Really?

To that comment I sometimes like to ask two questions,

One:   “In terms of percentage, how far along should you be?”

Two:     “In terms of percentage, how far along are you?”

The assessment without those questions always seems vague and without validation.  When you ask in terms of something specific like percentage, you can narrow down the answer to between 0 and 100.  That by itself is still a lot of choices, but at least the criteria is more specific.  I think it’s easier to answer when you make it specific.  But even when I make it easier like this  people don’t seem to be able to answer.  They don’t know how far along they are and they don’t know how far along they should be.  Yet somehow they “know”, “I’m not as far along as I should be.”

How do they “know”?   It’s really that they have an image in their mind of themselves as a failure and they believe that the image is them. In short,,, they believe it.  What we believe in our mind is what we “know.”  What can be weird about this is that we can “know” something and it still not be true. What we “know” is that we are not as far along as we should be.  We “know” it only because we believe it, whether it is true or not.  We have no real measurement of our progress, or what reasonable progress should look like, but we accept the conclusion as truth.  The result of accepting this idea as truth is that we feel like a failure.

Because the voice in your head thinks something doesn’t mean it has to be true.  Sometimes the voice in our head can tell us things that aren’t truth. When we believe the lies that it says, we are likely to unnecessarily suffer emotionally.

When we believe the voice in our head is telling us the truth, and we feel like we “know” it.  That sense of knowing can give us a feeling of confidence in what we know.  We feel smart in our knowing, even if what we know isn’t true, and makes us unhappy.

Let’s call that voice in our head that is criticizing us the Judge. Sometimes it tells us the truth.  Sometimes it tells us lies.  Sometimes that judge can be so critical it is berating and abusive.  It can drag us back into emotional suffering with its lies.   Because that voice of the Judge has guided us towards success and away from failure in the past we tend to accept what it says as true.  We unconsciously consider it an advisor.  The voice of the Judge tells us we should be farther along and we assume it is somehow helping us.    That’s not the only thing that is happening.

Sometimes when the internal dialog of the Judge is putting us down we justify that it is helping us.  “It’s giving me a good kick so I’ll work harder,”  is the kind of response we defend the Judge with.  Sometimes we accept this defense at face value.  When we do we believe it and now it feels true.  We “know” it.  Except if we look at little closer the explanation starts to fall apart.

What does “further along” really mean.  Further along towards what?   “Further along” really means happier.  “I’m not as far as long as I should be,” translates to:  “I’m not as happy as I should be.”   What does it take to be happier?  Happier means more love.  Love comes in the form of self acceptance and self respect.

The voice of the Judge rejects us.  It is not accepting and it is not respectful of our own well being and yet we defend this criticism as “motivational help.”  We justify that the harder it is on us the more that it is motivating us.  You’d be surprised how often I get this kind of explanation.  The truth is that the more it criticizes us for not being far enough along, the more we reject our self.  The more we believe this voice in our head, the unhappier we are.   So how could this self rejection that the Judge is doing, which is the opposite of self acceptance and self respect possibly be helping us towards happiness?

It can’t.

It’s kind of like this.  The judge is throwing dirt on you when you are not clean enough.  It says, “Hey, you don’t accept your self enough so take this rejection and you will improve our self.   It’s really becomes ridiculous when you are aware of it.  But that’s part of the trick.  You have to shift your perspective to become aware of it.

So what can you do to help your self?  It starts with awareness.  First you need awareness that what you think, may not be true.  Awareness that you don’t always have to believe what you think.  Then, with a little practice, you learn to scrutinize the internal dialog of the Judge and find out that it’s not always helpful.

A few things to consider.

That voice in your head may have been more helpful in the past, but as we get older it gets out of control.  It spends more time berating us than guiding or helping us.  When it comes to self acceptance, respect, love, and happiness,,, it doesn’t have much experience.  Most of what that voice in your head “knows” is about fear. It is constantly telling you what you have to do and should do to avoid what you fear.  The problem with the information it is giving you is that it is based on what it knows from the past.   It assumes that all future experiences will be like the past ones.  We have a very powerful memory, and it distorts how we see the present moment when we believe the internal dialog in our head.

For insights on how to change this dynamic of falling for the self rejection that goes on in your mind Listen and Practice the exercises in the Self Mastery course.  The first 4 sessions are free. Sign up here. You might also want to check out the free audio about self awareness and changing beliefs.

