Happy

Ask Yourself Whether You Are Happy? Then Notice That When You Do, You Cease To Be So ¾ The Laws Of Paradox At Work!

A long time ago, long before I ever considered writing these lines, I made an interesting discovery.  At the time of making it, it was more of an observation than a discovery. It took all the intervening time for me to realize I had made a discovery, I suppose it was the slowest epiphany on record. 

What I also discovered was that most people have been aware of this phenomenon since the dawn of time. 

Yet, I think the word discovery is appropriate, because even though it was well known, I had never come across it described or theoretically explained in any of the psychological, sociological, philosophical or psychiatric literature I had studied over the years: which in my case primarily happens to be psychology. 

So, directly or indirectly, or intentionally or unintentionally, I spent the intervening 20 or so years, nearly a quarter century, investigating this elusive phenomenon, through the facility of my practice of psychotherapy.

Here is the observation I had noticed a long time ago; happiness is not something that happens randomly.  This thing has form and it follows rules and they seem to be:

·       Happiness does not happen because of good luck or because the fickle finger of fate picks you out for some grand event.  No one is special and conversely no one is non-special. 

·       Happiness is not something that can be purchased nor can it be controlled or for that matter caused to occur on command by some grand authority.  Although many have tried.

·       Happiness does not depend on the world about us, although conversely the world about us can affect some of the various outcomes of its occurrences.

·       Happiness seems to be more an interpretation of the world both about us and within us, with all of this being taken in some sort of strange mix or recipe that is constantly changing and is difficult to replicate.  The formula might not work the second time the way it did the first time.

·       Happiness, in fact, seems to be a condition that we must be prepared for, that we must cultivate and nurture, and then be prepared, if necessary to de­fend, but not from a place of unity but rather from a place of deep privacy¾as an individual. 

·       The variations on the happiness formulas seem to be more effective with those people who have learned to work with inner experience(s). It seems that they will, to a certain degree, be able to determine the quality of their lives as it relates to having or not having happiness.

·       The ability to determine the having or not having of the presence of happiness seems to be as close as any of us can come to causing happy to happen.  It can be a conscious decision to be or not to be, pardon the pun, but not always.

·       It also seems a given that we cannot reach happiness by consciously searching for it.  The very effort of trying to search for it seems to defeat our every effort to have or possess it.  Happiness cannot be owned; it can only be experienced.

·       Happiness seems to be the process of being fully involved with every detail of your life, subjectively not objectively. 

·       The key statement in describing the process of being involved in life seems to be as completely as possible, and completely as possible does not seem to depend on any opinion or definition of what is good or bad or how those cognitive markers of good or bad are held in the mind of the beholder.  Just because you are prepared to fight to the death for your beliefs doesn’t mean they are true.

·       Happiness seems to occur because of the intensity of the involvement with life and not in the outcomes that intensity seems to want to provide so that it could be easily seen and judged by others. 

·       Degree of intensity of the involvement necessary to induce happiness will vary from individual to individual as well as from situation-to-situation.  Thus it follows that degrees of intensity i.e. very intense to mildly intense are not markers that can determine the outcome of creating happiness.  It is just a necessary factor that varies from time to time. 

·       The Laws Of Paradox seems to affect the outcome of having some or not; for instance: don't aim for it because the Laws Of Paradox will tend to cause you to increase the size and shape of the target you have set for yourself and then at the same time cause you to miss with greater frequency.  Something like Chinese handcuffs, the harder you try the more difficult it becomes. 

·       Happiness and success cannot be pursued for their own sake.

·       Happiness and success, to be most effective must sneak up from behind and envelop us ... It is something that happens to us while we are busy doing something else … as the inadvertent, unintentional after-effect of our efforts to simply get on with the business of being ourselves and by doing whatever is next simply because it is there and needs to be done.  Then this seems to need to be taken into consideration with the effort made by the individual to be willing to work in the shadow of his or her spiritual self and then deliberately attempting to work with the spiritual forces of the Greater Way of Things.

·       Again paradox.  The Art of Trying Not to Try.

·       So how can we reach this elusive goal that cannot be attained by a direct route?  My practice and practices of the past 20 or so years has convinced me that there is a way. 

·       It is a circuitous path of going nowhere the long way in search of someone who was not lost and there all along … You. And it can only begin with a willingness by the participant to want to make the journey.

Wish

ON MAKING A LIFE WISH

Excerpts from a conversation with Dr. Kenneth R. Pelletier; author of Mind as Healer, Mind as Slayer; Longevity; Holistic Medicine; and Healthy People in Unhealthy Places.  Dr. Pelletier's study is in longevity has taken him around the world in the pursuit of his studies.

Dr. Pelletier:

           Traditionally, calling something psychosomatic, saying it is in your head is dismissing it. As if something that's "all in the head" is not really there or anywhere at all.

          However, more and more we're coming to see that all states of, health and illness are in some way psychosomatic.  Not in the sense that they're imaginary, either, but in the sense they all involve mental and physical factors.

QUESTION:

          How can the mind make someone ill?

Dr. Pelletier:

          .....Among those factors nutrition, exercise, stress, genetic predisposition, psychosocial factors, purely medical factors like injury or infection.  The question is, do some of those become disproportionate influences that result in illness, or do they all maintain an optimal balance which results in health?

          What I believe happens is that you begin with certain level of stress which most of us are under all the time.  Long-term, unabated stress.  Then along comes a "life stress event".  You suddenly get an accumulation of stress that precipitates the original condition into real illness.  For example, you might have a family history of hypertension and you're under a constant level of stress at your job.  So your blood pressure is slightly elevated.  Suddenly, one or more stressful life events take place and your blood pressure might zoom up to an alarming high point, resulting in dizziness, headaches or worse.

          Then, you can have a certain type of personality or psychological makeup that predisposes you to develop a specific kind of disorder.  Again, it is not the cause, but it is an influence.  One of many.  And in order to treat a person, we've got to unravel all the influences and go back and untangle the whole skein.

QUESTION:

          Let's talk about programming yourself for success, for health.

Dr. Pelletier:

          There is no specific recipe.  There are some people who can drink, smoke, carry on, eat bad food, live in the worst possible toxic environment - and live to 100.  And there are people who stringently adhere to every single thing I am about to talk about - and die at 30 of ill health.

          If I had to choose the single most important factor, the one major predictor of longevity and health, it would have to be the pyscho-social environment I create for myself, perhaps, because it so deeply involves the consciousness of the individual.  It is important to stay involved and curious about life, your own life, and the life around you.  You have to feel fulfilled, that your life has meaning, that it's important for you to be alive.  You need a life wish.

SO WHAT IS YOUR LIFE WISH??????

I’m well along on my path now.

I’ve really traveled quite a piece. 

I'm now doing whatever needs to be done in the fashion it seems to need doing. 

It is my belief now, that as I follow my spiritual practices that all this being done stuff is being done in conjunction with my Higher Power’s will for me. 

I have come to learn that I have always been in the perfectly right place for me to be, even in the face of what sometimes appears to be overwhelming evidence to the contrary, at least in my mind anyway. 

It warms my heart to have real friends, people who actually enjoy me as much I enjoy them. 

My world is now a wonderful place.  The grass is still green as it always was and the sun still rises in the east as it always has, but I see things so differently now.

Imagine that, knowing I am in exactly the right place at exactly the right time doing exactly the right thing. Now that is confidence isn’t it? 

As I come upon a mystical stream, I notice someone struggling with a metaphorical backpack.  I wonder what is next in line for me today. I sit down beside him and ask:

“Are you looking for someone?

How Can I Help?”