Now that we have discussed the more specific and common problems of how to address pride, envy, craving, wanting, grasping, jealousy, anger, worry, and feeling guilty, all of which hijack your mind, we are can now move on to how to control and choose our mood.
Believe me when I say you always have the choice to be in a good mood or a bad mood. You can control how you feel and behave.
We often focus on a few circumstances that are not going well instead of all those that are. Instead focus on all the good things in your life rather than dwelling disproportionately on the things you wish you could change.
For example, we leave our comfortable homes and family in the morning to enjoy a full and blessed day in our life, be it work or play. We set off full of optimism and good spirits and then our peace of mind can be spoiled by being caught in a rain shower or discovering a scratch on our car. Look at the broad picture and see we have so many positive things in our life, and many if not most other people on the planet especially in the third world have far worse problems. We are as happy about our lot in life as we choose to be. It is morally wrong to take all the good things in our life for granted.
In the same vein, do not keep telling others about what is ‘wrong’ with your life. You are the sum total of what you have thought so you are the one who will keep hearing all this negative energy about your life!
We should not expect our lives to be perfect. But try to understand that what we see as imperfections are usually small and insignificant and meaningless in the context of the totality of our lives. In any case these imperfections for example the broken off car wing mirror, your wallet or purse being stolen, the snappy negative comment from our friend, the inconvenient rain shower- these were always how it was going to be, and your mind cannot control that- as much as it might like to. When you see your life in perspective you will start to see that overall it is in fact ‘pretty much perfect’. And when you start to develop enduring inner happiness you will definitely start to feel that ‘life is perfect’. Being happy does not depend on everything being perfect. It means that you have made the conscious decision to see beyond the imperfections.
Really start to feel the excitement of living and life and its richness of opportunity. In the brief time that we are here you cannot scratch the surface of what there is to do. Wake up to each new day with the excitement of a child in your heart and make a plan to fill it with worthwhile and affirming work and play. Live your life with total enthusiasm as if you were rushing along beside a beautiful river or canal where you cannot wait to see what is around the next bend.
If it works for you use your favourite music to lift your spirits. Never underestimate the power of music to induce mood change. How does it work? How can some music instantly lift your spirits into the Heavens such that you are full of love for life and everybody? It's actually very simple. Uplifting music suppresses negative thought and emotion and frees you to live in the moment and see reality i.e. just how wonderful it is to be alive.
However always remember to make listening to music or the news or watching TV etc a conscious and positive choice with a beginning and an end and not merely a mindless habit. You will not be able to have a successful relationship with yourself and be aware of your thoughts if you fall into the trap that so many people do nowadays of never turning the TV or iPod off and so it is always in the background bombarding and distracting your senses. More and more people, who underneath are not happy, are unable to just ‘be’ and feel restless and uneasy when they are unoccupied or not being bombarded by media. This is a symptom of the underlying problem that when such people are free to think they are swept away by negative emotions and so seek to block out their thoughts.
If you like reading newspapers and listening to or watching the news a particular issue to watch out for is media - induced downward spirals of depressing perceptions of how ‘bad everything has become’, 'how everything has gone mad', what a ‘mess everything is ' etc when such attacks on your peace of mind are designed to push your buttons for their own ends i.e. circulation or numbers of listeners / viewers. Little good comes from such sessions of depressed thoughts about political and social matters when you usually cannot do anything about them, and the story is being simplistically misrepresented to you anyway for maximum impact. And trust me everybody feels disillusioned, angry and disappointed by the behaviour of the banks and bankers who have caused the global financial crisis but you can do little about it and no good comes from letting it get to you.
Be able to manage your emotions and not be hijacked by them for example paralysed by depression or swept away by anger. Similarly avoid being driven by uncontrolled negative emotions such as anger, irritation, worry, excessive pride, hatred and jealousy. Envy and jealousy derive from the inability to rejoice in someone else’s achievements or success. The truth is that envy and jealousy are absurd since someone else’s happiness cannot deprive us of anything. This is just another example of the ego being wounded.
Do not be affected by minor irritations. Do not believe that when these occur you have been personally singled out! Have the wisdom to know that for example when you are in a traffic jam, you are not really in a jam, you are the jam just as much as everybody else who is in it. Most of the time, 99% of our situation and circumstances are wonderful. We are deluding ourselves when we concentrate only on what we perceive to be bad. When your mind is trying to tell you that something is a ‘problem’ and that we should be unhappy about it, for example unwelcome noise, boisterous children, rain, heat, etc, say to yourself, “What if everything was OK? What if this were alright? What if nothing around you holds any power to make you unhappy?”
I invite you now to start to realise that the basis of inner peace and happiness is the very absence of all negative emotions.
From now onwards I would like you to make these affirmations every day.
I will strive to be:
I will start each day with a positive thought to set the tone.