When you ask this question to someone else,,, you are opening the door to giving away your personal power and creating a victim mindset.   This is a dangerous question to ask.  At the same time guidance can be helpful.

In the early stages of our personal development we ask many questions.  In the beginning the questions are general, unfocused, and many times harmful.  We aren’t aware of how powerful a question can be at controlling our attention and occupying our mind with very limited ways of thinking.  Usually we are in a unhappy or confused state when we ask these types of questions.  And the types of questions that arise from this mind set act to reinforce the very emotions we are trying to get out of.       

What are some better questions to ask?

What is the kind thing to do?
What is the respectful thing to do?
What is the compassionate thing to do?
What do I not want?
How will I treat myself?
How will I treat others?
How do I want to feel?

Learning to ask better questions is a skill.  Like any skill it can take time.  However the more we are aware of the questions we ask, the less automatic they are.  The more aware of each question our mind asks, and the automated way our imagination and emotions respond the better we will get at asking questions.

The most common of beginner question is, “What should I do?”   Why is this such a poor question to ask when we are wrapped up in emotional issues?  That question can lead us back into the same negative belief structure that asked it.

The question implies or assumes that there is a particularly “right” answer.  Whenever we are looking for the “right” answer our mind flips into a mode of duality and looks at things in a right/wrong split.  All answers that are not the “right” answer are classified as wrong.  There can be one thousand wrong.  You can imagine a poor outcome with any action you take thereby making the action appear wrong.  All of these with any possible negative outcome are classified as “wrong.”  It is assumed that the “right” or “should” action will result in everything being right and everyone being happy.  It’s a very high standard of perfection that is implied when we use the word “should” or “right.”  

This very high, and often unreasonable expectation sets us up for feeling like a failure.

Having an image of perfection or an expectation in and of itself isn’t the really bad part.  It could even be good when it motivates us to take action or inspire creativity.   The bad part is that the mental construct of an image of perfection sets you up for two rounds of self judgment.

Once you adopt this mental construct of what you “should” do, you also build a self image of the kind of person you should be.  So now there are two images of perfection.  One is of the action that leads to the perfect outcome.  The second image of perfection is more personal. It is of who you should be.  There can be more perfection images in the mind such as, how everyone else should feel, that can complicate this even further, but lets keep it simple for now.

With these two imaginary images the voice of the inner judge now has two concepts it can use for comparison.  With its typical method of comparison there can only be two outcomes.  The best outcome possible is that you meet the expectations of your belief system.  No praise here.  All you did was what was expected of you.  With your greatest effort you broke even by meeting expectations of your belief system.

The second outcome isn’t that kind.  For any lesser action, even the emotional reactions of another person that you can’t control, the inner judge criticizes you.  “I could have (should have” done that differently.”  The second judgment follows the first.  If you didn’t succeed in achieving the image of perfection outcome then you failed.  If you failed, then that means you are a failure.  It’s a simple duality based conclusion the judge and victim voices in your head do automatically.  The result is self rejection in the form of a self judgment.

This self rejection happens in your own head and can be emotionally powerful.  When we are preoccupied trying to answer the question, “What should I do?” our attention is so wrapped up in the importance of figuring out the right thing to do that we don’t see this set up to self judgment.

Why is our attention so wrapped up with figuring out the “right” thing we “should” do?  Somewhere in our sub-conscious belief system we sense that the painful self judgment will come if we do things wrong.  We are afraid of the painful self judgment from our inner judge and we seek to avoid it.   We feel the pressure to get things “right” but don’t notice that much of the motivation is really about avoiding the pain of self judgment that is going to be generated in our imagination.

We feel the pressure from the voices in our head but don’t notice that this is just our imagination and belief system at work.  It usually takes a person a while to realize that this emotional self abuse is optional.   We are so used to self judgment by the time we are adults that we accept this as an unchangeable reality.  Then the only solution to avoid the punishment that we perceive is to get the answer “right.”   And “right” means perfect where everyone is satisfied.  Of course we don’t notice that this standard assumes that everyone will interpret the action and the outcome free from any judge and victim perspectives.  (not likely)

It can be very helpful to seek help, guidance, and support.  However we can help our self more when we are mindful of the questions we ask and how their underlying assumptions can be setting us up for self judgment.

