Over the last year I really found myself thinking about how much thought and energy we (meaning me and people in general) put into harboring the hurts of life. When a disaster or tragedy strikes we cling to those events, memorialize them, the slogan becomes "Never Forget." We regard joy as fleeting. The "pursuit of happiness" ironically is one of our "inalienable rights" as Americans and as human beings. But do we actually pursue happiness or find joy in our everyday lives? Not so much.
As I began to think about this and inspect my own life I saw that I probably focused on the unhappy moments in my life far more than the happy and I realized I could change this. One of my inspirations came from the words of Steve Erwin's young daughter, Bindy, who answered questions about her father's death with an amazing reversal of a phrase we've all heard dozens of times: "All bad things must come to an end." So much wisdom in that reversal.
In life we find what we are looking for; what we want to find, we find. I really believe this to be true. I am in charge of my thinking; it took me a while to recognize this. I can remember being told once, "Just don't think about it." I thought, "That's the problem. If I could stop thinking about it, I wouldn't be having this problem." Our brains get stuck on the neural pathways that get used the most, and the more they get used the more automatically the neurons fire, and the more we get stuck having the same thought patterns over and over, often making us crazy.
The good news is that we can change that by thinking new thoughts repetatively and forging new neural pathways that fire more often than the old ones. If we begin looking for the good and focusing on the joy in our lives we will find more of it. We will become happier people just by thinking new, happier thoughts. If you meditate you know that your thoughts want to go on their merry way. You're trying to find inner peace and your thoughts are working on the grocery list and what a bitch the person was who went into the Express line with 60 items in her cart. You bring your thoughts back to the inner peace project, only to have your thoughts begin to meditate on the bills. Correct the course again. After you've been meditating for a while it gets easier, you're creating a groove in your brain literally, that begins to limit the romping thoughts and inner peace begins to happen.
Is thinking differently going to stop bad things from happening? Is this just putting on rose-colored glasses? Bad things will happen; we have a choice about what we will continue to carry further on in our lives and what we let go of for the sake of being happier and more joyous every day. See the bad thing for what it is, a mistake, a loss, even a deep painful hurt that we didn't deserve; how long are we willing to nurture the pain within us at the expense of living a better life?
Healing takes time but how much time is within our control. We will need to give our healing the time it requires but draw a line when tending to a real need turns into stewing in the same old juices of sadness or anger. Bring the new thinking forward by remembering good times, happy memories, or doing something in the immediate moment to create a new happy moment to call upon. "All bad things must come to an end," will be my new mantra for 2012, and my new slogan? "Never Forget to Be Happy!"
As I began to think about this and inspect my own life I saw that I probably focused on the unhappy moments in my life far more than the happy and I realized I could change this. One of my inspirations came from the words of Steve Erwin's young daughter, Bindy, who answered questions about her father's death with an amazing reversal of a phrase we've all heard dozens of times: "All bad things must come to an end." So much wisdom in that reversal.
In life we find what we are looking for; what we want to find, we find. I really believe this to be true. I am in charge of my thinking; it took me a while to recognize this. I can remember being told once, "Just don't think about it." I thought, "That's the problem. If I could stop thinking about it, I wouldn't be having this problem." Our brains get stuck on the neural pathways that get used the most, and the more they get used the more automatically the neurons fire, and the more we get stuck having the same thought patterns over and over, often making us crazy.
The good news is that we can change that by thinking new thoughts repetatively and forging new neural pathways that fire more often than the old ones. If we begin looking for the good and focusing on the joy in our lives we will find more of it. We will become happier people just by thinking new, happier thoughts. If you meditate you know that your thoughts want to go on their merry way. You're trying to find inner peace and your thoughts are working on the grocery list and what a bitch the person was who went into the Express line with 60 items in her cart. You bring your thoughts back to the inner peace project, only to have your thoughts begin to meditate on the bills. Correct the course again. After you've been meditating for a while it gets easier, you're creating a groove in your brain literally, that begins to limit the romping thoughts and inner peace begins to happen.
Is thinking differently going to stop bad things from happening? Is this just putting on rose-colored glasses? Bad things will happen; we have a choice about what we will continue to carry further on in our lives and what we let go of for the sake of being happier and more joyous every day. See the bad thing for what it is, a mistake, a loss, even a deep painful hurt that we didn't deserve; how long are we willing to nurture the pain within us at the expense of living a better life?
Healing takes time but how much time is within our control. We will need to give our healing the time it requires but draw a line when tending to a real need turns into stewing in the same old juices of sadness or anger. Bring the new thinking forward by remembering good times, happy memories, or doing something in the immediate moment to create a new happy moment to call upon. "All bad things must come to an end," will be my new mantra for 2012, and my new slogan? "Never Forget to Be Happy!"
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