creative maverick

Since taking the Lightning Process training, I reckon I’ve got the answer to that old secret-of-happiness question. Want to know it?

How to be happy

Think happy thoughts, recall happy memories, create happy visions of the future.

Er that’s it.

Michael Neill makes a great case in his book Feel Happy Now! that happiness is not dependent on external circumstances, it is something we create. Quite simply if we think happy thoughts and create happy images in our mind, we will feel the feelings of happiness.

“But that’s fake!” you’re probably screaming. It’s no more fake than the feelings we experience at any time. Come with me here. Our thoughts create our feelings. If a new feeling suddenly comes over you (eg sadness), you can bet that if you backtrack a bit, a sad thought flitted across your mind moments before even if you didn’t clock it.

Do you think it’s possible that if you take two people in exactly the same situation, perhaps something seemingly negative like being dumped, one could feel happy about it and one unhappy? It’s the thoughts we have about the situation that make the feelings different. If one person thought “what am I going to do, no one else will want me?” and the other thought “hey, now I can go after that person I fancy in the office!”, the resulting feelings will clearly be different.

When I have clients who want to address low self-esteem and confidence in their work I always ask them what they’re telling themselves in their head. Of course, it is a continual stream of negative statements; Someone else will be better qualified for this job, I might fall flat on my face, people will be shocked when I tell them my daily rate, I’ll never get any work and I’ll end up broke. And I put it to them that anyone who heard, and most importantly, listened to that stream of negative comments would have poor confidence and self-esteem.

Instead of this, when you have a negative thought, stop it in its tracks, pause and recall a positive memory. If you want to feel confidence, close your eyes and recall a time when you were confident. It could be something very simple - are you confident you can drive a car? That’ll do fine. You will feel a few moments of confidence. I’m not saying this will stay with you, the secret is repetition.

Imagine you stopped every negative thought in its tracks and then recalled a positive memory and felt the resulting feelings. Eventually the old neural pathways of low self-esteem start to die away (just like your algebra has if you haven’t used it since school) and the new pathways of confidence build and get stronger until you naturally create confidence in yourself as your default state.

Create the feeling you want right now. Stop any negative thought. Decide what feeling you want to experience. Then close your eyes and recall a memory that will give you that feeling. What do you notice? Leave me a comment and let me know how you get on.

In truth, there is something of an art to mastering this and making it part of your life. It’s best learned with a good teacher. The Lightning Process training has these kind of ideas at its core. It’s most famous for its radical effects on physical illness like M.E and chronic pain but I reckon it could well become recognised as one of the best trainings in happiness yet invented. See simpsonandfawdry.com for more about the 3 day course I took.