Could Making Comparisons Be the Source of Your Unhappiness? Eight Powerful Tips for Dealing With the Stress and Frustration In Your Life!
Mary Anne Radmacher and Jonathan Lockwood Huie, authors of "Simply An Inspired Life: Consciously Choosing Unbounded Happiness in Good Times & Bad" discuss how to consciously choose happiness even when life is difficult.
Mary Anne Radmacher and Jonathan Lockwood
Huie, authors of Simply An Inspired Life: Consciously Choosing Unbounded Happiness in Good Times & Bad
talk with Commitment about living an inspired and joyful life. They write: "Mentally, prepare for failures: Your boss WILL be critical of your work. Your cell phone and computer WILL fail. The stock market WILL drop. There WILL be another terrorist attack or war. It is just life. If you are mentally prepared, you won't be surprised or get stressed when the inevitable happens."
Commitment: What motivated you both to write this book?
Jonathan Lockwood Huie: My own life had undergone such an amazing transformation over the last 15 years - almost a 180 degree flip on my attitude toward life. I felt drawn to share with others the happiness that is possible with forgiveness, gratitude for all of life, and a positive outlook.
Mary Anne Radmacher: In my association with Jonathan his commitment to inspired, compassionate living was apparent in all his communication. In a particular phase, Jonathan called me several times in a few weeks suggesting appropriate book titles that I might want to consider writing. Ha! I basically told him to write them himself! We compromised in the middle with deciding to write a book about inspired living – together. It’s been a fascinating process and so rewarding to learn the numbers of people for whom the book has already been a helpful guide.
Commitment: How can a person consciously choose happiness when life is difficult or stressful? Is this really possible?
Jonathan and Mary Anne: Happiness truly is a choice. Here are eight easy yet powerful ways to deal with the stress of life...
1. Simplify your needs: Much of our stress is due to what we believe we need to have. Actually, we need very little - food, a roof over our head, companionship. The rest is all perceived need that causes stress. As a crazy, but everyday example, we get stressed that we don't have the money to finance a relaxing vacation trip. Suppose we just relaxed every day knowing that we don't need luxuries.
2. Simplify your obligations: Practice saying "NO." No, I won't babysit your parakeet. No, I won't work a double shift Sunday. No, I won't chair the fundraising drive. There is actually almost nothing that you must do. Everything in life is a choice. Break the habit of assuming that you need to do everything you are asked to do.
3. Ask yourself what is the worst that can happen: Usually the worst isn't really so bad. For example, the worst your boss can ever do is to fire you, and if you hate your job, that would be a blessing in disguise.
4. Don't be demanding: You ask someone to do something, they don't do it, and you get upset - raising your stress level. Suppose you asked less of other people? Your stress level would go way down. For example, you want your teenagers to keep their rooms tidy. For them, a structured living space is not a priority. Ask yourself whether exerting your control is worth the high stress level that it causes you.
5. Mentally, prepare for failures: Your boss WILL be critical of your work. Your cell phone and computer WILL fail. The stock market WILL drop. There WILL be another terrorist attack or war. It is just life. If you are mentally prepared, you won't be surprised or get stressed when the inevitable happens.
6. Mind your own business: Many of us get upset - and stressed - over the actions of others that are really none of our business. The lifestyle of others is NOT our business. Whether your adult son or daughter has a job, whether they married the "wrong" partner, whether your neighbor recycles, whether the man down the street watches adult movies or his wife is having an affair - these are NOT our business.
Know that there is no single way that life is "supposed" to be. Demanding that life meet our expectations is a sure fire recipe for a miserable existence. Life is a game with no rules. Have NO Expectations of life. Stay in your own business and lower your stress.
7. Be grateful for what you have: Each of us has been infinitely blessed - beginning with the gift of life. Whatever may appear to be missing or broken on any particular day, our glass is not half full, it is 99.9% full. More practically, when we feel ungrateful, we become unhappy and stressed. When we choose to feel and express our gratitude, the act of feeling and speaking our thanks creates a happiness within us. The more we express our gratitude, the more we have for which to be grateful.
8. Make YOU your top priority: Your ONLY responsibility in life is to your own happiness. Lower your stress and raise your joy by focusing on yourself. Today and every day, take time to celebrate your life - whether an hour's meditation in a quiet natural space, or a brief moment's conscious pause to breathe deeply and celebrate gratitude for your life.
Commitment: What do you see as the greatest causes of unhappiness?
Mary Anne and Jonathan: The greatest cause of unhappiness - perhaps even the only cause of unhappiness - is comparison. I remember as a young child hearing my mother say, "Comparisons are odious." That is one of the oldest sayings in the English language, and one of the most important.
