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Happiness Is A Choice

Source: www. happiness1st.com

Desires and Beliefs

Why are some people happy while others stumble through their existence miserable and inert, unmoved by the beauty of life? What makes people happy? Loads of money, fancy vacations, a good family life? It always seems like happiness is almost within reach, if only we had that ONE thing we really want: "I'd be happy if I had a new car" or "If only I had the job I liked" or "If only I was with the person I love". We're not miserable, but we're not happy either. Something's missing. Yet paradoxically, when we do get what we wanted, one of two things happen: we either don't feel any different or we already want something else. A quick moment of satisfaction, and then we're back to the habitual state of wanting, craving, longing for. The desire keeps us chasing after the objects or ideas that symbolize happiness, while preventing us from actually experiencing it. This is what Buddhism warns about: mistaking a desire satisfaction for happiness, getting caught up in the world of illusion. Yet this is how most people approach happiness: as a desire to be satisfied. All the while it's becoming quite

clear that it's the way we think, the way we phrase and construct our reality that determines the level of happiness more than any other factor. Our beliefs and thoughts influence how we experience reality, so becoming happier inevitably involves becoming aware of the thought components that make up our innate thought patterns. This is a tricky process because subconsciously we tend to hold on to these thoughts and beliefs as the truth, and we tend to discard all the evidence to the contrary: a beautiful girl can believe she's ugly, a successful man can believe he's a failure etc. But once we identify these destructive self-sabotaging beliefs, we can begin re-training the mind to think differently. To be clear, this is not about "positive thinking". Personally, I'm weary of positive thinking. No one should force a smile and pretend everything's peachy if they're suffering. Instead, you want to embrace every emotion and use it as an opportunity to become more selfaware. You want to examine your emotion and identify the thought that is the core of that emotion. Once you do, you may realize that the thought is erroneous or otherwise undesirable. "Does not our unconscious thoughts appear as our rational conscious thoughts, thus why we tend to get caught up blindly reacting to the influence of emotions?" Alan Watts That does not mean denying yourself the experience of the entire emotional range, or censoring "bad" emotions in order to appear self-controlled. Rather, we can use emotions as self-awareness tools to become clear of emotional "baggage" or blocks that prevent us from experiencing higher emotional states like joy, happiness and tranquility. And we can learn how to regulate them in a way that maximizes personal well-being. Say your relationship pattern is "hit and run": you get involved with someone quickly, and then run at the first threat of real intimacy. At times you may feel depressed, powerless even desperate, and fearful of the future. That's when you start taking inventory of all your past relationships, including the very first one with your parent. You may realize that your fear of intimacy stems from the belief that people you love will leave you, or reject you in some other way. Needless to say, a belief like that is a self-sabotaging way to relate to people, and a serious obstacle to a healthy relationship of any kind. You'd like to change that. Now how can we actually change the way we think? And to a larger point, how can we manifest more joy and happiness in our lives? I found out that it's not just tending to the mind, it involves the entire human being: mind, body and soul. It involves clearing the mind of destructive beliefs and allowing it to be silent, clearing the body of toxins and replenishing it with essential nutrients, and clearing the soul of the effects of past traumas that keep us emotionally charged with fear and sorrow. This is in no way a full list of things one can embrace to experience lasting happiness. The paths are many, but in the end, happiness is a choice.

Illustration by Alberto Ruggieri Source: GETTY Images

Tibetan Buddhist Monk Source: Flickr

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people

Meditation
When it comes to being happy, meditation is invaluable. What hasn't been said about the benefits of meditation? It's practically considered an antidote for any kind of stress-related illness, in addition to alleviating chronic pain, depression, anxiety and even some side effects of cancer treatments. Experienced meditators also tend to be happier and more peaceful than non-meditators. Contrary to a common misconception, meditation is not about getting rid of thoughts: it's about changing the habit of grasping on to them. When we grasp on to thoughts, we experience strong emotions, usually of the negative kind. It happens because when we get caught up in our thoughts, the mind becomes preoccupied with judging what's right or wrong, acceptable or forbidden, to be or not to be...That creates tension, anxiety and what people in the western world know all too well as "stress". The practice of meditation creates greater awareness of the mind's tendency to cling to distressing thoughts, which enables us to actually label thoughts as "thinking" or "worrying", and to let go of them easier. In the words of Alan Watts, "when we no longer 'cling' to these passing thoughts which are always influencing our emotions, something else completely different arises, that which is called the great silence, which is just like living in a walking meditation."