Be Mindful When Asking for Help

I’m all for advice.  I like to pick the brains and perspective of seasoned individuals that have proven results in an area.  It can save us a lot of time in learning so we don’t have to figure everything out on our own.  What I am not in favor of is collecting of images of perfection that the inner judge uses as an expectation to measure our self worth.  The next time you ask someone, “What should I do?” take a moment to notice whether your inner judge might use their answer in a conspiracy of self-judgment against you.

Please don’t ask me to give you advice about what you “should” do.  I probably won’t answer you directly.  If I answer your question in the format you expect, then I am providing you with an image of a perfection for an outcome that may or may not be achievable.   You are asking an image of perfection that the inner judge can use.   I’m probably going to try to do you the favor of not feeding this structure of beliefs.  My answer might come back as a question or redirect your attention to looking at the situation differently.

Some people will have a reaction to this.  They will get upset because I haven’t answered directly.  They are so fixated on getting things “right” that they feel cheated when avoid the trap their belief system is making.   I know that person is upset because their only hope to avoid painful self judgment is to get the answer of what they “should” do.  And any delay in getting that answer has them slipping further into the jaws of the self judgment for getting it “wrong.”

I apologize for not answering directly.  But I’m not trying to satisfy your hope of getting things right.  I’m actually trying to save you from a much bigger problem. The bigger problem is that painful self judgment and the fear it creates drives the mind to believe that the “right” answer is the only hope.

Please don’t ask me to conspire with the trap your belief system creates with  self judgments.  At the same time, it is okay and even advisable in most situations to seek counsel and guidance.  Just do your best to be aware and avoid this trap of self judgment.

If you have another question,,, a better question,,, I might give a more direct answer.  Look back to the beginning of this article for some ideas on how to ask a better question.  If these questions don’t apply, then ask other questions.  If you can’t come up with another question then ask, “What questions should I be asking?”    There are lots of ways that you can get help, support and guidance from people through sticky situations without building images of perfection that the judge will use.   
There are lots of questions that I work on asking that will help you to look at the situation differently.  There is a lot that can be done with perspective and inquiry that is extremely helpful without anyone telling you what you should do.

So if I don’t respond to your question of, “What should I do?” in a way that you expect then I hope this explains it.   I’m not trying to give you ice cubes so the pain from the fire stops.  I’m trying to help you put out the fire that you are sitting in.

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.

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

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

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

What Your Mind Doesn’t Want you to Realize

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

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

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

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

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

Your Happiness and Unhappiness is Created Internally

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

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

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

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

Shifting Priorities

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

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

The Measure of Success is Emotional Happiness

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Illusion of Fulfillment and Happiness

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

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

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

Anecdotes Don’t Help

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

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

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

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

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

Changing Your Mind is Not Easy

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

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

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

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

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

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

Challenge Your Mind

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

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

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

A Quiet and Peaceful Mind

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I often witness people who don’t feel ready to heal emotionally. They come up to the edge of taking action to free themselves from emotional pain, only to back away. Their mind has many stories as to why, but at the core it is often the same basic reason. They are afraid. It’s kind of crazy to think that people would be afraid of healing their emotions, but I never said that people were logical.

I’ll get into the fear of emotional healing later.

The inspiration for this post comes from a conversation I had the other day with woman we will call Kelly. I had spoken to her a few months about some jealousy issues that was poisoning the relationship with her partner. She had listened to a couple of the free sessions in the Self Mastery course and was encouraged at the possibility of change. She was going to sign up for the remaining sessions and do some individual session with me to focus on her specific beliefs and behaviors. Kelly didn’t sign up for the program and she didn’t schedule a session with me.

When I ran into here recently she brought up her lack of action. Her explanation to her self and me was that she was not ready to heal emotionally.

I could go in a lot of directions with this material but just want to focus on the sabotaging logic of the ego mind that is operating here. From a certain angle it is a factual truth that she doesn’t feel ready to heal emotionally. Notice I say “factual truth” and not a real truth. She doesn’t feel ready, but it is the lies in her belief system that are creating that feeling. In any case that is no reason not to engage the process.

Thinking and feeling that we are not ready for emotional healing is a factual truth that hides a self sabotaging lie. It’s not the feeling of not being ready that stops us. It is the hidden lie that keeps us from taking action. The hidden lie is that we need to be ready to heal emotionally in order to start.

