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Liberation means freeing ourselves from those qualities in the mind that torment and limit us.   --Joseph Goldstein

 

Buddhist and Hindu philosophical systems offer amazing well-developed tools for observing the mind and escaping the mental activities that cause suffering. The Yogasutras of Patanjali, an ancient guide to spiritual practice, states in its opening sentence that “yoga is the stilling of the modifications of the mind.” These modifications, of course, are the constant, inner chatter and repetitive negative statements that sap so much of our energy.  The point of meditation as originally taught in spiritual traditions, was to achieve awareness of the mind so that thinking could be a matter of choice rather than of habit.  Minding the Body Mending the Mind --Joan Borysenko

 

Letting go of resentments and regrets is a way of freeing ourselves from the past. --Joan Borysenko

 

Positive emotions create bodily sensations of openness and expansiveness. They invite the world in.  The body feels relaxed, even though some emotions such as joy are very energizing.  In contrast negative emotions create a tight, contracted feeling.  Everything pulls inward.  The world is pushed away. Positive feelings invite unity. Negative feelings invite isolation.  --Joan Borysenko

 

Without clarity we have no awareness, and without awareness we have no choices. We end up suffering instead of finding liberation.    Minding the Body Mending the Mind --Joan Borysenko

 

You probably remember the ego, which I characterized as a merciless judge who forever divides the world into good and bad, vigilantly sizing things up to make sure that we get what we want and avoid what we don’t want. In doing so there is a trade-off.  We won’t be happy, the ego says, unless we get what we want, but the ego sees the world in terms of scarcity, danger, and loss.  It taints even those moments of satisfaction with fear—that some unforeseen danger may come along and ruin our happiness.  That is how most people think. Like Esau, we sell our birthright for a bowl of porridge. The porridge is the trap: “ I can be happy if I get what I want and avoid what I don’t want.”  Our birthright is the inner Witness—the unconditioned awareness that is already fulfilled and happy, regardless of outer circumstances.  --Joan Borysenko

 

Wanting, per se, isn’t the root difficulty; it’s the pernicious attitude that we can’t possibly be happy unless we satisfy a certain desire. --Joan Borysenko

 

Desiring things we don’t have—the “if onlys”—and desiring to avoid the things we don’t want—the “what ifs”—are the ego-s main preoccupation. Desires are always the cause of suffering—of falling out of the present onto the ego’s ruminations.  --Joan Borysenko

 

 

Happiness can occur only at the moment that desires cease.  At that time the mind is still.  It’s not thinking , not wanting or fearing: it is totally absorbed and attentive.  Can you remember the experience of being really thirsty on a hot summer’s day and the contentment of taking a drink? Every time the mind is completely absorbed—perfectly mindful--  it grows still, and you automatically experience the background of unconditioned consciousness—the Self—that is always there but is usually hidden behind the ripples of the mind. Because gratification of a desire leads to the temporary stilling of the mind and the experience of the peaceful, joyful Self, it’s no wonder that we get hooked on thinking that happiness comes from the satisfaction of desire. This is the meaning of the old adage: joy is not in things, it is in us.” --Joan Borysenko

 

   Whenever a desire masquerades as the thing that separates you from happiness, the rest of life drops into the background.  Your desire has become a prison locking you out of life. --Joan Borysenko

 

 The ego expressed its insecurities by judging everything, to ensure happiness by keeping everything tightly controlled. …. Blindly seeking good and avoiding bad, it is caught in the illusion that it must be good in order to ensure its own existence…. From childhood, we are conditioned to equate security and pleasure with being good, and fear and danger with being bad.  Since so many people harbor secret fears of being deficient in some way or not being good enough, it’s no wonder that anxiety is rampant. In the deepest recesses of the unconscious, being bad threatens our very survival, bringing up primitive fears of abandonment and desolation.  --Joan Borysenko

 

We believe and act on opinions and assumptions as if they were reality, closing off other experiences.  --Joan Borysenko

 

 

When the person can remain relaxed while the mind reruns its fearful fantasy, the conditioned response that leads to the anxiety cycle is broken. --Joan Borysenko

