I went to my bank yesterday to make a deposit. As I was walking out, I took a cookie. Sometimes they have oatmeal raisin, but yesterday it was chocolate chip. I’m allergic to gluten, so I can’t eat cookies, bread, or anything that contains wheat. Heck, even soy sauce has wheat.
So why’d I take the cookie?
I thought my wife, Holly, might enjoy it. This morning I’m back at the office, and I take out the cookie from my bag. It’s crumbled up. At first I thought, “Darn it, I forgot to take this out at home.” And I felt a little bummed out, because I’d rather give her a cookie that looks nice rather than a cookie that looks like I played tennis with it.
I decided that this bummed out feeling wasn’t going to help me. So I quickly countered the thought with, “What’s a more useful thought?” And I decided that I would leverage this crumbled cookie thought: I decided that I would bake some gluten-free bread for us to enjoy. My useful question gave me an uplifting answer. And I decided I would post to my blog about this, too. So I created two good things out of a crumbled cookie.
Before I learned a lot about hypnosis, I would have handled this cookie situation differently.
Back in my much younger days, I would have stewed over it. I was the master of gloom and doom, toil and trouble, eye of newt, and problem bubbles. I excelled at creating an unhappy life. I could take minor events and build them into great big events in my mind, and then I could really feel unhappy.
In fact, the NAUPWF (National Association for Unhappy People with Wide Feet) awarded me first prize in their annual unhappiness competition. I won a nice trophy, a pair of shoes that actually fit well, and magazine subscriptions to Consumer Reports and Good Housekeeping. The runner-up got a lifetime supply of Turtle Wax and a Chia Pet.
How was I so skilled at unhappiness?
I had a nice set of formulas that I didn’t realize at the time.
- Let other people press my buttons. Give them the power to control my emotions.
- Let external events determine how I felt each day. It wasn’t a choice; it was up to chance.
- Set expectations for others, the world, and myself. And when expectations weren’t met, feel badly about it.
But after a lot of unhappiness, I started to study mental technologies, including hypnosis. I figured out that my happiness doesn’t depend upon what other people think. My happiness doesn’t depend on whether a “good” thing happens to me or not. I realized that my happiness is a choice rather than a purely external thing.
And that realization went from being a nice bit of information to a core belief in my subconscious mind. And that opened up a new world for me. I could be happy by choice? Wow! What a concept!
By the way, I’m not ignoring people or the external world.
Instead, I don’t let the external world dictate my happiness level. I do my best to keep a baseline level of happiness, and let the external world increase my happiness level, but rarely do I let the external world decrease my baseline happiness for an extended period.
It took me a long time to develop the happiness skills, because I fumbled my way through the wilderness. Does having more happiness make me immune to sadness, anger, self-pity, etc.? Nope. But instead of dwelling in the mental swamp for long periods, I can choose to get out of the swamp and walk elsewhere much more quickly.
In part two, I’ll chat about specific steps to increase happiness.