We were not ready to learn to walk when we first began taking steps. When we began to learn to read, we weren’t ready to read. When people begin having sex they generally don’t feel confident and prepared. When parents have their first children, they don’t’ feel ready either. Not only do parents have no experience in being parents, but those kids don’t come with an instruction booklet that would give them the illusion of being prepared.

When we take on any endeavor worth doing in our life it is new until we have been doing it a while. In the beginning we are learning to do something and we stumble through it as best we can. We are never going to be ready to do something that we have no experience doing. But that doesn’t stop us.

When we endeavor to eliminate our emotional reactions and clean up the projections in our mind we are taking on a task that we have never done before. If you haven’t done much of it before then you probably are not very skilled at emotional healing. The next lie hidden in the decision making logic of the mind is that if you aren’t very good at emotionally healing then you shouldn’t start. Of course if we use this logic we will never do anything different in our life.

It is this kind of hidden belief that is buried into the meaning of these words. “I’m not ready for emotional healing.”

If we only do the things we are ready for we would only do the things we already know how to do. If this were the case we would never learn to walk, read, take up a hobby, have sex, or raise children.

The mind is a peculiar thing. It can propose the idea that we are not ready to heal emotionally. It can even make that idea appear to be factual. It is true that if we haven’t done something before that we are not skilled and proficient at it. This may be a fair assessment.

But then the mind does something amazing. It is so subtle that we don’t notice it unless we spend some time developing awareness. The mind tricks us into accepting the one idea of not being ready and assumes the decision is made. Without words it ends the investigation and stops all action on that one note. An unconscious decision has been made not to evaluate any other angles.

The ego mind fixates on one bit of information and uses that one fact to determine the whole stopping of our personal and emotional growth. It would be as if we went to the doctors with stomach pains and when the doctor found our temperature to be 98.6 degrees he sent us home.

All other desires, considerations for the health of our relationships, and future happiness are discarded with this fixation on one fact of not feeling ready. The mind invites us to go unconscious, stop evaluating different possibilities, and become unaware of all these other considerations.

This is the kind of unconscious logic and decision making of the ego mind that keeps us in loops of emotional suffering.

The path to freedom from this kind of self destructive logic is awareness and healthy skepticism. If we develop self awareness we will learn to see past these misdirection traps of words, and hidden decisions. A healthy skepticism and a process of questioning will pull apart the misguiding logic and free us from such an ego mind.

Being a skeptic is an opportunity for freedom from emotional suffering. If we are a skeptic we will question the logic that says if we don’t feel ready then we shouldn’t begin the process of emotional healing.

A skeptic will scrutinize this type of logic and realize that if they followed it they wouldn’t attempt or do much of anything in their life.

A skeptic will realize that you become ready to do something by doing it over and over again until you get good at it. You become ready to heal emotionally by doing things that don’t work out and then doing them again until they do. You don’t become ready to do anything by hesitating and waiting.

Many times you only become ready to do something after you have done it for a while. You will only really feel ready to ride a bike after riding long enough that you aren’t afraid to fall. You will feel more comfortable in raising children after yours are grown. You’ll feel more comfortable with sex after you have been practicing a while. The same is true for emotional change. You will only feel ready to heal emotionally after you practice working through some of the stories and beliefs in your mind.

The Catch 22 for Kelly is that if she waits until she is ready to take take action she won’t ever take action. If she starts when she feels ready she won’t ever heal emotionally.

In the Self Mastery Audio course there are exercises that will help you to be a healthy skeptic of the self defeating logic in your mind. There are also exercises for emotional healing. If you are not yet ready to heal emotionally it would be a good time to start.

If you eliminate the sources of your unhappiness your life will be significantly happier without all that emotional drama from fear, stress, frustration, sadness and anger.

This might appear to be a simplistic big picture approach in how to be happy. It is. It’s also helpful to very clearly understand where we are going and how we will get there. If you don’t have a big picture of the process you can easily get lost in all the details on your path.

Of these two paths to happiness the one most often chosen is the first one. I think this can be an excellent choice under certain circumstances. If you have the capacity to completely focus your attention on actions and thoughts that fill you with love, happiness, and fun, by all means do so. However my experience is that very few people have the mastery over their attention necessary to make this approach work. Most people have minds where thoughts and emotions run around in there uncontrolled at times.