 

 

To a child everything is fresh and new. The more we think we know it all, the more closed off from the changing experience of life we become.  --Joan Borysenko

 

 

This [mindfulness] meditative practice consists of anchoring attention in the breath and then passively observing thoughts, feelings, perception, and sensations without judgment. Ideas of good and bad fade away and there is only a contented openness to the present.     Minding the Body Mending the Mind --Joan Borysenko

 

  When we connect with our authentic selves we learn about our courage and grace as much as our suffering and betrayals. When we only remember the misery and the pain, we remain locked in yesterday. But the reason we feel upset by dwelling on old suffering is not what we think. By refusing to find the meaning of our negative experiences, we think we are protecting ourselves from discovering how we have fallen short in the past. But the reality is that by finding the courage to look squarely at our old pains and sorrows, we see the ways we truly are authentic, thus liberating ourselves from past suffering. As we learn to detach from the criticisms of others and become our own loving parents and mentors, we are able to see that "The Source" sees our value and helps us to make our own unique contributions to life, making the most of opportunities we might otherwise have missed.
http://www.soulfulliving.com/authentic_selves.htm

 

 

"As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being." - Carl G. Jung  

 

When you have a painful body sensation, and you add fearful anticipation of the future or terrible self-judgments, the painful body sensation changes to great mental agony.  –Sharon Saltzberg

 

 

When you allow yourself to enjoy something, you are becoming aware of the joy and happiness that is inside you.  -- Lionel Ketchian  

 

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them." - Mother Teresa  

 

Abraham Maslow said: If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.  

 

Can you feel how painful it is to internally stand in opposition to what "is"? "When you recognize this, you also realize that you are now free to give up this futile conflict, this inner state of war."- Eckhart Tolle  

 

"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." - Mohandas Gandhi  

 

Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents. ---- A. Schopehauer

 

 

In action a great heart is the chief qualification. In work, a great head.  – Schopehauer

 

 

 

 

When we begin to attend to what goes on within, we are inevitably led back to the mind as an object of study. ...it is a basic principle of psychotherapy, medical psychology, and spiritual practice that, when consciousness becomes conscious of itself, it becomes something else. In this movement is the beginning of all transformation and all healing.
-- Eugene Taylor in A Psychology of Spiritual Healing (1997, p. 62)

We could say that meditation doesn't have a reason or doesn't have a purpose. In this respect it's unlike almost all other things we do except perhaps making music and dancing. When we make music we don't do it in order to reach a certain point, such as the end of the composition. If that were the purpose of music then obviously the fastest players would be the best. Also, when we are dancing we are not aiming to arrive at a particular place on the floor as in a journey. When we dance, the journey itself is the point, as when we play music the playing itself is the point. And exactly the same thing is true in meditation. Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment.
-- Alan Watts (as quoted in Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart, 1993)

 

It [yoga] is the complete suppression of the tendency of the mind to transform itself into objects, thoughts, etc. Yoga kills all sorts of pain, misery and tribulation.   Sri Swami Sivananda

….

The stillness is the state of mind that observes the movement. -- Rodney Yee

 

The world we see that seems so insane may be the result of a belief system that isn’t working.  The belief system holds that the fearful past will extend into a fearful future, making the past and the future one. It is our memory of fear and pain that makes us feel so vulnerable. It is this feeling of vulnerability that makes us want to control and predict the future at all cost. – Gerald B. Jampolsky, M.D.

One of the main purposes of time is to enable us to choose what we want to experience. Do we want to experience peace or do we want to experience conflict?   – Gerald B. Jampolsky, M.D.

I have often thought that we have much to learn from infants. They have not yet adapted to the concept of linear time with a past, present and future.  They relate only to the immediate present, to right now. It is my hunch that they do not see the world as fragmented. . They feel that they are joined to everything in the world as part the a whole.  To me, they represent true innocence, Love, wisdom and forgiveness.  – Gerald B. Jampolsky, M.D.

