Happiness
Our happiness, success, satisfaction or whatever it is we are seeking is caused by one thing and one thing only, our minds. That doesn't mean these things are made up or illusory. On the contrary they are real and create the experience of our lives in very real ways.
It's all in the mind but...
Happiness might seem to come from external circumstances but this is the illusion. The reality is that we, and not external factors, are the cause of our happiness. We have the ability to completely control our experience of life and this control can only come from how we use our minds. So getting what we truly want requires only one thing, that we get our minds right.
And it starts with
Awareness
It always begins with awareness. What is awareness? It is something better experienced than defined so let's start there - complete this sentence
I am now aware of...
That right there. That experience you just had was awareness. It is that simple.
Getting our Mind Right is all about how we use and experience our awareness.
Where is awareness? It's in
The Mind
You would think that with advances in technology we would by now have precisely identified where the mind resides but this is not the case. There are many suspects but none yet whom we can pin it on beyond reasonable doubt.
The main suspect is the brain. Much of the activity we consider to be the activity of our mind takes place in the brain. This is where thinking seems to take place; memories; unthinking bodily control; sight and processing of our other sensory perceptions and so on.
We can say that the brain forms part of the mind but we can't say that our mind is contained by it.
Our brain is not acting alone
Other parts of our body are also on the scene, perhaps all other parts. There are neurons everywhere, most notably in the central nervous system beyond the brain and in the heart and the gut. Did you know that your gut has as many neurons as does the brain of a cat?. These non-brain neurons are not just conspirators with the brain, passing messages for the brain to deal with, but they can also act alone.
So when we talk of our mind, the seat of our awareness, we need to understand that it is more than the brain but as long as we don't fall into the trap of thinking our mind is 'up here' and the rest of us is 'down there' we'll be ok.
To understand awareness it helps to undestand that much of what we do as we get our minds right relates to the use of the pre-frontal cortex, the thought centre, and its relationship with the limbic system, the emotion centre. It is between these two that the obstacles to happiness and the solutions to overcome them reside. It is with our pre-frontal cortex that we can understand what we need to do to get our minds right, starting with the
Four Principles for a Happy Mind
Principle One
Everything we think, feel, say or do goes through our mind first
Principle Two
The mind is always able to change, and is always changing
Principle Three
Everything we think, feel, say or do is rational. Always and without exception
Principle Four
It's not him. It's not her, them or that. It's you
Before we finish, there is
One more thing...
Awareness may be the most important word when it comes to getting our Mind Right but before we start to apply any of these four principles we have to get to know the significance of the second most important word
Alignment
Alignment is fundamental to who we are as humans and to how we achieve happiness. In fact, everything we think, feel, say or do is almost always driven by our unrelenting need for alignment.
Homeostasis for the mind
Homeostasis - things constantly changing so that they stay the same - is an important quality in all living things. Our body constantly changes to maintain a temperature; we sweat when the environment is too hot; our outer most capillaries contract when it is too cold. These sorts of mechanisms exist throughout our body.
For our minds we are seemingly hard wired to seek homeostasis between
How we want things to be
and
How they actually are
When these two things are out of alignment we are unhappy. When they align we are happy. The trick is that although we tend to focus on the second - how things are - we have much more control over the first - how we want them to be. Getting our Mind Right is all about bringing these two things into balance.
Next Steps?
Happiness is a skill and skills can be learned. To find out more about how you can get your Mind Right please get in touch on 021 656 325.