If you are able to completely avoid letting your mind engage in emotional reactions, sabotaging behaviors, fears, insecurities, and self criticism, then by all means take the first path towards happiness.

If you find that you occasionally have fears, get angry, feel frustrated, or fall victim to other emotional reactions and don’t have complete control over your mind you may want to consider the second path. It is an important component in how to create deep sustaining happiness. It is the path that is less traveled. Perhaps that is why only few people live their lives with a deep sustaining calm and happiness.

Directly challenging the causes of unhappiness has a lot to do with evaluating the interpretations in the mind and changing the core beliefs that are at the foundation of those interpretations. It is a bit of work to come to “Know Thyself” in this way, but you get a high quality emotional return on your investment.

You should know that this path of introspection isn’t reason to judge your self as a failure at happiness or life in any way. It is actually quite common and normal for people to experience unhappiness at various times in their life. Even the Buddha pointed out in his Four Noble Truths that life involves some emotional suffering. But don’t let the commonality of unhappiness trap you into the belief of accepting that it can’t be any different or that life will always be that way.

Being unhappy at some point in your life doesn’t mean you are a failure. Your unhappiness could be due to any number of things including an inability to live in complete denial of your emotions. This isn’t failure. It’s being successful at being in touch with your emotions. Being in touch with your emotions is important in feeling deep meaningful happiness in your life.

I’ve personally found that the path of eliminating the causes of your unhappiness is far more effective. However I don’t recommend it, I even discourage it. I don’t encourage people to go face their fears, inner judgments, and tangle with stories of victimization in their mind? That stuff is unpleasant. Just admitting to our self that we engage in these types of behaviors and feelings can be disheartening. This kind of internal battle isn’t permanent but is often something people avoid for the sake of their ego. Of course avoiding the truth about this dark side of our self just keeps it repressed there until it jumps upon us another day.

The path of ruthless honest truth is the kind of thing that sets you free from emotional suffering. It isn’t pleasant challenging your inner demons, but neither is it pleasant to live day after day, year after year pretending we don’t have them.

What is the best path to choose when you are deciding how to be happy? Whenever I have a choice between two options I sometimes like to take both.

Make a concerted effort to pursue what you enjoy so that you can facilitate your happiness. At the same time take notice of when you have emotional reactions that take away from being happy. Use those opportunities to dig into the root causes of those emotions. When you do you will often find core beliefs creating false assumptions, expectations, judgments, and stories of victimization. Take your time to inventory the beliefs behind these emotional reactions and change them. When it is cleaned up go back to doing your best to create happiness and love in your activities and relationships.

By pursuing both paths to happiness you create a push-pull effect that facilitates being happier faster than if you just pursued one approach.

How to be happy in your life is a question that no one can answer for you. Each person will enjoy different things. Someone else’s formula will not work for you. In the big picture approach there are two paths to follow. Pursue what you love enjoy. Simultaneously take time to be ruthlessly honest with your self and challenge your inner demons of fears and false beliefs.

If you are interested in more specific steps to creating emotions of happiness and eliminating the causes of unhappiness engage in the exercises in the Self Mastery Audio Program.

Going to Zion is going back to a place of transition in my spiritual journey. Years ago I was on a trip through the southwest and was camping in the park when I found what I was looking for in my quest. I was journeying in a dream at night and experienced my heart opening into a blissful and overwhelming state of unconditional love.

As I woke up and lay on the ground I realized that it was only a dream and somehow my rational mind was willing to dismiss it. But something down inside me, that part of me that was feeling all the emotion, wasn’t ready to dismiss the beauty that I felt.

I was awake, but I could still feel the love radiating through my body. In all my life I had not felt such a beautiful sensation before. It was fading, but I decided that it must be possible to feel that much incredible love in real life. Maybe it was possible to feel it and live it beyond just a dream. I didn’t know if it was possible, but I decided to believe it was.

I consciously decided to believe that I could feel that much love, and to feel it all the time. I decided to believe that I could experience that much blissful love in all my relationships. I decided to believe it on the off chance that it was possible. At that point I knew what I was looking for. It was a feeling. I didn’t know how to get there or the steps I would take, but I knew it as a feeling in my body.

In different traditions it has different names. In mystery schools it might be called the Holy Grail, Your Integrity, Nirvana, Christ Consciousness, or more simply, Unconditional Love. I like to call it the Truth.