All we know is all we know, and with each moment we know more; therefore, we never know. We predict future particulars based on general “laws,” but those laws are based on past particulars. We can confidently state that mammals never lay eggs till we see our first platypus. So, because there’s always more to be revealed, anything’s possible—we could turn out to be mistaken about everything. Once the terror wore off, that might be exciting. --Dean Sluyter, The Zen Commandments

When we laugh, our attention is drawn down out of the head and shoulders, where we usually carry tension, to the belly where we register contentment.  --Dean Sluyter

It has been said that “The world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.” That sounds backward to me. It’s the thinking mind that sets up impossible expectations ( that our enemies should be kind and rational, that those we love should live forever, that … [stuff] should not happen) and then is disappointed when its appointments go tragically unmet. The feeling ear, in concert with its neighbor the belly, certainly registers grief and fear but also taps into that far deeper level of experience, that ocean of silence from which roll waves of all-resolving, all-absolving, all-dissolving laughter.  --Dean Sluyter

The world is full of guys. Be a man. Don’t be a guy.  – Say Anything

….Then what shape is your mind?  Again, it allows us to perceive all shapes, but has none of its own. After a little more investigation, we can probably agree that the mind also has no size, sound, smell, flavor, texture, temperature, gender, or any other limited quality
     Neither is it a limited mental state.  Think of a pleasant scene from your past , something that makes you feel happiness.  Then think of a scene that makes you feel sadness. By observing carefully, you’ll find that the feelings of happy and sad, just like colors or sounds, are experienced within mind, but mind itself remains flavorless, spacious, free. We can never be happy or sad, but always are the perfect, colorless open space within which happy and sad feeling come and go.   --Dean Sluyter

*

Just knowing that your mind has the ability to direct your thoughts, is a wonderful kindness of Hashem [G-d].     
  Growth Through Tehillim [Psalms]  Pg. 127    Zelig Pliskin

 

 

Each one simply acts in the way they choose to act. You are the one who chooses to react
 with hurt, anger 
or whatever other emotion. 
   Jinendra Swami   http://www.jinendra.org/

   How does it feel to be happy? The best part is not having to feel unhappy. How have I been happy for 15 years? By experiencing the fact that being unhappy is not what I want, nor is it helpful to me, whatsoever. So I have been happy for all those years by being happy "one moment at a time." This moment, for example, is an excellent moment for being happy. It can only start now! The best reason to be happy is that you deserve to be! Why be happy, why not? Put a few of those moments together and before you know it you are being happy for a long time.       -Lionel Ketchian    http://www.happinessclub.com/

 

Richard Owen Cambridge said, "What is the worth of anything, but for the happiness 'twill bring?"       Lionel Ketchian

After all the only reason you are unhappy is because you want to be happy.
 The only thing that can stop you is.......YOU! 
The only thing that can make you happy is.......YOU! You are very powerful!
 May your force be with YOU!   ---- Lionel Ketchian

I am beginning to see that all my troubles have their root in a habitual and absolute dependence upon my personal prestige, security, and romantic attachment. When these things go wrong, there is depression. Now this absolute dependence upon people and situations for emotional security is, I think, the immense and devastating fallacy that makes us miserable.   – Bill W.

Well-being is just knowing things as they are without feeling the necessity to pass judgment upon them.  ---Ajahn Sumedho

….let go of the past so you don't react to the moment from your past conditioning. –Lionel Ketchian  

     Charles Caleb Colton said in 1825, "No man is wise enough nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power." This is reason enough to develop power within yourself and not give it to everyone who says they know more than you do. When you choose unhappiness you give people and circumstances power to exert control over you. When you are unhappy you're giving your power away. You are allowing situations to be more important than the power of control you have within yourself. Being happy is a method of reassuring yourself that you have the wisdom to think clearly about what has happened. You must learn to trust yourself and make choices that will get you where you want to be.             –Lionel Ketchian

 

 

 

Authentic power means finding value and meaning in your life, and this allows you to live the life you choose to live. Happiness is power for those who practice it.   It is a power that requires discipline. Power without discipline, is like a car without brakes. Power is energy and discipline is the control of that energy.  –Lionel Ketchian

