WHILE KNEE-DEEP IN THE SHIT…
If you had the option to “Choose Happiness”, or the option to “Choose Sadness” right now….what would you do?
Would you consciously decide to feel miserable? Would you seek out depression over joy? Discomfort over comfort?
In all likeliness, most of you consciously would pick happiness, joy, comfort, and all the other positive emotions we know and love. This is true at least when we are the subject of discussion. However, have you ever wondered how many times you deliberately choose misery over happiness throughout your day? How many times do we fall victim to our own negative prejudices that subconsciously continues a cycle of negativity throughout our own lives?
More importantly, is there a way we can interrupt these cycles of negativity and rewire our brains to identify cycles of positivity instead? Especially when we happen to be in a “rut of bad luck” or misfortune. And while some might exclaim, “I make my own luck!” – the fact of the matter is that you do and you don’t. No matter the degree of control you wish to exercise throughout this life – you are still subjected to the random chaos of the universe just like everyone else.
And so, even with the most careful planning and preparations, a person can fall on hard times – physically, emotionally, financially and every other “-ially’s” out there. Whether you like it or not, you will face a dark period within your life at some point and sadly most of us aren’t emotionally or spiritually mature to realize the lessons we’re supposed to be learning. Rather, we sink deeper into a depression, feeling more worthless and powerless against our moments of adversary.
This only extends our moments of misery, alienates those we love and…well…just sucks!
Fortunately, as you are a co-creator in this world we live in – I’m going to explain to you just how your powers of creation work and how you can interrupt your automatic responses, to reconfigure your mind to identify patterns of positivity.
Don’t worry, it’s super simple and the more you do it…the easier it will get. So let’s take a moment to take a deep breath and to be grateful that today you’ll be learning a secret to cultivating happiness.
THE MOTHER OF ALL VIRTUES
When Life’s got you Down…BE GRATEFUL!
I know this sounds counter-intuitive and rather silly. How will being grateful help you get a job, put food on your plate, fix your relationship,pay the bills, and just…get out of this shit-storm you seem to be stuck in?
How can you be grateful when everything around you is falling apart?
This is the problem of misery – it is not an isolated event but rather a [psychic/spiritual/emotional]-chain that is attached to your auto-behavioral responses to external events. In other words, how you react to your current situation.
I call this “Negative Future Projection” but I’ll talk more about that later.
For now, understand that Being Grateful or Finding Gratitude in all things disrupts the pattern of negativity AND physically rewires your brain.
A Berkley study found that people who practiced gratitude had, “better physical and psychological health, increased happiness and life satisfaction, decreased materialism, and more.” – Source
Another study found Gratitude activate an area of the brain that “is a neural hub, connected to parasympathetic function and is critical for generating “meaning” in a stimulus (Roy et al., 2012).” – Source
The point is, when you are in a “Shit Storm” – you need to increase the frequency of positivity in your life. Your environment is already streaming negativity into your day-to-day existence. You need to artificially increase your exposure to positivity by consciously seeking out things to be grateful for. In turn, you’ll begin to “Recognize Patterns of Gratitude”, which will begin to manifest at higher rates.
It’s not always easy. But it’s the only way you’ll be able to rewire your brain [physically] to find “meaning” in all of the madness.
But before you can be grateful – you first need to understand one basic truth.
– ACCEPTANCE –
A KEY TO MOVING ON
“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
― Meditations
This is probably one of the hardest lessons to learn – even as an adult. Sometimes, there are ‘unmovable objects’ in your path or ‘unstoppable forces’ pushing you in a direction you don’t want to go to.
“Pain” as Marcus Aurelius points out, is the result of how you see yourself when confronted with any particular situation. Are you the victim or is this simply a spat of bad luck? Is the universe conspiring against you, or was it merely statistically probable that ‘something bad would happen to you at some point in time’?
Within your current moment – “your situation could be that statistical probability”. However, as you see life through the lens of “pain” – it distorts your reality and changes your “estimation of the problem”. And so, you continue to identify “patterns of pain/negativity” within other elements of your life.
However, when you realize that it is “futile to resist your current situation”, you can stop feeling bad about it. You can accept that “this is happening to me now” and understand that “by doing nothing – everything stays the same“.
Acceptance is not putting your head in the sand. It’s not about denying the severity of the situation, but rather accepting that your “current approach isn’t working” and that the only way for you to “change your outcome is to change your behavior.”
You can either let a situation define you, change you, or make you better. That is entirely your choice and the only bit of “control” you have over the chaos we call life.
– PSYCLIC PATTERNS –
WHEN PAY-IT-FORWARD GOES WRONG
Acceptance and Gratitude are indeed the foundations of Happiness. However, it’s just as important to recognize how misery “pays-itself-forward” and how to disrupt this automatic-self-sabotage mechanism.