When you have this type of experience, what many call a spiritual experience of the Truth, many things become clear. The most important of these is that you know what you are looking for. Until that time I wanted to be happy but I only really knew it as an intellectual idea. Knowing it by experience is much more powerful. That feeling is like a reference beacon to your emotional integrity. You know when you are on track by how you feel, and you quickly know when you are off track in your journey.

I don’t often share experiences about my journey like this for a number of reasons. There are reasons why and I’m getting to that. I will tell you the reasons because then you will have better chance for immunity from them. All of this is necessary just because I’m planning this workshop to Zion and I felt inspired to share a bit of my history in that wonderful place. But I digress.

There are a number of reasons that I don’t share very much about these types of spiritual experiences. One simply is that these experiences of Truth don’t translate into words. People will read this and walk away with their interpretation of my experience.

“In the beginning was the Word, and immediately after there was misinterpretation.”

I’m okay with that part. I’ve made my peace with it a long time ago. It’s the other kind of stuff that people do in their mind with this information about another person. They sometimes use these stories to activate stories in their mind and generate emotional reactions. Then I often refrain from this type of material because I know what people do with it in their mind. I know this very well because I use to do it.

Speaking from my own experience I know that before I started my journey such a story would raise a concerned reaction that someone had “lost it.” I would be skeptical, but that would bleed over into looking for signs that they weren’t logical and rationally sound people. My lack of understanding for these spiritual experiences made it difficult to accept people when they spoke of such things. I was a skeptic of their story, and I unknowingly became more than a skeptic of them.

Later in my process when I began having my own experiences, the judge in my mind would use the material of someone else’s experience to create envy. I would want what they had. I would be wishing I was them and living their life experiences. This is essentially the same thing as not being accepting of my self and where I was in my journey. This is a desire for love, happiness, and conscious awakening that gets distorted in the expression. I didn’t see all that at the time. It is easier to see your stumbling block issues when you go back and spend time with them.

Here is where I get to one of the points I wanted to make. (not the one on top of my head either) It is one of the biggest stumbling blocks people create in their mind when they are on a Spiritual path. I was talking with Ellen about this and we both saw this as a prominent stumbling block and is why I wanted to write this piece.

The big stumbling block that people in a spiritual quest create is that they use these spiritual images as a basis for self judgment. They read books or hear about other people’s experience and wonder, “Why not me?” With that question a critical voice in the mind is all too ready to propose that it is because they are not good enough, or there is something wrong with them, or that they are not doing everything right.

How to turn Spiritual Ideals into Spiritual Demons

When our mind uses Spiritual Ideals in this way they become personal expectations. As personal expectations they are the foundations for self judgment and self rejection. When you haven’t dealt with your inner judge inspirational experiences and stories of spiritual masters can become material for comparison. We can even create an image of what we should be as a spiritual person and judge our self compared to our imaginary self image.

When used in this way, what was a possible source of inspiration and a story about how much love you can feel in all your relationships becomes a spiritual stumbling block of self judgment. In spite of the possibility that people might do this in their minds, I will publish it anyways.

I decided to consciously share with you one of my experiences of emotional awakening to unconditional love. What you do with this information is your responsibility. You can either use it to open up to the possibility of more love and happiness in your life, Or, you can use it to judge me as a quack, feel envy, judge your self as unworthy, none of these, or all of these. These are just some of your choices.
Often we will make more progress on our Spiritual journey by focusing on the step in front of us than by dreaming and hoping about our destination.

More information on Your Authentic Life Workshop in Zion May 3-May6th

More on the spiritual journey in the next post.

Personal growth and cultivating happiness is not linear.  It can often come in an epiphany in the most ordinary of moments.

The following is feedback from a course subscriber in Japan.

Dear Gary,

This time, I want to report about my recent progress in the process!  (Sorry, this one is very long!)

During last two weeks, I was keeping in my mind your words in your e-mail “Just practice enjoying your life” & “Pace yourself”, ’cause deep inside, I felt that they contained something very very important to me.  I wondered why I was always struggling with things, but I couldn’t find out how I was creating that state.  (For example, when I’m going to do the Toltec practices which I decided to do everyday, it often takes a long time before I actually start, ’cause I spend much time and energy in resisting, judging, feeling sick or somehow hurried, and worrying too much.  However, once started, it’s really fun for me to do them.)