 

  "I am not what happened to me; I am what I choose to become." - Carl Jung

 

Happiness is one of the most important things in your life. Happiness is an inner state of well- being. A state of well-being that enables you to profit from your highest:  thoughts, wisdom, intelligence, common sense, emotions, health, and spiritual values in your life. Happiness does wonders for your soul. Practice "Premeditated Happiness." Happiness is an issue of power. We give our power to others for many reasons, and we think that they will make us happy. The truth is that we have given others power over ourselves. We can take our power back in order to be happy again. Now is the time to learn to use happiness in dealing with challenges and difficult people in your life so you can develop the strength to prevail. Reading this newsletter will not just make your life better; it will make the world a better place...because you have decided to be happy! –Lionel Ketchian

 

      Wisdom is nothing more than having the discipline to do the right thing at the right time. "We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom," said Stephen Vincent Benet in 1935. His words are just as true today; people seek power without seeking wisdom. "What is strength without a double share of wisdom?" said Milton in 1671. –Lionel Ketchian

 

  Two people can seem to be experiencing the exact same external situation, both facing sever challenges, but one has hope and the other does not.  Thus, in reality, they are not both in the same circumstances. One is experiencing a hopeless situation, while the other is experiencing a difficult situation, but knows that the picture can change at any moment.  Zelig Pliskin Pg 142, 62:9  Growth Through Tehillim

 

The Second Noble Truth states that there is an origin of suffering and that the origin of suffering is attachment to the three kinds of desire: desire for sense pleasure, desire to become, and desire to get rid of . --Ajahn Sumedho

 

Awakening is not getting to a place, it's not accomplishing something, it's not changing anything - it's just learning to love what you do in this moment. --Turning Toward Happiness: Conversations with a Zen Teacher and Her Students

 

Once you have concluded something, you have a strong tendency to notice evidence that supports your conclusion and to explain away or ignore information that invalidates your conclusion, not only in your immediate perception, which is bad enough, but also in your memory.
Your brain naturally and automatically looks at the world and your own memory as if it is trying to confirm whatever conclusions you've already drawn. http://www.youmeworks.com/whythebrainseemsnegative.html

 

 

 

In Zelinski's book "Doing nothing an art of living" we find a table about wasted worries. The table indicates that 96% of our worries are wasted time.

Wasted Worries (E. Zelinski)

40% of our worries have to do with events that will never take place
30% of our worries have to do with events that have already taken place
22% of our worries have to do with unimportant events
4% of our worries have to do with events that we cannot change
4% of our worries have to do with events that we can do something about

 

When is anger justified? Some say never. Some say only when all four of these things are true:
 You didn't get what you wanted,
 you were owed it,
 it was terrible you didn't get it,
and someone else was clearly at fault.
 If any of the four can't be proven, confront your unreasonable anger. If you are sure they are all true, then be assertive (not aggressive) with the person at fault (Ellis, 1985b).

 

     Courage Is Inner Control.  There are many instances when we will lack the ability to control a situation. Some people feel strong when they feel in control. But they feel overwhelmed when they can't control events. You always have the ability to control your mental attitude toward what occurs. Courage enables you to maintain an inner sense of empowerment even when you lack the power to control external events. -----From Rabbi Pliskin's book, "Courage"  

   Happiness is a skill that can be learned. The essential factor as to whether or not you will live a happy life is based on your attitudes toward life, toward yourself, toward other people, and toward events and situations.  –Zelig Pliskin  

"We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about." - Charles Kingsley  

"Consider the following. We humans are social beings. We come into the world as the result of others' actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others' activities. For this reason it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others." From Ethics for a New Millennium, by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama  

     Liberation means freeing ourselves from those qualities in the mind that torment and limit us. …. For the purpose of meditation, nothing is particularly worth thinking about...[thoughts] may come with tremendous frequency...we can choose not to follow the thoughts once we are aware that they have arisen. The quicker we notice that we are thinking, the quicker we can see thought's empty nature. . . . Although meditation is not thinking, nevertheless it can be clear awareness of thinking. . . . Without identifying with thoughts and giving them power, our mind abides in the natural state of ease, simplicity, and peace. –Joseph Goldstein

 

Awakening Now

 

Why wait for your awakening? The moment your eyes are open, seize the day. Would you hold back when the Beloved beckons? Would you deliver your litany of sins like a child's collection of sea shells, prized and labeled?

