Your Perspective Your Reality
Understand this fact: It is your perspective that will determine if something is good or bad. “It’s never the problem; the issue is how you SEE the problem”. Your happiness will be a result of choices you make to see the world in a certain way. And we make those choices within every second. This is why so many studies repeatedly prove that 90 percent of our problems stem from how we see things. The philosophical question “Is the glass half full or half empty?” does not do justice to the power of perspective. The simple truth is that events happen—what makes them bad or good is simply what you decide to think or believe about them.
Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but so are problems. That can be hard to swallow; we want our anger and frustration validated, not debunked as a figment of our perception! Most of us have been building stories for years around why things happened. “Why me?” “I hate my life; nothing ever goes right!” These beliefs are as deadly to your mental health as a daily diet of bacon would be to your body! This is a habit that you will learn to break through. I have devised powerful, insightful questions that will help you see through all of the stories, myths, and BS that you have built creating “your story”. The workbook portion of the book Wired To Worry has been carefully woven into each chapter to allow you, the reader, a safe way to explore the inner workings of your belief system. This is what will allow you to see your “real life”, not the story about your life, that you have been telling yourself.
Expectations = Disappointment
Imagine being at home and something happens that really disappoints you. You are totally bummed. You put the TV on and what you see playing are all the times you have been let down or disappointed! You are stunned as you sit there watching when suddenly you can’t believe how bad your life is. Well, this is what happens in your mind whenever a situation arises that triggers any kind of negative reaction in you. Your memory jumps in and says, “Wait a minute, we have felt this before, let me show you!” and it begins to replay similar past events. But why? To validate the fear, sadness, or anger you are currently feeling. It’s job is to recall past experiences of whatever your mind seems to be focused on in the moment. That is how you know what to do this time. Well, that is helpful when you are lost trying to remember what direction to go, or seeing something move in the bushes so you know whether to run or not. But other than that, it can often be more harmful.
Up till now you have gone right along with these images, allowing them to “rub salt in the wound”, as they say. But after working through the questions and exercises in the book, you will catch what is going on before your head digs up every memory of having been treated unfairly.
Disappointment is a direct reflection of expectations. Expectations subtly sneak in, hanging around in the background. They are a result of you making subconscious decisions to expect an outcome of some sort. Becoming aware of these expectations early on is the key to avoiding these kinds of setbacks that can plague your mood all day long. When things go wrong, it takes real effort to break the habit of weaving an entire story of injustice around a new disappointment. We want reasons to make sense of failures or disappointments. It makes the brain happy to know why things don’t go right, so human beings find solace in feeling that we know our future. Good or bad, it gives our life a sense of predictability, making us feel somewhat more secure and stable. This good feeling is because of the specific brain chemical being released in the brain, but when you understand this process you will be able to trigger that same brain chemical with other healthier behaviors, to give you that sense of safety and security. It takes practice to learn to listen to what is going on in your subconscious, but this is the key to real serenity. It is not hard, it just takes a little bit of focus each day.
I will teach you the keys behind disarming disappointments. For example, before disappointment strikes, you must be vigilant in reminding yourself that setting your hopes on one particular event or occurrence is dangerous, unnecessary, and misleading. No event will make you happy forever! Everything is transient and passes. You will learn how to spot even the most subtle expectations that you hold onto, so you can let them go and not feel like it is a personal assault when you are sitting in traffic. You will learn the trick behind not clinging to outcomes.
A research study found that Danish people are the happiest on earth, and the reason was that they have very modest expectations. They understand that life owes them nothing and that when things go well, it is a blessing. They are living proof that keeping an attitude of appreciation and gratitude reduces stress and frustration.