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11. How to Control Your Emotions
Emotions reflect your inner state at any particular moment. If you
are angry or unhappy about something, you find expression through
your words or your mood displays your emotions. Similarly, if you
are ecstatic or overly happy about something, your exuberance
displays your innermost feeling of happiness. Therefore, your outer
self or your face is the mirror of your emotions.
In all, you hold the key to control your emotions. You can choose to
become angry or happy over a situation. It could be to your liking or
not. However, controlling your emotions changes the face of the
situation and your mirror like face depicts your inner self.
Factors helpful in controlling your Emotions
You need to have a commitment towards your inner self to remain
happy in any situation. Rather, you have to try to locate sources of
happiness even in your dreariest and anguishing moments. If you
start developing negative feelings, dissuade them and instead,
concentrate on identifying anything positive. This makes not only
you a happy person, it also bring happiness to others.
Emotions are a reflection of your inner mind. Therefore, your inner-
self decides the outcome of any event. The event is no doubt an
external occurrence but your perception of that event comes from
within you. Hence, your thoughts and feelings govern your
emotions.
To control your emotions, you need to control your feelings. You can
do this by instilling positive thoughts, creating a positive
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atmosphere around you, and overcoming negativities everywhere.
You cannot disown or refuse to accept the presence of negativity. It
is only your self-power to overcome negativity and recognize the
presence and effects of optimism.
Your speech displays your inner emotions. Hence, modulate your
speech to express confidence in large measures. Avoid excuses, as
they are a direct reflection of your stress and inabilities. It also
shows your helplessness in a situation.
Convert your beliefs in to your speech pattern and use them to deal
with any eventualities. A self-confident person can take over all
obstacles and progress on the path to achieving happiness for
yourself and others.
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12. The External and Internal
Routes to Happiness
Every person wants to be happy in life. However, happiness is
something that may prove to be difficult to attain. A person may be
highly successful, yet he or she may be living with deep sadness.
Though happiness eludes many of us, there are things that we can
do to achieve it. Some routes to happiness are external, while some
are internal. The external routes may include any action or
association in relation to our external environment. Our external
activities like eating, sleeping, talking, playing, working, etc. have
their bearing on our inner being. When we are feeling low, some of
these activities may prove to be effective in lifting our spirits. For
instance, taking up a new hobby such as playing golf or joining a
music band or just learning to cook some new dish may have
magical effect on your state of mind.
In our external activities, we can set different kinds of goals to
ourselves and pursue those with passion. These goals may include
earning money, making friends, getting a particular job or attaining
a goal or a material possession. We attain happiness when we set
some goal and achieve it through our efforts.
With the external elements, our inner being also plays an important
role in deciding whether we are happy or not. The internal route to
happiness revolves around our entire thought process and mental
makeup. A person needs to have a strong internal world to remain
happy, because we are what we think we are.
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To be happy, it is important to develop a higher self-esteem. It
allows one to love self and others. Another important requirement is
to develop a positive worldview. Rather than being upset over the
things that we have not attained, we should learn to appreciate the
things that we have gained. Being positive towards life and
overcoming the negative thought process is necessary for
happiness. You should have good role models and take inspiration
from their stories of struggle and triumph.
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13. Using Self-Exploration and Problem-Solving
Skills to Achieve Happiness
Being happy may prove to be too difficult a task. It may take our
greatest efforts to attain happiness. Even though there is no magic
formula for happiness, we can try some external and internal routes
to happiness. The external routes may vary from taking up a yoga
class or making new friends. The internal routes, on the other hand,
revolve around our entire thought process and mental makeup.
These external and internal routes increase the possibilities of our
being happy.
There is hardly an end to problems and challenges. We keep
confronting them all the time. We may be feeling mentally down
due to health problems, broken relationships or serious losses of
money. Even negative thoughts, inner conflicts and other
unpleasant events could rob us off our happiness. Happiness lies in
exploring and applying our capabilities to tackle these problems and
challenges.
However, we need to accept the fact that adding a few positive
activities into a very unhappy life could not be the ultimate solution.
We can use several "stress reduction techniques" and positive activities to tackle the problems in hand. These could include
physical exercise, relaxation training, and visualization techniques.
These activities help us effectively deal with our negative emotions.
However, permanent happiness may not come even after taking up
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root of the problems that we face. These positive activities could
supplement our efforts to find actual solutions to our problems.
If a person is depressed due to loss of job, simple relaxation or
watching a movie could not be of much use. These activities could
provide temporary relief to the person. However, for regaining
happiness, the person has to do something to get a job. In such a
situation, it is advisable to explore his potential and the existing
avenues for finding a better job. Happiness would return once the
person gets a job using his or her problem solving skills.
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14. Six Steps to Find the Underlying,
Internal Causes of Unhappiness
When we feel low, we may feel better using some external routes
like playing cards or listening to music. However, for lasting
happiness, it is important to find out the underlying, internal causes
of happiness.