"No, I can't step across the threshold," you say, eyes downcast. "I'm not worthy. I'm afraid, and my motives aren't pure. I'm not perfect, and surely I haven't practiced nearly enough. My meditation isn't deep, and my prayers are sometimes insincere. I still chew my fingernails, and the refrigerator isn't clean."

Do you value your reasons for staying small more than the light shining through the open door? Forgive yourself. Now is the only time you have to be whole. Now is the sole moment that exists to live in the light of your true Self. Perfection is not a prerequisite for anything but pain. Please, oh please, don't continue to believe in your disbelief. This is the day of your awakening. 
  ---Danna Faulds Go In and In

 

 

 

Words of Wisdom   Here is a day, Dawn to dark' A string of moments Small enough to Ignore or notice, A stretch of time Between awakening And sleep to be Savored, or brushed Aside in the rush To some distant Destination. Here Is a day, different From any other, With its own flavor To be tasted. The Golden glow just before the sun Rose held such Promises as I Knew must be kept- Knew beyond even the nagging whisper of doubt were true- that this very day the whole perfection of the universe can be inhaled like the scent of fallen leaves, the heady fragrance of trees returning what was never theirs to keep.    Danna Faulds                                                         Danna Faulds, In the Moment.

   

 

   I was saying that we don't want to be happy. We want other things. Or
let's put it more accurately: We don't want to be unconditionally happy.
I'm ready to be happy provided I have this and that and the other thing.
But this is really to say to our friend or to our God or to anyone, "You
are my happiness. If I don't get you, I refuse to be happy." It's so
important to understand that. We cannot imagine being happy without those conditions. That's pretty accurate. We cannot conceive of being happy without them. We've been taught to place our happiness in them.  – Anthony DeMello

   So if you stop to think, you would see that there's nothing to be very
proud of after all. What does this do to your relationship with people?
What are you complaining about? A young man came to complain that his
girlfriend had let him down, that she had played false. What are you
complaining about? Did you expect any better? Expect the worst, you're
dealing with selfish people. You're the idiot -- you glorified her,
didn't you? You thought she was a princess, you thought people were nice. They're not! They're not nice. They're as bad as you are -- bad, you
understand? They're asleep like you. And what do you think they are going to seek? Their own self-interest, exactly like you. No difference. –Anthony DeMello

   Can you imagine how liberating it is that you'll never be disillusioned again, never be disappointed again? You'll never feel let down again. Never feel rejected. Want to wake up? You want happiness? You want freedom? Here it is: Drop your false ideas. See through people. If you see through yourself, you will see through everyone. Then you will love them.
Otherwise you spend the whole time grappling with your wrong notions of them, with your illusions that are constantly crashing against reality. Anthony DeMello

 

     Attachment is the belief that you can't do without something or that you can't possibly be happy without it.  
The truth is that happiness doesn't crucially depend on having ANYTHING.   Remind yourself that 
everything you now have and enjoy you will lose some day if you live long enough.  
And haven't you known old people who had lost many things who were brave and cheerful?  
It's NICE to have love, possessions, good times, money.  But it's not ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY for happiness! 
 Many people have gone to Tibet and meditated on a mountain top for years in order to learn this very
 important lesson.  
But you can learn it much more quickly and effectively without all that trouble.
  Of course, a lot of practice is required.  
The following outline gives the most
 important causes and cures of depression.  http://www.truthtree.com/rat.shtml

    Happiness is our natural state. Happiness is the natural state of little children, to whom the kingdom belongs until they have been polluted and contaminated by the stupidity of society and culture. To acquire happiness you don't have to do anything, because happiness cannot be acquired. Does anybody know why? Because we have it already. How can you acquire what you already have? Then why don't you experience it? Because you've got to drop something. You've got to drop illusions. You don't have to add anything in order to be happy; you've got to drop something. Life is easy, life is delightful. It's only hard on your illusions, your ambitions, your greed, your cravings. Do you know where these things come from? From having identified with all kinds of labels!     ---Anthony DeMello

