WATCH THIS VIDEO BEFORE READING ANY FURTHER...
Ask 100 people what they want out of life and invariably there will be the response - to be happy!
(the following is taken from the forthcoming book The Secret to Your Future History)
You need to think carefully about what happiness is for you.
Research has shown that once some basic living needs are met and there is a small degree of financial security an increase in terms of money (wealth) does not increase personal measures of ‘happiness’.
By the same token any relief of sadness obtained through ‘retail therapy’ is both short lived and can lead to personal recrimination for having ‘wasted money’.
In terms of focussing on long term financial gains, studies have shown that individuals often underestimate the time they spend on obtaining such gains, at the expense of other things which have no financial reward (family life and health for example). The end result is a generalised sense of unhappiness.
We also note from research that happiness is not achieved by simply repressing or avoiding the things that cause pain and burying them in overly positive affirmations.
By way of a direct example…
Don’t think of a Pink Elephant…
The mind cannot process a negative, so simply trying to not think about the things we ‘believe’ make us unhappy is a pointless task. The pink elephant proves it - right!
So, practical keys to discovering your own happiness…
Well if we take note of what Buddhist teaching affirm, we need to develop a series of personal values, attitudes and practices which remind us of our own response-abilities. If tranquillity, peace of mind, focus and ability find a middle-path are considered as measures of, or even routes to, happiness then there must be something to consider there.
Mindfulness practices, as shown in numerous studies, are beneficial in terms of stress-reduction - stress, perhaps being a ‘happiness killer’.
Psychologists who have been involved in the study of cognitive behaviourism have noted that ‘attention’ is a far more complex thing than we think it is. Where we place our attention, the unconscious processes which tell us what to ‘pay attention to’ and ‘what to ignore’ are important here.
In what is now a classic experiment observers were asked to watch a video of students throwing a ball. (the one at the beginning of this article).
They were given the task of counting the number of times the student in the white T-shirt caught (or threw) the ball.
At the end of the film observers were asked to report the number of throws/catches they had counted - most of the people were able to recount a number which matched the number in the film.
They were then asked if they had seen ‘the Gorilla’ - almost everyone (around 95%) said ‘no’.
When they were shown the video clip again, a short way into the sequence, a person in a Gorilla suit is seen to walk through the circle of catchers/throwers; stand in the middle, beat their chest, and walk off slowly. This was not a trick - the ‘gorilla’ was there on the first viewing of the clip.
However, because the focus of the activity was the counting of the catches/throws, the mind deleted the information that was ‘the gorilla’.
The original video, is now world-famous and was designed by Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris. You can check out their book and website for more information (http://ift.tt/14ydmWJ)
Conscious Attention is a limited commodity. In a classic piece of work George Millar demonstrated that we can only pay conscious attention to between 5 and 9 ‘chunks’ of information - the rest is processed unconsciously or even ‘deleted’ from your experience of the world.
Noting what you pay attention to in your surroundings, your work, your relationships is a good place to start considering what you are missing. A saying I use frequently, which I believe to be a ‘truism’ and stems from the research of cognitive behaviourists, is - attention goes where emotion flows.
So, if you are in a situation where you feel threatened, your attention will be directed towards possible sources of physical or emotional ‘attack’.
Your unconscious will select where to place your attention and you will be on ‘high alert’. Such an internal state will affect what you see, hear, feel and understand.
If you are aware of this possibility, you can allow yourself to direct your attention (consciously) elsewhere and so, perhaps, have a completely different perspective on the same situation.
In one experiment psychologists asked volunteers to end each day by creating a list.
One group were asked to list five events that had happened during the day; another group was asked to make a list of five things that annoyed them and a third group were asked to make a list of things they felt grateful for.
Follow-up questionnaires relating to feelings of ‘happiness’ and ‘personal value’ found that those who had made the list of things they were grateful for scored more highly than the other two groups.
What could be easier than creating your own daily ‘gratitude list’?
Earlier it was suggested that ‘retail therapy’ produced a fairly short-term change in terms of ‘being happy’.
Well that is generally true, with one key exception. The ‘purchasing’ of ‘experiences’ has a longer term ‘happiness’ factor than other forms of buying therapy. So, if you are going to spend, purchase those experiences which create positive, social emotional memories.
In a parallel study, it was found that engaging in Random Acts of Kindness also resulted in higher scores on personal measures of happiness, satisfaction and valuing of self.
Finally, then comes the notion that happiness is not an emotional state nor a commodity. It is a range of experiences, attitudes and practices which are reported to ‘the self’ as being happy. There are no limits to the amount of happiness and it is best considered as a personal journey, not a destination.
You are responsible for your own happiness, since it is about how you perceive yourself and your interactions with others and your environment. Other ‘things’ and ‘people’ can influence your immediate sense of happiness, but ultimately it's about you not getting in your own way when it comes to your journey towards it.
(Taken from a draft version of The Secret toy Your Future History to be published early 2018)
Dr Alan Jones : Personal Alchemy
www.dralanbjones.com
from DR ALAN B JONES - Blog http://ift.tt/2zuQIpS
via IFTTT