3 Steps to Happiness

BACKGROUND

Abe Lincoln once said “People seem to be as happy as they choose to be!”

From a psychological perspective, depression usually represents repressed anger which has been turned inward against yourself. This is why choosing to allow yourself to be angry or even to sometimes go into a rage can be healthy when you're depressed — even if the people around you don't like it. You can tell when the anger is healthy because it will feel good. Remember though, that you are choosing to be angry, and what you are angry about is nobody else's fault (so don't beat up others with your anger). When you don't allow guilt to get in the way, notice how your depression decreases and you feel better after a good fit of anger!

In the Treatments section, we'll look at both the physical and psycho-spiritual components of happiness.

TREATMENT

3 Steps to Happiness

The book Three Steps to Happiness — Healing through Joy will take you through the three steps that psycho-spiritually will help you to get past depression, anxiety, or just not being as happy as you’d like — and leave you feeling great. These are:

Step 1: Feel your feelings

Feel all of your feelings without the need to understand or justify them. When they no longer feel good, let go of them. The book will help you do this, but it also can be done on your own.

Step 2: Make life a "no-fault" system

This means no blame, no fault, no guilt, no judgment, and no expectations on yourself or anyone else. This means you'll be changing habits of thinking. For example, if you find yourself judging somebody, simply drop the judgment in mid-thought when you notice it. And no judging yourself for judging others!

Step 3: Pay attention to what feels good

Learn to keep your attention on what feels good. We sometimes are given the misconception that keeping attention on problems is more realistic. That is nonsense! Life is like a massive buffet with thousands of options. You can choose to keep your attention on those things that feel good. You'll notice that if a problem truly requires your attention at any given time, it will feel good to focus on it. Otherwise, you're living your life as if you have 200 TV channels to choose from, and you only choose to watch the ones you don't like!

Other Therapies & Advice

Check for depression

From a physical perspective, depression often reflects faulty biochemistry. Begin by asking yourself this simple question: "Do I have many interests?" If the answer is yes, you're probably not depressed but rather have other physical problems causing how you feel. Common causes would include poor sleep, infections, thyroid and other hormonal deficiencies (despite normal blood tests!) and nutritional deficiencies.

For more information, see Depression.

SHINE

Biochemical/medical conditions may be the cause of your sadness. Treat these using the SHINE Protocol (see SHINE under the "More" tab).

You can also read about SHINE in the book From Fatigued to Fantastic!

Release old emotional traumas

It is often important to know how to release old emotional traumas. Sometimes they may even be very traumatic childhood or adult events and may need to be released in layers. There are 2 simple techniques for this that are remarkably effective for quickly and easily releasing old stresses and phobias (and often even PTSD — see EFT, and the book Waking the Tiger, under online references below). They are so simple and easy, you won’t believe they could work so easily — till you do it!