 

 

Stress, then, can be viewed as the physiological response
of an organism to an uncomfortable situation.  -By David T. Moran, PhD  

 

[Dr. Selye ] defined stress as "the nonspecific response of the organism to any pressure or demand."  Jon Cabot-Zinn,  Full Catastrophe Living,  page 236, ch.  17

 

"There are two ways of exerting one's strength; one is pushing down, the other is pulling up." - Booker T. Washington

 

Everywhere men and women are reaching the shores of the next millennium with an increasing awareness of having been lured into the pernicious and destructive belief that the quality of their lives arises from focusing on collecting, hoarding, controlling, adding, in short, resorting to greed, a misdirection of life's energies which Matthew Fox identifies as the root of all addictions (Fox, M., 1991). Craving for the Spirit, they have succumbed to the seduction of smaller spirits [and] have become addicted to them.    – Daniel LaQuitton

 

The very fact that humans have at our core a sanctified essence is elevating and gives us intrinsic self-worth because God thought it worthwhile to create our unique soul! If God created me, I must have a unique purpose in this world! Therefore, the point of my existence, and my self-worth, revolve around my moral choices, not my professional success.  -- Dina Mensch, Being vs. Doing (article)

 

"We should train ourselves not to become engrossed in any of the thoughts continuously arising in our mind. Our consciousness is like a vast ocean with plenty of space for thoughts and emotions to swim about and we should not allow our attention to be distracted by any of them."        ----Lama Yeshe

 

Judgments about why people have hurt us can become a deep part of us, affecting the way we feel about ourselves and how we act toward others. .  –Dr. James Richards

I have learned that suffering comes not from the events in our lives, but from the significance that we attach to those events.  For example, a child may have believed that she was at fault for her parents’ divorce - if she had been more lovable, things would have been different. As a result she may judge that she is fundamentally unlovable. Consciously or unconsciously she will work to confirm that judgment, and continue to experience rejection in her relationships. –Dr. James Richards

“We can only guess at why someone has hurt us, because we can’t really know what is inside them. Often we are wrong, but that doesn’t lessen our tendency to judge, or the effects of the judgment.

Suffering is caused by our reactions to the inevitable pain of living. When we react to pain by forming harsh judgments, we set in motion actions and beliefs which create more problems.  –Dr. James Richards

Once you’ve identified your thoughts, ask yourself these

questions:

1. What’s the evidence for seeing things this way?

2. Is this a realistic way to view the situation?

3. Am I being fair in how I look at this?

4. Is there an alternative way of looking at this?

If you do recognize that your automatic thought(s) are

distorted, and you can find a more realistic thought to have

about the situation, it’s likely that the emotional feeling you

have will be changed—it may be a different feeling, or it

may be the same one but the intensity may be slightly

reduced. Don’t underestimate such an achievement! It

shows that you can exert some control over how you react

and feel!
http://www.uc.edu/psc/sh/pdf/SH_Thoughts%20%20Feelings.pdf.

But sometimes it's worth reflecting on the question - "Where do these thougths come from?"

Because the answer to this question is the key to eliminating automatic, negative thoughts for good or, alternatively, gaining such control over them that they are barely worth thinking about!

Negative, automatic thoughts don't just appear from nowhere. Rather, they spring forth from deeper, underlying "thoughts" or what are more accurately called "underlying beliefs". In many ways, beliefs are very similar to thoughts but they differ in that they tend to be more strongly held, not always as easy to access, and they tend to refer to more significant, broader issues (rather than just one specific situation).

For example, a negative automatic thought might be - "He doesn't like me."

The underlying belief might be - "I'm not a likeable/attractive person."