One afternoon, I was making a long affirmation script for myself, for I wanted one for me.  After writing halfway, words stopped coming up and I felt a little bit tired.  Then, the judging mind started off, like “Complete it right now, otherwise you cannot do other activities planned!!”, “You lack self-control, effort and will!” and “You are failure who cannot do things properly!”, etc.  I felt totally sick, actually got pain in center of my chest, and thought “Why can’t I do things like others do?”, fully in the Victim-mode. Usually, I used to proceed to the next reaction stage, “Rebel-mode”, but this time, I remembered your talk on Session 11, and I asked myself “Who on earth is “Others”??”

Then, I remembered scenes from my childhood, where my parents were severely scolding me and accusing me of being slow, not doing things as they liked, unwilling to help them in their timing and being selfish… “You are stubborn, bad girl, You lack will power, patience and effort etc.”  They were the person who were proud of always being in time, being able to strictly follow their plans and complete things once they decided, no matter how hard time it takes.  And I remembered how sad and worthless I felt those days, almost like I was the worst child in the world who had no ability to do things properly, and then, I realized “I myself are saying completely the same things to myself now!?”  I went totally blank with my mouth wide open.

After a while, I decided to stop writing, went to the kitchen and made coffee, pondering about the matter.  I remembered various scenes from my school days, and saw the process of how I lost trust in myself almost completely.  I was a child who was very uncomfortable in structural settings like schedules or rules.  And here in Japan, according to my observation, it is very important for people to read and follow the “Air” in situations or groups, which seems to be made up with people’s beliefs and expectations on how one should behave in a particular situation.

If someone act differently, the person usually get accused of being selfish, making waves and destroying the sense of “Harmony” in the group, and sometimes the person get excluded from the group’s sense of “Unity” or ” Circleness?” (This part is very difficult to translate into English!).

Anyway, It was very often that, when just having fun with friends (in most cases, with boys), I somehow succeeded to end up with breaking some rules or supposed atmosphere in situations unintentionally, got severe reprimand for being a bad, selfish child who ignores adult’s advises or being out of “Girls-Should-Behave-Like-This” lines.

I saw that, as I grew older, I got more and more afraid of behaving out of situation and doing “Wrong” things, and even developed the very strong, exaggerated beliefs like “If I enjoy myself, I become alone”, “There is something wrong with me and I cannot see that myself” or “I am the only person on the planet who don’t know how the world works.”  (By the way, I got the reason why I get so tense and tired when I travel abroad – I’m so afraid of being accused of behaving out of the social codes of the countries, which I don’t know!!)  I remembered, in my pre-teen years, how eagerly I made effort to get approved as a good girl, and when my classmates teased me that I was pretending to be good, how I felt like I was a hypocrite…(In those days, I was actually the favorite child of the teachers.)

And in my teenage years, at this time in turn, how I rebelled my teachers and parents in order not to lose friendship of my classmates, or stopped doing things which, in less controlling situations, I loved to do, to maintain my false sense of integrity, ….. , and afterwards when I was alone, how harshly I judged myself for being bad and incapable, and how terribly I worried about being alone in the classroom or not being loved by boys due to my “lack of Femininity”…..

After pondering and remembering like this about an hour, I noticed that I had a feeling like energy pulled, in my belly, towards back to the desk.  This feeling was totally new for me, and I decided to experiment with it.  So, I went back to my desk, sat and added several sentences to the affirmation script. Then, the words stopped coming again, I detached from it, and followed that impulse in my belly, and did next thing like taking care of my cat, then next, to next.  I fully enjoyed cooking dinner, eating and chatting with my husband, without worrying about not having enough time for myself.

After easily going back and forth between my desk and other places in my house, what I found at the end of the day was that, all the things I intended to do or needed to do were completed effortlessly, including my affirmation script!!  And, usually I have the sense of heaviness and tiredness by the end of days, but on that day, my body remained light!  I thought, “Wow, I can function like this!  I don’t need to know in advance how a day takes course.  It may be a very simple thing, “Just follow my natural flow of energy.”  And I didn’t know about this for all my life!!”