The next time some “External Event” occurs that you deem “negative” – for example; an unsuspected bill, bad news from a familiar, a rejection letter, heart break, law suit, etc. – analyze your reaction. If you do, you’ll quickly notice something occur so subtly that it flies by our conscious processes, which might play an enormous role in ow our “luck will unfold”.
I’m talking about “Negative Future Projections” – This usually is triggered whenever you receive bad news or experience something negative and manifests with an “immediate projection of a potential future”.
For example; You get a call from your doctor or boss (or loved one) who needs to speak with you “Urgently.
Our minds are prompted for negativity and immediately we begin to imagine unfortunate “Possible Scenarios” – “Am I getting Fired? Do I have a disease? Now what am I going to do?”
This almost autonomous process, utilizes a “peak emotional state” to project a potential scenario into the future – typically where you’re sucking on the “ass-end” of things. Perhaps you quickly banish the thought from your mind’s eye – but nonetheless, created an ethereal imprint of a potential future in your mind.
Interestingly enough, the opposite typically isn’t true. Whenever something “good occurs” in our lives, we hardly “project future scenarios of positivity” to the same degree. When we win the lottery, we don’t immediately think; “My luck is changing for the better, next time I’m winning the Jackpot!”
It’s far easier to negatively project into the future than it is to positively project into the future…however, once you are aware of this mechanism you do have some control over your reactions to any given situation.
The Next Time something bad happens – will you be ‘aware’ about what you’re projecting into the future? If you catch yourself creating negative imaginary scenarios – think about another alternative that could happen and focus on that instead – A scenario where you found an ideal solution and everything works out in your favor and remember, only by doing nothing will that “negative future” happen.
All you can ever do is your best.
– PSYCLIC PATTERNS –
THE SOCIAL MEDIA DILEMMA
If there’s one thing you can do for your own Happiness it would be to “SPEND LESS TIME ON SOCIAL MEDIA!” This hyper idealized version of reality is in fact fictitious and not an accurate representation of what’s really going on.
One of the best things that have ever happened to me was when my phone decided to stop working for a few months. This forced me to quit all things related to my mobile device – including a forced separation from Social Media Platforms.
Granted, I was already not a “SM-Junkie” like many of my peers, however, I would check in about two to three times per day.
What would I find on my feed? People spewing politics [left & right], showcasing the “ills of capitalism” or the “threat of socialism”, animal cruelty, environmental catastrophes, how much we as humans suck on a daily basis – and among all of the shit going around the world – my peers with stunning pictures posing for shit I can never do!
Your friends and familiars make it to the gym every morning at six, have picture perfect families and you – you’re sitting there snarfing down a bucket of ice cream talking to your hips for comfort!
The result being – a miserable (AND FAKE) perception of you and the world around you.
Here’s the thing you HAVE to understand with social media – the algorithm will amplify whatever you “like/comment/engage” on.
This means, that if you don’t like something – “climate disasters, politics, abuse, violence, etc” then in order to combat this – at least digitally and for your own sake of sanity – is to NOT ENGAGE, LIKE, COMMENT, or SHARE things you find toxic.
Why? Because every time you share the racism, fascism, leftism, rightism, outragism – you only increase the frequency of that type of content. The algorithm will say, “It seems that he likes miserable shit, let’s show him about what similar terrible shit there is for him to consume…”
This doesn’t mean you deny that these things exist…it simply means that you engage with content you like and, whenever you have a choice – steer clear from things that you don’t like. Of course, if someone is committing an act of violence or reprehensible things in your immediate area – by all means put down your fucking phones and do something to stop it – that way, you actually do something to stop the things you hate.
However, sharing, liking or shaming online only serves to increase the frequency of you running into things you don’t like.
For the next twenty one days, only “Like, Share & Comment” on things you like, that makes you feel good and empowers you. If there is anything that makes you “Sad, Angry, Worried, Stressed” etc…then simply ignore it and scroll on. Punch a pillow if you have to.
Trust me when I say; By the end of the experiment – Social Media will be a far more pleasant place to visit
– PSYCLIC PATTERNS –
RITUALS OF GRATITUDE
As for the final tip – we’re coming back full circle. If you wish to break a “negative cycle” you need to re-train your mind to see the positive. And one of the best ways to do this is to re-focus your mind on things you are grateful for.
Even if you think that you don’t have too many things in your favor, every day try to identify just three of them. Perhaps you have a dog or a cat or a loved one nearby? Perhaps you had the chance to see the sunrise? Perhaps you were able to enjoy a warm cup of coffee with a moment of peace?
Do this every day and you will slowly shift your gaze away from patterns of negativity, and will begin to identify patterns of positivity instead. It won’t happen over night either, it takes practice – so be patient.
No matter what difficulty you are facing right now, always remember – nothing endures forever. If you are living a miserable time right now – just know..this too shall pass.
The trick to changing your luck is to change your perception which will change your behavior and inch you closer towards a life where gratitude comes naturally.
– J. F. Gerber