Not only that, neuroscientists studying the minds of Buddhist monks found that meditation fosters uplifting mental states such as joy, compassion and "loving kindness". It seems that meditation is able to effortlessly shift the mind into positive emotional states, as evident by an explosive electrical activity in the pre-frontal lobe of the monks' brains - area responsible for emotions like happiness, hopefulness, contentment etc. "Meditation research," said Dr. Josipovic, a leading neuroscientist studying the brain during meditation, "particularly in the last 10 years or so, has shown to be very promising because it points to an ability of the brain to change and optimise in a way we didn't know previously was possible."

Source: Google Images

Source: Tumblr.com

Resolving Past Traumas

The wound is the place where the Light enters you. - Rumi

Unresolved traumas from the past have a way of manifesting in the present as sadness, frustration, anger and other undesirable emotional experiences. A memory of trauma keeps the focus on the past, reliving the trauma over and over, even though the original trauma circumstances no longer exist. An individual feels trapped, frozen, unable to move forward in life. In those severe cases an intensive trauma therapy is recommended. Although you may not have had extreme traumatic experiences associated with PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder), most people have some kind of unresolved issue from the past that creates discomfort or unhappiness in the present. Suppose you had a hard time making friends as a child. You felt rejected by your peers and this (perceived) rejection planted the seeds of the inferiority complex and the social anxiety you experience as an adult, even though you've made many good friends and other social connections in your life. Childhood experiences have the most profound influence on a person's life, often creating extremely rigid defense mechanisms that prevent one from recognizing the issues and resolving them. Ever seen an intervention with a drug addict? Clinical psychologists are very familiar with the phenomenon of psychological resistance to treatment, but that is not to say that it can't be overcome. In fact, resistance gives the most valuable clues about one's subconscious. Identifying and resolving past traumas can go a long way in creating the experience of lasting happiness and well-being. Whether you choose to take this journey with a therapist, a friend or by yourself, remember that your goal is understanding, not judgement. To be able to observe one's life with no judgement is one of the highest spiritual achievements.

Carbs before bed can trigger the release of the brain chemical serotonin Source: GETTY Images

Food and Brain Chemistry

Sometimes the experience of persistent unhappiness and dissatisfaction in life is related to inadequate brain chemistry. The natural mood enhancing chemicals like serotonin can become depleted, which is why so many people use antidepressants and other substances to feel better. While it may provide temporary relief, it comes with the side of addiction and certain emotional nuttiness.

There are 4 brain chemicals (neurotransmitters) that are responsible for how you feel: dopamine, GABA, endorphin and serotonin. When they are depleted, it leads to the so-called "pseudo emotions" such as depression, anxiety, irritability, anger etc. These fake emotions nonetheless feel real to the people experiencing them, and can be as debilitating as the effects of trauma, loss, neglect, abuse etc. Although some chemical deficiencies are inherited, anyone exposed to prolonged stress can deplete their natural feel-good sedatives, stimulants and pain-relievers. Eventually the brain can't keep up with the demand, you experience more and more of those unpleasant pseudo emotions and you start substituting the lack of natural pleasure chemicals with chemicals from drugs, alcohol and comfort foods. Combine that with a biological predisposition, and you've got yourself an addiction. Chemicals from these substitutes actually plug into your neuron receptors the way natural neurotransmitters do, sending the brain the signal to reduce or stop the production of pleasure chemicals altogether. Now every time your brain needs a "fix", you go for an icecream or a drink or whatever the case may be. But every high must be followed by a low, so you're caught up in a vicious cycle of cravings, binges and relapses.

