HAPPY SECRETS

THE SECRET, PART 2

If you haven't read my previous post THE SECRET AND MY SECRET please do so before reading this one.

Let's go back to our late spouse. Now, let's say we have asked ourselves alot of questions about why this irritates us so much. (Why lateness? Why not the wet towels left on the bathroom floor, or the tendency to embellish vacation stories, etc? ) We have discovered that when we were growing up being punctual was very important. We have remembered that our father, who was always passed over for promotions, prided himself on always being punctual. He was always at his desk at eight, even though his "lazy boss" would breeze in as late as 8:15.

In fact, being on time was a really big deal in our household when we were growing up. The worth of a person-- be it our sister's date, flaky Aunt Tilda, etc-- was often prejudged on their promptness. We get alot of self-satisfaction and sense of being a "good" person when we are on time. And we are "right." Our spouse should be punctual and show respect for us by being on time. Since we are such sticklers for punctuality we can really "nail" our spouse when s/he is late.

And let's be honest, we probably have alot of other issues with our spouse, and not all of them can be argued rationally. Many of us feel that our spouse is here on this planet to fufill our needs and make us happy. And being late does not make us happy. Some of us might be upset and unhappy all day when our spouse is late. Even thought it is expected behaviour! Our spouse might be late nine times out of ten, and it will still make us unhappy. It might even ruin the rest of the day.

Now, I might be a little extreme in this example, but feel free to substitute something that you feel is of proper gravity. Your chronically late spouse is late in the morning, which makes you late, and you are irritated all morning at work. Perhaps in trying to manage your anger you have more than one conversation about it, or perhaps you shut other people out altogether. (There is a stereotype here that the first example would be a woman and the second a man.)

In this one situation alone, on just this one particular morning, there are three major obstacles to achieving "the secret" of the wealthy, healthy, abundant, happy, safe life. First, if someone else has the power to "make" you feel something, you are not in control of creating your own reality. Second, many propopents of the "positive thought/law of attraction/everything is energy" school of thought would say that something in you--not your spouse- is creating the experience of lateness with your spouse; that you, in fact are attracting that late behaviour. Third, you are not living in the moment. Not when your spouse is late (s/he is "always" late) and also after the fact, when you are either re-creating it in conversation or repressing the emotion. You are missing out on the present and the only real power you have. (Nothing can be done about something that happened in the past. In fact, by dragging it into the present and anticipating the problem recurring, you are in fact doing "negative visualisation" and helping to create the problem again in the future. More on this in another post.)

In Ken Keyes GATHERING POWER THROUGH INSIGHT AND LOVE he explains that first we must recognise addictive demands ("that my spouse not be late") and then up-level them to preferences ("I prefer my spouse not to be late, but I can be happy even if s/he is late") you regain control of your life. None of us, even if we learn to create our own reality, will ever be able to control all the events in our lives. (I will go into this seeming contradiction more in my next post.) None of us will ever be able to control the actions of anyone other than ourselves.

We can, however, learn to control our reactions to things. Two cornerstones of many motivational and positive thought theories are that one must learn to be happy before the circumstances we desire can appear, and that only by learning (or striving to learn) to love ourselves and others unconditionally can we achieve true happiness.

Further, Keyes shows us that we must give ourselves permission to be happy even if situations and people do not conform to our addictive demands. We must re-train our minds to understand that is okay to be happy no matter what is happening.

Everyone behaves badly, everyone has issues, everyone lets someone down at one time or the other. If we judge others by their behaviour then we also judge ourselves. (And there is whole other post on who, exactly, do we think is doing the judging, and how more of our power gets ruined in the mental processes of trying to be "right"?) Judgement takes away your power to create your own reality.

For the last few months I have been listening every night to a lecture given by Louise Hay on learning to love yourself. One of the first things she lists is "stop criticising yourself" and once you do that, you will probably stop criticising other people. The more we learn to accept ourselves and other people the more power we will bring into our lives. And our capacity for happiness will grow. And then our happiness will grow. And the happier we become, the more good we will attract into our lives.

Each one of us is unique and has something to give the world-- something to express-- that no one else can. By creating happiness in the world we already live in-- the one that does not contain all of the things that you want, where you are not thin enough or rich enough or live in the right house, where your spouse is always late--right here and now, exactly as it is, we will begin to draw into our lives exactly what we need and want.

This is not some trick of the God's to make us be happy, or that by being happy with what we have now we will never be able to get what we really want-- rather, this is just how things work. In my post about suicides and people who feel nothing but despair I pointed out that despair is like static. Unhappiness is like a clog in the pipeline. It is not that good things have abandoned you, it is that good thing cannot come to you unless you are accepting of the good you already possess.

If you focus on ill health, despair, past mistakes, guilt, etc, than that is what will come to you. You will not create a reality where you will be happy in the future by being miserable in the present. You are only feeding the misery. You are only drawing more of what you don't want into your life. How many times have you said "when I make this much more money" or "when I have this car" or "when I lose weight" and then those things happened and there was something else to make you unhappy?

Count your blessings. The next time your spouse is late, tell yourself that it is okay to be happy even though you would prefer a more punctual spouse. Affirm that you love your spouse anyhow, and that everyone has faults. Accept that it is happening, and then put it behind you.

You might still mention it, you might still try to change it, but without the drama and unhappiness . There is a chance that when you change your spouse might leave, but if that happens I guarantee you will meet someone who is more suited to your new joyful outlook. But what will probably happen is that your spouse will stop being late. It might take awhile. But while the behaviour is changing it won't bother you so much. You will learn to let it go and have a nice day. And who knows what good you were missing out on being mad all day about something that happened in the morning?

