving happiness?

The more people you have around you that you can express your love to the happier you are. Your friends and your family won’t make you happy, but expressing your love for them will. If you are an judgmental and angry person then having more people around will give you more opportunities to be judgmental and angry. It’s really not about the people around you, but how you express your self with them.

What is the ideal background/environment to grow up in to being a happier person in the future?

The ideal environment is to grow up in an environment where your parents are happy, unconditionally loving, and accepting. Even then, they will still have to give you boundaries and teach you about punishment and reward. Very few people have this experience. Even if you have this from one parent it is very rare. I haven’t met anyone who has had that perfect childhood. The truth is that at a certain point you realize it doesn’t really matter how you grew up. What matters is right now, and what you will do about being happy in your life now. At a certain point everyone leaves behind the guidance of parents and has to take responsibility for their own emotions.

What is your view on married couples being happier than people who are single? In a general sense, do you believe it is true or false? Why?

The studies have proven that married people are statistically happier than single people. However this is a general statistic and marriage is no guarantee. The Dalai Llama is a single man, and he is a master of happiness. There are also married couples who then get divorced, and that break up can be very painful.

In intimate relationships you have an opportunity to express your love in so many ways. It is the expression of your love for your partner that will make you happy. A single person might not have as many opportunities during a regular day, so a married person that you love and see often is a big advantage to being happy.

However a person can also use their relationship as an opportunity to be selfish. They will attempt to get their partner to satisfy their emotional needs and needs for attention. If you are with a partner like this then you might be happier being single.

Clarification - The Happiness of Children

The point here is that there is no magic formula for happiness. These questions about marriage, money, religion, and God assume a relationship between your emotions and something other than your self. The questions assume that happiness is associated with something external to you. It’s not that complicated. Emotions are something that you create. It only looks like your emotions are determined by external things because of the habits of emotional reactions you have learned to external things and people.

Children don’t know about God, religion, money, or marriage, however children are naturally happy. They are happy because their mind is not filled with fear based beliefs. They have little or no judgments, they don’t believe they are right, they don’t blame others, and their mind isn’t filled with worries of what others will think of them. They have very few or no habits based on these beliefs. Because their mind has very little fear they are free to express their love in whatever they are doing. For them it is easy to be happy. They don’t need money, but they do need their physical needs met. They don’t need marriage, or a religious group, but they do need someone to express their love to.

Wisdom and Awareness for Lasting Happiness

As an adult, if you really want to be happy, you will have to dissolve the fears, and fear based beliefs in your mind. As adults you do not have the choice to be innocent like children, but you can be free of fear. To do this you will have to control the opinions and knowledge in your mind instead of letting it control you. To free your self from fear, you will have to become wise. It is through this wisdom, or what I call awareness, that you can live in a vast, unfathomable world, and be happy.

What got you interested in studying happiness and your journey? What made you want to share your knowledge?

Being happy became my number one priority in 1994. I had just broken up with my girlfriend and was miserable. I had also just left my career where I had been overworked and was burned out. My career and relationship had left me disillusioned. I realized that I had made my happiness dependent on these two external sources. I let both of these sources be driven by other people, and they drove them into misery.

I decided that I wanted to be happy no matter what. It became my number one priority. I decided that I would figure out what was in my unconscious decision making process led me to be unhappy and I’d change it no matter what. Two weeks later I met my mentor, don Miguel Ruiz. He taught me how to find and dissolve false beliefs and the fear in my mind. He taught me to open my heart and love with no conditions.

Several years later, I took time to thank him for all he had done for me. I asked if there was anything I could do for him in return. He smiled, shrugged his shoulders, and said “No, I’m already happy.” Then after a pause he said, “But if you want to, you can go and share what you have learned with other people so that they can be happy too. If you want to of course, it’s just a choice.”