Best high-protein foods Source: healthyfoodhouse.com

Typical mood enhancers Source: weheartit.com

Source: KN-OW (Knowledge Network Ongoing Wisdom)

So what can you do to get your brain back on track?

Eat more protein. Most diets avoid foods that are high in protein, such as eggs, fish, meat, nuts, seeds and cheese, with a purpose of losing weight, but protein is most essential for building amino acids that make up the "happy" brain chemicals. Reduce or eliminate the consumption of refined sweets and alcohol. Sugar and alcohol are very similar on a biological level in that they're both simple carbohydrates that are easily absorbed. Both raise blood sugar levels and the levels of at least two mood-enhancing chemicals, so when we use food or alcohol to self-medicate, we disable our brains' natural capacity to self-heal and self-regulate. Stop using any kind of artificial sweetener. Five FDA-approved sweeteners are Aspartame, Sucralose, Neotame, Acesulfame and Saccharin. They are marketed as health-beneficial weight loss substances but are in fact very dangerous to our nervous systems. Aside from being highly addictive (in a 2007 study rats preferred saccharin to cocaine), the use of artificial sweeteners has been linked to a variety of neurological and mood disorders, migraines, Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and even fetal brain damage. if you're looking for a healthier alternative to refined sugar, use brown (cane) sugar or Stevia - a derivative of a South American plant that's been used as a natural sweetener for centuries.

12 ways to increase serotonin levels Source: authenticdiscovery.com.au

Choice
To live happily is an inward power of the soul. ~ Marcus Aurelius That's right: choice. Traditional psychology is very deterministic. An individual is always at the mercy of some mighty internal or external forces - instinct, social pressure, behavioral conditioning, you name it...It deepens the feelings of helplessness and despair we all experience as human beings, existentially. And although it's part of our emotional make up to feel alone, afraid, even desperate at times, we're not meant to be the perpetual victims of these emotions. Then why do we sometimes choose to give in to them, subconsciously or otherwise, unable to switch to a more positive emotional state long after the original triggering event? Because there are some psychological rewards to them, i.e. self-pity, attention, superiority etc. Even our self-identity can be wrapped up in these emotional patterns. For example, someone with a history of depression might feel that that's simply who they are, and that if they were to be "happier", it wouldn't be them. In a way, they would cease to exist so they must cling to their emotional identity even though that's what makes them miserable. The purpose of psychological science as I see it is to help alleviate those feelings, to unburden the mind and to enlighten the heart. Instead, we feel even more helpless and fragile...Perhaps, the answer lies elsewhere, deep within ourselves, in a place where anything is possible.

So can we choose happiness? Why not? What I'm realizing with expanding clarity is that everything is a choice. I say realizing because my whole life I was taught differently, and it took me so long to even begin to see that there is actually a great deal of choice in who we are and the kind of reality we experience. It's especially true when it comes to mental states we call "emotions". Choosing to focus on positive ones has tremendous power to give a desired form to an experience, like a sculptor giving form to a piece of clay. Now, how does he do that exactly? In Hebrew, the most ancient of modern languages, the word for sculpture has the same root as the verb "to reject", "to deny". The principle is clear: to sculpt is to simply discard of the undesired, extraneous, redundant pieces, to do some conceptual editing. It is the same principle that Michelangelo explained when asked how he sculpted David: "It is easy. You just chip away the stone that doesn't look like David." "In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it." And so can we chip away the walls that imprison the joy, the mystery, "the rapture of being alive" (J. Campbell). We've entered the new era where metaphysical creativity is the only way to evolve, and it's contingent on the realization that we have that power. And that is our life-long quest: to learn how to create change and be the sculptors of our lives, not the clay.

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Michelangelo's David Source: Svetlana Zakinova

This Hub was last updated on May 16, 2013

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