This Xmas, mindhack a happier time for yourself and those around you
A great deal of chaos in the world occurs because people don’t appreciate themselves. Having never developed sympathy or gentleness towards themselves, they cannot experience harmony or peace within themselves and therefore what they project to others is also inharmonious and confused.#1
A wonderful start to feeling happy is to lighten up on yourself. Why not? Over the holiday season, it’s easy to get busy and forget the stuff that matters. There’s pressure to get work finished; a pile of invites; preparations for your own celebrations, presents, feasting and getaways. Yet it’s supposed to be fun, right?
If you’re drowning in Xmas, how about choosing this moment to really support yourself? Listen to the voice in the back of your head that’s wishing for a better start to 2019.
You have all you need within yourself to be happy.
Deploy your goodwill to yourself, with generous helpings of self-care for your spirit.
Be still and looking inside yourself, allowing your thoughts to settle and seeing that all is basically well. You can be friendly towards yourself and attend to your needs, to become calm and uplift your situation rather than sink in to overwhelm, worry and stress.
Abundance is our natural state. Everything we experience is an aspect of the abundance. When limitation appears, we are seeing a reflection of our beliefs, a resistance we have created to knowing we have it all.#2
We don’t create abundance, we create limitations, according to Arnold Patent’s Universal Principles#2, which are a manifesto for the good life you want.
Dont’ re-create a painful past as a painful future
We create distress in our lives by looking back at a painful past, then re-creating it as our future, by believing in it so hard.
Last Xmas was awful, Dad got drunk and ripped in to Uncle Ben, who threw the BBQ tongs at Michael, gashing his hand. We spent 4 hours in the emergency department. They’re all coming again this year and I wish I could just go out on the boat for the day and leave them to it.
We don’t have to frighten ourselves by painting a dark future with our thoughts. Thinking negatively creates negative emotion — fear, anger, sadness, resentment — and brings us down. e.g. if we’re angry and resentful, this separates us from others, emphasising our aloneness.
When we resist the flow of love, we experience discomfort. When we align with the love, we feel joyful and at peace.#2
If we take a breath and look calmly at our future, we see that it doesn’t need to be bad. How does it serve us, for our brain to catastrophise? We have choices. We can choose to see the future in a more positive way, making room to be surprised and delighted. Let’s live in the now, where life is mostly life good, and leave our suffering in the past.
Feel the love already inside you
Arnold goes on to suggest
Our Soul communicates to us through our feelings. The more willing we are to feel our feelings, the more able we are to connect with the love that resides in them.
If we can see life, ourselves and others as basically OK, then we can cheer up and make room to enjoy the little things in life. We will automatically look for the good.
Honour and care for yourself, allow yourself and your life to be exactly as they are. Stop the war. Be happy and have a wonderful festive season.
Ref:
#1 Chogyam Trungpa
#2 http://www.arnoldpatent.com/universal-principles
#3 How to be Happy – the 3 secrets
Photo by Markus Spiske