Happiness can be the vehicle that drives you down the road of life. Unlike emotions, or addictive demands, or future goals, happiness will not break down at the side of the road or disappoint you. It will not lead you on wild goose chases or end up being a roundabout that takes you right back where you were before.

It's like a sporty, four wheel drive, all terrain vehicle with GPS and everything else like that. (I don't even own a car right now, so forgive me my metaphor.) It will take you anywhere. Even if you end up on a bumpy road you will get through it okay.

If you decide to be happy you will be. And like attracts like.

PRAISES, THANKS, & BLESSINGS

PS-- I have this note here, and I don't know where this came from and cannot properly credit it, but it is nine steps to Happiness.
1) The intention to be happy
2) Accountability for one's own happiness
3) Identification of what makes one happy
4) Centralization-- happiness as the control to daily life
5) Recasting of tragic events for redeeming value
6) Options
7) Appreciation
8) Giving
9) Truth
That probably sums it up better than my whole long post!

THE SECRET AND MY SECRET

I have not read the book THE SECRET or seen the DVD. I have heard about the buzz, of course, and heard a condensed review of the DVD by someone who has seen it.

I have something of a love/hate relationship with the positive thought movement. I cannot hope to fully address every aspect in this post. (I must admit that I generally spend less than an hour on most of my posts, this one included. Hopefully I shall redeem myself of all my typos and grammer mistakes when I finish my book.)

Let me begin my stating that I DO believe in the "law of attraction", that is, that like attracts like. That postive thoughts and feelings attract postive thoughts and feelings, and that the reverse is also true.

Moreover, I DO believe that we "create our own reality". I believe this to the point that I believe we pick our parents, where and when we will be born, and even many of the things that will happen to us while we are living in this incarnation.

I believe that our BELIEFS shape our reality. (Clever devil's advocates, I ask you to resist the temptation to argue, for the moment, that my beliefs shape this belief.)

And here is where the love/hate comes in. Here is the tricky part.

First, most people do not examine their core beliefs thoroughly. Understanding why you believe the things you believe is a constant and never ending quest. It is complicated by the fact that your beliefs often create what Ken Keyes calls "addictive demands" that then trigger emotions.

For instance, let's say that every time your spouse is late you get upset. Why? Because it is "wrong" for him/her to be late. Why? Because people shouldn't be late. Why? Because it is rude, it creates problems for you, etc. Why is it wrong to be rude? What if s/he didn't mean to be late? What if being on time would have created problems for him/her? Who decides whose problems were more important? And further, back to the first objection, how did you orginally form the opinion that it is wrong to be late; that people "shouldn't" be late? Would this belief hold the same weight in a society where 75% of the people were consistently as late as your spouse; where that was the prevalent culture?

Further, how does your being upset change anything? Probably not at all. In fact, it could make things worse (you get into an argument when your spouse arrives and that makes you even later to your appointment).

Now, I do think that is important to accept all of your feelings regardless of whether they are "rational". In Harriet Goldhor Lerner's book THE DANCE OF ANGER she makes the comparison to thirst and anger. People do not judge why they are thirsty, even if they just had a glass of water. They just accept that they are still thirsty and look for a solution (in this case, drink more water, and perhaps if excessive thirst continues look to see if there is an underlying medical problem).

So there is tricky footwork here, in sorting all of this out. Accepting reactions and emotions, but not acting on them or judging them; questioning each aspect, and following the path the answers lead as far as you can. And it is really stunning, once you begin doing this, how complicated this can be. Moreover, their is usually a "payoff" that you may or may not realise you've been getting, Usually, in my personal experience, that you are "right" and the other party, in this example, your spouse, is "wrong."

And being "right" is heady stuff. It vindicates and validates. It counterbalances all of those times when you were "wrong"-- especially in situations where you do not have power to defend yourself, perhaps at work when your boss reprimanded you, or at your parent's house, etc. There are people who cling so tightly to being "right" they cannot take any criticism or rejection at all. On a cultural level this can lead to intolerance and even hate. (I will let you come up with your own examples.)

I think, for the most part, that the reason positive thought often fails, or worse, creates more feelings of failure and despair, or makes a negative situation worse, is that many people find that core beliefs are difficult to change. Especially if you don't understand where those beliefs originate. Also, positive thought is often used as a defense mechanism against despair or fear of a certain outcome or situation. Without uprooting the source of the despair or fear, "positive thinking" can actually become a force of resistance that strengthens the situation you are trying to overcome.

Now, there is a school of thought, proposed by Joseph Murphy among others, that by simply visualising what you desire--regardless of your belief that you can have it, are worthy of it, etc--- that you can change your reality. He is very specific about how you must visualise: in great detail, as if it is happening to you at that moment, and you must believe that you can have it while you are visualising. His books are filled with anecdotes about people who succeeded using this technique.

Like another guru of mine, Louise L. Hay, he was a minister of the Church of Religious Science. (If I had to pick only one book to recommend, it would be Hay's book YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE. See my post RECOMMENDED READING.) She also believes that visualisation can change any life circumstance. She is living proof, having cured herself of cancer, among other "negative thought patterns". The underlying foundation of her philosophy, though, is self-love. She believes (as do I) that once you learn to love yourself unconditionally you will automatically draw that which you need/want/desire to your life.

She further believes, and I concur, that once you learn to love yourself unconditionally you will be able to love others unconditionally. And that is the reason we are here. That is why we are here on this planet.

Each one of us is special and unique, and each one of us has something to contribute. By becoming who we are truly are-- by clearing away the need to be right, but staying centred in each moment as it comes, by accepting ourselves and each other unconditionally, and by making personal happiness a priority-- we will automatically draw that which we need/desire into our lives.

We will become more truly who we really are on the highest spiritual level.

More secrets in my next post. Until then,

PRAISES, THANKS, & BLESSINGS