Happiness is natural, it’s our normal state, yet for most of us, it seems elusive, just out of reach, right around the corner. If it’s so simple and natural, then why is it so hard to find? Here in plain English, we will explore the three real causes of unhappiness. Today, we will look at number one:
Cause Number 1: Getting Lost in your Thoughts.
That’s right, our first cause is getting lost in those messages that fly through our heads at a million miles an hour. Allow me to explain:
As life unfolds in this moment, our minds analyse, judge, criticise and project. They criticise the present moment and plan the path to happiness in the future. Our thoughts also dwell on the past in an apparent attempt to learn from mistakes, which leads to guilt, anger, sadness and frustration. Projecting into the future creates fear, anxiety and worry as we think about (more…)
Last night, before I got into bed, I was distractedly wandering around the house getting everything ready for bed. I must have wandered in and out of the lounge room three times, each time forgetting something I needed and on the second last trip, going in to get my water bottle (one of those re-usable ones), getting distracted and coming back to the bedroom with something else in hand, only to return again to get the water bottle. Have you ever had a similar experience? Do you live life like this sometimes? Are you always thinking about something else, about what you have to do later, about tomorrow and yesterday? Most of us are, so don’t feel bad if the answer is yes, just keep reading, because mindfulness provides a simple, powerful antidote to this distracted, partly engaged way of living. But what is mindfulness?
Mindfulness means being aware of your present moment experience without getting lost in the thoughts that drift through your mind. It means deliberately paying attention to what is happening now, rather than (more…)
Catching up with friends last weekend, I noticed how many silent spaces there were in our conversations, and I notice the noise my mind started making whenever these spaces arose.
“Say something!” It screamed.
“They’ll think you’re boring!” it goaded. (more…)
Usually when we think of life, we think of “my life” which is basically a story that we must keep telling ourselves in order to keep it alive. If you watch the story or listen closely to yourself telling it over and over, you will get bored of it. “My life” will become dull and uninteresting. We must continue to create drama, find problems to solve and change things in order to have something to talk and think about. Without this, we feel great emptiness, we feel as if “life is passing me by”.
This statement shows that “me” and “life” are considered to be separate, but how can this be? How can you be separate from your life, such nonsense!
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