SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT!

YOUR THOUGHTS CONTROL YOUR DESTINY

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When will we learn that we do most of our living in our heads?

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Living your life in the moment can be the most liberating thing you ever decided on. When will we learn that we do most of our living in our heads? We experience life according to the wide range of meaning (perceptions) we historically allocated to everything. Other people live their lives using the same principle. It is wonderful to know that we can bring fun, joy and happiness to our lives by allowing other individuals to live their lives according to their own perceptions. Important question – Do you want to win or be happy?

Rene

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Whose happy life are you living? Is it your own or someone else’s?

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Are you living a happy life? Are you enjoying your days? Are you doing the things you love to do? Are you feeling joy and passion in your daily life?

 

These are good questions, aren’t they? Here’s what Barbara has to say about this:

 

It has become increasingly clear to me over the years that a crucial element in personal development and living a happy life is understanding who you really are and what makes you tick. As I wrote in my book “Are You Happy Now? 10 Ways to Live a Happy Life”:

“If you don’t know who you are, how can you live a happy life? And if you say your life is happy right now, I might ask – a happy life for whom? How can you know who is living your happy life if you don’t know who you are? Some people are living happy lives for their husbands. Some for their wives. Some for their children. Others are living happy lives for their parents. What about you? Whose happy life are you living? Is it your own or someone else’s? Because the real question is how can you honor yourself and make good choices for yourself if you don’t even know who you are? How can you do it if you haven’t taken the time to sit down with yourself and find out what’s right for you? And if you don’t know what makes you tick, how can you take proper care of you?

 

You can only take care of yourself if you know yourself.

 

You can only make good choices for yourself if you know yourself.

 

You can only set limits if you know yourself.

 

But to know yourself you have to be able to answer basic questions like:

• What do you really like (not what you think you ‘should’ like or what other people think you ‘should’ like)

• What’s OK for you

• What’s not OK for you

• What makes you feel good

• What makes you feel uncomfortable

• What you find unacceptable

• Where your limits are

 

You can only find the answers to these questions by going inside and asking yourself humbly and honestly. Can you sit quietly with yourself and find out? And answer just for you. Again not for someone else—not for your wife, your husband, your boyfriend, your kids, your parents, or your friends?”

 

I find the idea of getting to know one’s self honestly and understanding the consequences of this honesty a truly fascinating thing to contemplate. And I’ve discovered it’s also often a real challenge for many of us … as I continue in the book:

 

“… because so many of us are people pleasers and afraid of conflict. These two modes of behavior make it very hard for anyone to look within and be honest with themselves. It makes it dangerous to truly know and acknowledge what we are really feeling about things because oh my God what if the way we are and the things we want lead to conflict? What if it is unacceptable to other people? What if the way we are doesn’t please people? What if it upsets them? What if they disapprove? What if the things we want are wrong? What if…? And on and on it goes… But when we explore these issues a bit more slowly, we find it often boils down to being unclear/confused about things like:

• Being a ‘people pleaser’

  • Seeking the love and approval of others

  • Believing you are being loving and kind by doing what other people want you to do

• Being afraid of disagreement / conflict

  • Believing that people ‘should’ agree when they don’t (fighting reality)

  • Believing conflict is bad or dangerous

  • Not knowing how to be assertive and communicate clearly

• Having a lot of arbitrary ‘shoulds’

  • Having uninvestigated codes of behavior

  • Letting other people manipulate you with their uninvestigated codes of behavior”

 

So as far as I can see, the job of becoming a kind, loving, respectful and free human being is about learning how to honor who one really is while managing one’s relationships with our fellow human beings in a kind, respectful and assertive way. Be it family, friends or colleagues at work. And this is indeed challenging for so many of us … to find our way in terms of all this. It’s an ongoing challenge … And as many of you know, I’ve continued my exploration of these issues in my new book “Find and Follow Your Inner Compass” which just was released in Denmark. I can also tell you the book will be coming out soon in Poland and the Czech Republic. Other countries will be following soon and I hope to have the English publication date for you very soon. But until then we have a special offer for you ….

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Powerful message by my friend the best selling author that not only write powerful words of wisdom, but live her guidelines and apply the wisdom she share with her millions of readers worldwide.

Rene

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Love,

Tim and Barbara

www.beamteam.com

 

Your Search for Happiness is the Single Greatest Cause of your Misery

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Our lives are inundated with practicality and productivity. We think that if there’s no purpose to something, there’s no point in doing it. In reality the best things in life have no purpose.