Some have suggested that the negative, automatic thoughts we're aware of on a daily basis are just the tip of the iceberg. What we "see" (the thought) is only one tenth of what's really there (the underlying belief) and therefore to really gain control over our emotions we need not just to challenge negative thoughts but to fundamentally modify deeper beliefs. Not doing so might leave us vulnerable to ongoing episodes of distress and/or to relapse.

So how do you detect and then modify the "icebergs"?

Well this is no easy task but to begin with, try the following:

·  First, identify your automatic, negative thoughts.

·  Second, instead of challenging this thought, ask yourself what's so bad about it? If it (the thought) were really true, what's the worst thing that would happen?

·  Continue this process, "drilling down" until you can't go any further.

·  What you have now is probably close to your deep, underlying beliefs about this issue They might not change or go away as easily but with effort and perseverance, if you gather contradictory evidence, reassess, look for alternative ways of believing etc. you can still make inroads and move towards developing newer, more helpful and constructive beliefs about yourself, the world and the future.

 

·  Finally, in the same way you challenged automatic thoughts you can challenge beliefs.

Remember, just because you think something doesn't mean it's true and just because you've believed something for a long time (and just because your parents might have encouraged you to believe something for a long time) does not mean you have to continue believing this thing...especially if it's not helping you to be happy!-----http://www.depressionet.com.au/inspiration/resilience.html

 

In any situation, you can have the attitude of reaching, of trying to accomplish what you want, or by default you will become a victim, the effect of circumstances and other people’s goals. If you aren’t actively trying to cause an effect you want, you will be forced by the aggression of others to respond, to react, to be the effect of their initiations. It isn’t the perfect design by my standards, but that is the way it works out, whether we like it or not. –Adam Kahn,  http://www.youmeworks.com/makeithappen.html   

 

People would do anything for those who encourage their dreams, justify their failures, allay their fears, confirm their suspicions and help them throw rocks at their enemies. www.blairwarren.com

 

Our knee-jerk interpretations of the world are rarely accurate, never complete and yet appear to be both.  To make matters worse, we have been conditioned to view these interpretations as products of our “true” selves as they arise without effort and in predictable patterns.  They are spontaneous and understandable and thus, “feel” natural.  Because we so readily identify ourselves with them, this mish-mash of impulsive, erratic thoughts literally runs – and often destroys – our lives. 
     It is imperative to understand that these interpretations are not “us” – they are reflex.  “We” are the observers of these thoughts.  The moment we understand this, they no longer bind us.  We are then free to choose other ways of viewing the world.  Even if these ways do not occur to us naturally, we can arrive at them if we only stop and think.
       - Blair Warren, T.V. Producer, writer  

 

 

 

Want to wake up?  You want happiness?  You want freedom?  Here it is: Drop your false ideas.  See through people.  If you see through yourself, you will see through everyone.  Then you will love them.  Otherwise you spend the whole time grappling with your wrong notions of them, with your illusions that are constantly crashing against reality. --- Anthony de Mello  

 

 

I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teachings my blood whispers to me. My story is not a pleasant one; it is neither sweet nor harmonious as invented stories are; it has the taste of nonsense and chaos, of madness and dreams like the lives of all men who stop deceiving themselves. --Herman Hesse  

 

     The fact that astronomies change while the stars abide is a true analogy of every realm of human life and thought, religion not least of all.  No existent theology can be a final formulation of spiritual truth.               Harry E. Fosdick, The living of These Days, 1956

I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery, than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it. --Henry Emerson Fosdick

 

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Links

http://www.youmeworks.com/whythebrainseemsnegative.html

http://soulfulliving.com/serenity_yes.htm

http://www.ecomall.com/greenshopping/nature.htm

http://www.drpokea.com/med.html

http://www.happinessclub.com/

http://www.granby.net/~d_lag/english.htm

http://medicolegal.tripod.com/tcpg.htm

http://www.thehappinessshow.com/

http://www.youmeworks.com/declarewar.html  

http://www.abc-of-meditation.com/livinginthenow/unnecessary.asp  

http://www.buddhanet.net/xmedhome.htm  

http://www.demello.org/article10.html     and 2,3.5,8,9.html

 

 

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