However, the next thing I did was missing the feeling of “Accomplishment”.  I recognized how I was addicted to my “I DID IT, in spite of all the obstacles on my way”-stories, and thought about how I attended to my Toltec practices.  Here in Japan, many people (including me!) loves the story concerning learning attitudes like this:  “To truly learn something, one must first be fitted into “Forms” or “Patterns” which have been cultivated by the ancestors for a long time.  And, a limited number of excellent people, who endured the long, hard process of struggling with the “Forms”, can finally grow out of them, achieving the person’s freedom and balance with his potential ability blossomed, as crystallization of his blood, sweat and tears on the way.”  (I think this attitude is frequently seen in areas of martial arts or traditional arts.)  And the attitude of enjoying the process of learning is often regarded as lack of seriousness, concentration or guts.

However, I noticed that it might also be possible for me to first embrace the ability inside me, and to stay relaxed and enjoy the process unfolding in its way, slowly and gradually into full blossom.  And, this one may be much more fun, easier and lighter!!

Even though I often fall back to my old habits and each time I must remind myself of new ways, realizing these things was a huge release for me.  I felt as if one of the thickest and tightest invisible chains around my chest split off into pieces, and actually I feel I’m now breathing easier and deeper than before.  (I have a slight symptom of asthma for recent few years.)  And, it became a bit easier to find out my limiting beliefs and agreements during days.

Thank you very much for your time reading this, and thanks again for your insight and help in your message and audio course sessions!!

Sincerely, Y. F. in Japan

The groups were started in Mumbai India by Dr. Madan Kataria. He is a physician and was interested in taking advantage of the health benefits of laughter such as reducing stress and strengthening the immune system. He is interviewed in this article at wordsmith.com

Why is laughter beneficial emotionally? Well if your goal is to be happy, why not jump into the feeling? Don’t waste time figuring out how to be happy, just do it. You might be wondering what these people are laughing about, but that isn’t important. You don’t actually need anything to laugh about to get started. Just like you don’t need music to dance or sing.  What is interesting is that if you start laughing things start to become funny. Your perspective shifts to see things in a funny way. In this way you use the action of laughter to shift your mind.

Of course if your rational mind wants to know some of the benefits consider these. When you are laughing you are not thinking. By not thinking you are suspending all judgments, victimisation’s, opinions and thoughts that lead to unhappiness. You are effectively engaging a different part of your consciousness in the mind. You are stimulating the mind and body in a way that creates joy instead of a depressing story that creates depression. As you become more aware you might notice that when you are laughing your mind is often quiet. It is a natural state of the mind to be quiet and filled with joy.  Of course if you always keep the rational mind in charge you probably won’t laugh or smile much because happiness and joy is just not rational. It is a feeling not a thinking.

I did laughing meditation practice for a while myself years ago. It was suggested by a very wise woman who I would visit. We would begin her class with 5 minutes of laughter meditation for absolutely no reason other than it feeling good. It was a little odd at first, but then you notice that you feel great doing it. And when everyone is in the room laughing with you it is very contagious and becomes real laughter. After you practice being happy with laughter for no reason you may eventually discover that you don’t need a reason to be happy. You can be happy independent of logical rationalizations.

For those that are more academic about this stuff here is an excerpt on just part of the psychological benefits of laughter. It is from a very long article at How Stuff Works.com,

The psychological benefits of humor are quite amazing, according to doctors and nurses who are members of the American Association for Therapeutic Humor. People often store negative emotions, such as anger, sadness and fear, rather than expressing them. Laughter provides a way for these emotions to be harmlessly released. Laughter is cathartic. That’s why some people who are upset or stressed out go to a funny movie or a comedy club, so they can laugh the negative emotions away (these negative emotions, when held inside, can cause biochemical changes that can affect our bodies).

Increasingly, mental health professionals are suggesting “laughter therapy,” which teaches people how to laugh — openly — at things that aren’t usually funny and to cope in difficult situations by using humor. Following the lead of real-life funny-doc Patch Adams (portrayed by Robin Williams in a movie by the same name), doctors and psychiatrists are becoming more aware of the therapeutic benefits of laughter and humor. This is due, in part, to the growing body of humor and laughter scholarship (500 academicians from different disciplines belong to the International Society for Humor Studies).

If you want to find a Laughter Club and check it out the funny business for your self, there are over 5,000 clubs world wide.

Being happy is like dancing. To get good at it you have to practice. Direct laughter is a great practice to create happiness in your life because it takes you directly to the feeling experience of joy physically and emotionally.

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