A guide to making happiness your habit

The title “Stop Thinking Start Living” immediately caught my attention. It is true that many of us are not satisfied; we feel that something is missing from our life. According to the Swiss psychotherapist Carl Gustav Jung the greatest problem affecting mankind is not mental illness but the general unhappiness and frustration that are so prevalent in our modern society. So if you are experiencing your life in a lifeless manner and you are feeling unhappy, pessimistic, sad and depressed, this book is meant for you.
“I will show you how to rid yourself of the negative feelings that can take over your life and replace them with the feelings of gratitude, happiness and love…I have never met a person who didn’t feel better after learning this simple approach” writes Richard Carlson.
Nothing needs to change in your life in order for you to feel better except your relationship to your own thinking. The American philosopher Emerson said, “The ancestor to every action is a thought.”
We are always thinking. Thinking is similar to breathing; it is so natural and automatic that we simply forget that we are doing it. Thinking becomes invisible to us. However, it is important to know that the way you and I are feeling right now is the result of our thoughts at this very moment. In other words the way we feel is always determined by the thoughts we are thinking. Our thoughts create our emotions.
“The relationship between your thinking and how you are feeling is formed so fast (in a tiny fraction of a second) that almost no one realizes it’s occurring. Yet this cause-and-effect relationship between thoughts and feelings is of the most powerful phenomena you will ever experience as a human being.”
Therefore, negative and pessimistic thoughts are the basic cause of all our negative emotions. We cannot feel anything without first having a thought. We cannot feel angry without thinking about something that makes us angry. This understanding has great implications. It means that if you feel unhappy, it’s not your life, your circumstances or your character that is creating your unhappiness but it’s the way you are thinking. The feeling of unhappiness is caused by your negative thinking about your life.
It is interesting to know that there are people who seem to have every reason to be depressed, yet they do not experience unhappiness regardless of how serious their problems are. They always make the best out of the situation they are in. On the other hand, there are people who seem to have every reason to be happy, but they are always dissatisfied and tormented by depression. Instead of appreciating what they have, they choose to focus on what they do not have.
Many of us think negatively and this triggers negative emotions but most of the time we are not even aware of it.
“Being upset by your own thoughts is similar to writing yourself a nasty letter and then being offended by that letter!
You are the manufacturer of your own thoughts. You are the one doing the thinking that is upsetting you; you are doing it to yourself. Once you understand this important point, it’s silly to go on being angered, annoyed, frightened or depressed by your own thinking,” says Richard Carlson.
At the end of the day, your thoughts have no power other than what you give them. If we could get inside the mind of a happy person we would notice that she isn’t thinking about much at all, other than what she is doing. Happy people understand that what is important is to enjoy life rather than think about it. A happy person is so completely immersed in the process of life and absorbed in what he is doing at the moment that he rarely stops to analyze how he is doing.
“True happiness occurs when you quiet down your analytical mind, when you give it a rest.
Once you realize that your thinking is what creates your experience of life, including your depression, analyzing your life will lose its appeal. You’ll prefer simply to do the best that you possibly can in any given moment and pay attention to enjoying what you are doing knowing that you can always do better.”
One of the most significant findings in the field of psychology in recent years has been that we can choose the way we think we are in charge or in other words thinking is a voluntary function. Only habit makes focus on the thoughts that enter our minds. Therefore we can also acquire the habit of dismissing the thoughts that enter our mind.
As you voluntarily ignore the problems which enter your mind, you will not only feel better but you will also be better equipped to solve these problems.
Einstein said: “The solution to a problem will never come about from the same level of understanding that created the problem in the first place.” In other words, dwelling on problems cannot help us overcome them. On the other hand, we can find solutions when we see things in a new and fresh way. Therefore, we simply need to stop thinking about a problem in order to find a solution.
Happy people are always willing to eliminate the thoughts that are meddling with their joy but unhappy people are generally less willing or able to admit that their head is full of negativity. If you want to be happy, study how happy people lead their lives. You will notice that the happiest lives are often the simplest lives. Happy people are too busy being happy and enjoying their lives to analyze their unhappiness. Happy people make others feel good too.
You will feel good again when you understand that every moment in your life is a turning point where you are confronted with a choice: What do you do when negative thoughts enter your mind? Do you let them in? Or do you turn them away? You are in charge so you have the power to think your way out of your depression or bad mood. As you ignore your thoughts relating to the future and the past and live in the moment, you will notice that your negative thoughts will dwindle away.
‘Stop Thinking Start Living’ teaches you how to get rid of negative thoughts and make happiness a habit. You will learn how to deal with your negative emotions, how to fight the blues and you will open yourself up to the joys of life available every day.
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