The following are six steps for finding out these causes:
1. Developing a positive frame of mind
Positive mindset and rational outlook are important for tackling any
problem or challenge. Fearing a problem means losing half the
battle. Therefore, you should approach the problem with courage.
However, you should also be realistic while handling it. You should
always be ready to face the truth.
2. Analyzing problem situations
A thorough analysis of a problem situation could help you find out
the solution. Have a close look at the sequences and patterns of the
events. It will allow you find out how the problem occurred and how
best you can handle it.
3. Listening to the inner voice
Emotions are the directing forces for us. They tell us what things are
important for us. In a conscious level, we may sometime fail to
identify some threats to our expectations, goals, beliefs or inner
values. However, some inner part would be aware of such threats
and they would direct us through the emotions.
4. Identifying connections with emotions
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Many times, we fail to identify different connections with emotions
that may lead us to happiness. While some associated thoughts
have the potential of bringing us happiness, we remain unmindful to
those.
5. Identifying values and beliefs
As you search the roots of your unhappiness, you will start
uncovering the underlying issues and subparts, which are
responsible for the problems. Identification of these issues and
subparts would help you find out a reasonable solution.
6. Setting boundaries of responsibility and control
For solving the emotional issues, it is important to clarify the
boundaries of control and responsibility. We need to remember that
we cannot control the behavior and action of other people around
us. It is our responsibility to control our own behavior in a
reasonable way and find happiness. Getting rid of expectations from
others would help find the underlying, internal causes of happiness.
Many times you have expectations of others and they fail you.
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15. How to Make Radical or Lifestyle
Changes to Attain Greater Happiness
A person may need some radical changes in personality and
lifestyle to cope with some undesirable circumstances. When the
chips are down and things are not going the way we want, some
change can help us cope with the situation and attain happiness.
However, people usually believe that radical lifestyle changes are
either impossible or extremely difficult to make. Even many
psychologists believe that way. They believe that it takes some time
to assess a person’s personality and it takes years to bring radical
changes to his or her personality.
However, we keep encountering incidents where people suddenly
put a stop to certain behaviors in a radical way. It could leave them
happier. For instance, you could see somebody taking drugs for
years and one fine day you would find him or her suddenly stopping
to take drugs. After quitting drugs, many people lead a normal life
leaving the past behind and concentrating on some productive work.
You will find many such cases of radical changes in identity, values,
goals and their behavior.
People making such radical changes in their lifestyle and behavior
pattern usually refer to this whole phenomenon as conversion
experience. You would find many people describing their changes as
results of achieving some basic insight or finding a new direction in
life.
It may not be easy to make some radical changes to attain
happiness. However, it is not impossible either. People making such
changes usually do it in a very brief period - often in a day. A
sudden commitment to change allows them to wipe off their past
and start life afresh. However, it is important to consider this
commitment to change as the most important value in life. It would
enable to move on with the changed behavior pattern. Positive
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radical lifestyle changes bring us new sets of values, priorities and
view of life. All these enable us to work towards the well-being of
self and others.
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16. How to Know What Will Make You Happy
The road to happiness often proves to be too difficult for many.
The reason we fail to attain happiness is the fact that we fail to
identify things that make us happy.
We can consider the reasons of happiness in relation to three
different types of mind systems. These are - pleasure and pain
(related to lower brain centers), reason and emotion (related to the
cognitive system), and empathy and love (related to the Higher
Self).
Usually we use pleasure and pain as decision guides in our regular
affairs. However, though pleasure indicates fulfillment of the bodily
needs, it has certain limitations as a decision guide. Our lower brain
centers send out messages about out bodily needs through pleasure
and pain. They tell us when we need food, sleep, heat, cold and so
on. We need to respond to these messages with appropriate actions
to feel pleasure and avoid pain. Even though pleasure makes us
content, it can hardly give us long-term happiness. We may buy
bodily pleasure using our resources, yet we may remain unhappy.
Reason and emotion are other important elements as decision
guides. They relate to our cognitive domain and are above the
principle of pleasure and pain. The cognitive system allows us to
view our external and internal environments from a broader
perspective. We feel happy if our cognitive system finds that we
have been able to fulfill our needs. It is important to have harmony
within the cognitive system to be happy.
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Our higher self is the supreme factor in deciding whether we are
happy or not. The higher self is our inner hero that defines the
concepts of anxiety and happiness for us. It allows us to have the
feelings of empathy and love. The higher self allows us to think and
work towards attaining happiness for self and others. To be happy
in life, it is important to follow the higher self that often expresses as a positive inner voice. For instance, you may feel a pang while
going to do something that is wrong. That pang itself is the inner
voice and your higher self.
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17. How to Resolve Your
Conflicts to Bring Happiness
Your physical body and inner self work in perfect coordination and
harmony to conduct your life. Self-actualizing people lead the lives
with the greatest satisfaction and contentment. Such people have
the most productive and happiest lives. Hence, you need to
understand the foundation of their lives to understand the source of
their contentment.
Many associate coordinated functioning to be the root cause for a
conflict-free existence. Such functioning stems from the self relating
to the Higher Self. Religion and associated beliefs help you connect
to the Higher Self. You then find the answers to most of your
conflicts through such connection with the Higher Self.