We sacrifice our time and our sanity doing what we don’t want to do, so at some future point we will create the freedom to do what we love.

We seek happiness in things. We seek happiness in the acceptance of others, in material possessions, in social status. We even search for happiness in some future-promised afterlife. We sabotage ourselves and our entire lives because we fail to understand a very simple but easily overlooked fact.

The Search for Happiness is the Single Greatest Cause of Misery

You can’t find something that’s already there. Happiness exists now. It’s not something you have to find. That’s like trying to find your breath.

It’s the grasping of the mind that causes unhappiness. If you’re not happy, it’s because your mind doesn’t allow you be happy. And the reason your mind doesn’t let you be happy, is because you’re stuck in the vicious cycle of productivity, judgment and purpose. That’s not to say productivity is bad, or that doing things that have a purpose is wrong. It’s basing the reason for your existence on them that causes so much anguish.

When we place our happiness solely in “getting” something, completing a certain number of tasks on our to-do list, or achieving a goal, we’re fooling ourselves. We’re like a rabbit with a carrot stick attached to our heads. We keep chasing the carrot, but we never get there. We never stop to think that it might be the chasing that’s causing the problem. We’re too distracted trying to find a better way to beat the game. As soon as we reach one level of success, we’re hurrying to upgrade our search and move on to the next level of the chase. We never stop to think that it’s not the failure to win the game that causes our grief, but the game itself.

We neglect to realize that sometimes the best way to solve a problem is to stop participating in the problem. Sometimes the best way to to solve a problem is to just stop caring.

Sometimes…

• The best way to solve the problem of not having a lot of cool friends is to stop caring about having cool friends.
• The smartest way to be happy with the place you live is to stop caring about living in a two story house with a pool, a fireplace, central air and satellite TV.
• The simplest way to be content with yourself is not to achieve greatness and praise, but to accept yourself fully for who you are now.
• The quickest route to happiness is to stop caring about finding happiness and to start being happiness.

By not caring, we immediately release ourselves of the grasping of the mind. But it’s not easy to stay in this mindset (the mind loves to grasp); it’s something we have to constantly cultivate.

It’s especially difficult when our society tends to place more value on things, than on experiences. We value what we do more than how we feel.

This is completely ridiculous when you think about it. Because the way you feel should be more important than anything else. Isn’t the purpose of everything you do to feel good? Isn’t the purpose of that new car, that promotion, or college degree to give you a feeling of accomplishment? Isn’t that supposed to make you happy?

The problem with this is we’re basing our happiness on temporary things. We’re deriving our joy from an achievement, or an attainment. This isn’t true happiness; it’s an addiction. We get a short burst of endorphins to our bloodstream from our new TV, or new iPod, and then what happens? It disappears. It leaves us feeling empty and we begin looking for our next fix.

Our advertising and consumer culture doesn’t help this much. We are constantly bombarded with messages that we need this, or we need that. Incessantly, we hear: “Buy this and it will solve your problem!” If only we could solve that problem we may finally be happy. Wrong. It’s not the problems that are the problem. I mean, buying a more efficient vacuum or sowing on that button you’ve been meaning to for seven years is great. You may feel a sense of achievement for a few moments or days. But you’re still looking for happiness in a thing.

It’s the same with productivity. If only we could finish all of the things on our to-do list, could we be content. If only we could accomplish all of our goals, could we finally be gratified. This thinking is based on the illusion that you’ll reach a certain point where everything is done. You finally made it! There’s nothing left in your inbox, all your projects are complete and your lifelong goals are achieved! Now you can rest easy.

But this point never seems to come, does it? That’s because there will always be things to do. There will always be challenges, because everything in life is constantly changing. If you reached a point in your life where you had no more problems, no more struggles, no more worries, life would stop. The game would end and there would be no point left in playing.

So… what can we do about this?

We Need to Stop Caring

That doesn’t mean we stop trying to achieve our goals or striving for personal growth. It just means that we no longer base our happiness on fleeting, semi-permanent things.

There are obviously some situations where not caring may have serious negative consequences (paying your rent). Excessive caring, however, is likely to make you miserable.

The reason caring too much can be detrimental to your health, is you’re so focused on the future. Your identity is too attached to outcomes. If something does, or doesn’t go your way, it will likely have an enduring effect on your mood for the rest of the day.

Instead, we should base our happiness on permanent things. Things that don’t change. Desires that don’t shift from moment to moment. We choose to find our happiness in living. In life itself. In fact, we don’t even need to “find” happiness. We can be happiness.

So stop searching. You can’t find something that’s already there.

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Source: Paid To Exist