Another set of people try to simplify religious beliefs and code them
as essential rules of living. They instill such codes for your daily life.
Many accept these codes and follow them blindly. You cannot follow
specific rules and find harmony in your relationships. Rules are only
a means to attain harmony and locate a peaceful end to your
conflicts. Following rules as if it is the voice of God is being
irrational. You need to believe in the rules and then follow them to
resolve your conflicts of mind and heart.
Rules of the highest level insist on giving happiness to self and
others. If your religious rules at any time collide with the basic rule of humanity to love all and spread happiness amongst all, then it is
not a rule at all. You cannot follow such rules or gain any
harmonious end to your conflicts.
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Following rules blindly robs your life of any surprises, enjoyment,
and enthusiasm. Instead, it gives you depression. This erases all
your chances of being happy. Being honest to yourself is an
essential element to attain your happiness.
You need to make a conscious decision to be honest about yourself.
You should never hide the truth from yourself. Analyze yourself
honestly to understand your true self. Your dishonesty creates a
conflict within yourself and leads to depression. Hence, you need to
choose your belief to be truthful to your inner self and resolve all
your conflicts emerging a happier person.
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18. Self-Actualization –
Learn to Attain Higher Self Power
There are times in our life when we wonder who we really are and
we keep searching for the purpose of our life. There are times when
you say things that you do not mean, and do things, which you wish
you had not done. At times, we feel there are some ideas that lie
deep down, in our minds but are left unexpressed. One can be most
aware of these areas of our own mind if we talk with ourselves.
Attaining Higher Self means maximum realization of your own self-
including your own strengths and weaknesses. As your higher self
continues to grow stronger, it will bring you inner peace and
contentment. It makes you more confident and a better human
being as a whole.
The process involves changing a certain habits. The Higher Self is
however, selective about the habits it changes. The habits that are
not in tone with the set ideal principles of Higher Self need to be
changed, whereas those, which strengthen one’s inner self, are to
be maintained. For some people, this might bring a huge change in
their lifestyle, which is very difficult to adjust within a short period.
People who face extremely difficult circumstances reach deep inside
and find inner strength that they were unaware they owned. There
have been instances of patients who were on their deathbed, but
recovered completely from their diseases due to outstanding
willpower and tremendous strength of character. These are nothing
but instances where the Higher Self has demonstrated its great
value.
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Dr. Abraham Maslow, is an expert who has described characteristics
of ‘O ur essential inner nature’, which is synonymous to definition of Higher Self. He has discussed how its initially fragile character could be repressed, but not lost entirely.
Maslow says that one cannot love others until he or she learns to
love their own self. He came up with some self-actualization
metavalues like wholeness, perfection, completion, justice,
aliveness, richness, simplicity, beauty, goodness, uniqueness,
effortlessness, playfulness, truth, and self-sufficiency.
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19. How to Imagine and Create an
Internal Model of Happiness in Your Mind
There is an old saying, which says that, ‘ a man becomes what he
believes he can.’ Similarly, the world around every one of us is the same. The difference lies in our perception. Little do we realize that
this perception is what makes all the difference in shaping up of our
entire lives.
Consider how unhappy some people are despite having all the
materialistic pleasures and how happy some people are in spite of
having nothing. There are examples of famous people who have
been miserable or even committed suicide despite having great
amounts of money, love, fame, friends, attention, and success in
their fields.
No one else can give you happiness. Happiness comes from inside.
You can be given material possessions and someone can give you
unconditional love, which is wonderful, but to find happiness you
need to set goals, and reach goals. You need to find a basic
contentment inside yourself and know that you are worthy of giving
and receiving love.
At the end of the day, the truth remains that in this fast life, we
tend to lose ourselves in the external world and tend to forget the
entire world that lies inside us. The world that focuses on the purity
of your soul is always being overshadowed by the external world.
If we try to analyze the situation, it will be seen that we never
experience the external world directly. Our focus on the external
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world actually consists of pre-conceived internal perceptions and
thoughts. It does not consist of the external world events
themselves, but our views associated with those events.
Throughout our life, our mind is always filled with various thoughts.
It is almost impossible that our mind goes completely blank and
becomes devoid of all the thoughts. Thoughts directly establish our
emotions. Our positive emotions like love, joy, and happiness and
negative emotions such as anxiety, anger, and depression play an
instrumental role in deciding how we react to our external
conditions and hence shape up our external world.
Right from the day we are born, we are being exposed to various
emotions and thoughts. The lifelong experiences and the kind of
environment that we are subjected to determine the person that we
become. However, after a certain extent it is entirely our
perceptional choice while building our image of our environment.
If we decide to create a world full of beauty, harmony, love, truth,
and happiness in our mind, then we will actually start to live in that
world! Similarly, if our perception of the world consists of ugliness,
conflict, hate, falsehood, and unhappiness, then that will hold true
for us. In short, your world will be built based on your own
imagination and hence one must learn to think positive and create a
world of happiness, w