Essentially all suffering is the result of...
* Comparing what we have (or don't have) today with what we had yesterday.
* Comparing what we fear we might have (or not have) tomorrow) with what we have today.
* Comparing what we have (or don't have) with what others have.
If I own two bicycles while my neighbor owns one, I feel rich, but if I own two bicycles while my neighbor owns a car, I feel that the world has treated me unfairly and I suffer. If I could only crawl yesterday, but can walk today, I am grateful, but if I could run yesterday, and can only walk today, I become angry and resentful.
The way to happiness is what I call Zero-Based Gratitude. Each day be happy and grateful for what you have, independent of yesterday and of other people.
Think of Zero-Based Gratitude like zero-based budgeting, the process in which governments and businesses attempt to disregard the spending patterns they have become addicted to, and establish a realistic budget from a base-line of zero spending.
Commitment: Can you explain the stories we tell ourselves and how these stories impact our quality of life and emotional health? How can a person create stories about themselves that inspire, embolden and strengthen, rather than cripple and depress?
Jonathan and Mary Anne: The impact of our stories becomes clear through example... If I haven't heard from my best friend for two weeks, my mind is going to create a story to explain why she hasn't called.
Perhaps my story is that I offended her, she doesn't like me any more, she found another best friend, or I have bad breath. It is the unalterable nature of the human mind to create these stories of explanation. While we can't eliminate inventing these stories, we can redirect our stories toward positive explanations. Of course, calling my friend to check on her well-being is most important, but along the way, I consciously invent positive stories about my friend being busy with joyful projects that she will be happy to share with me when we do talk next.
The stories that I consciously invent are neither more true nor less true than the unhappy stories my mind unconsciously creates, but they do bring me greater happiness until I have access to factual information.
Commitment: What are the eight points of living an inspired life?
Jonathan and Mary Anne:
• HONOR for true self.
• FORGIVENESS for self and all.
• GRATITUDE in everything.
• CHOICE with open mind and heart.
• VISION with powerful intention.
• ACTION with bold courage;
• CELEBRATION with joy;
• UNITY with all creation.
Commitment: You write about fear, and how particularly fear of abandonment is one of our greatest fears. How can a person who feels a lot of fear around abandonment begin to deal with their fear in a way that frees them?
Jonathan and Mary Anne: Dealing with fear of abandonment, like dealing with any fear, begins with recognition of the nature of the fear. Let's imagine that I have been through a number of relationships that have all ended badly. In each case, I left the relationship when challenges arose. Oh, and by the way, when I was six, my parents separated and I felt that I had been the cause, and that my father had abandoned me. Now put the pieces of the puzzle together... I leave relationships to avoid the risk of having my partner abandon me, as I believe my father did.
As you can see in the above illustration, fear of abandonment is most treacherous when it is not recognized at all, but slithers and squirms in our emotional gut.
Commitment: What are our five core needs as humans, and how can we meet these needs?
Jonathan and Mary Anne: There is a paradox at work here. There is actually nothing we truly need, although most of us feel needy much of the time. Our multitude of perceived needs can be reduced to five core instinctive needs...
* Certainty and Constancy - we feel a need to know what is coming next, and to avoid change
* Freedom from physical pain
* Survival - our next breath and next heartbeat
* Safety - freedom from attack by humans, beasts, and nature
* Human Companionship
Generally, our greatest happiness comes not from striving to meet these survival instincts, but from adopting the philosophy that we have no needs and that, at each instant, everything we have and everything we are is a gift and a blessing.
Modern life is very different from the times in which our core need instincts developed. For example, hoarding food, warm animal skins, and the biggest cave would have increased our ancestor's chances of living and reproducing, but today, the instinct of humans to hoard cause the hoarder, as well as those around him, to suffer.
As another example, happiness results from accepting and embracing the constant changes which are the nature of life. Adopt a sense of adventure and welcome an attitude of not-knowing, rather than struggling to maintain the illusion of certainty and constancy.
Commitment: What are five ways a person can begin living a joyful life?
Jonathan and Mary Anne:
1. Recognize that in every circumstance the single choice that you have is your choice of attitude. Choose Joy.
2. Be a student of your own life: observe your patterns and learn from them.
3. Connect to the things that clearly invigorate you and mindfully make them a part of your life.
4. Observe spiritual structures that are personally meaningful to you.
5. Make a list of the things that you are grateful for every day before going to sleep and when you first wake.
Commitment: What are some of the thoughts and attitudes that can enable a person to live a more inspired life?
Jonathan and Mary Anne: These are ways to live the eight points of an inspired life...
* Respect and love yourself.
* Forgive yourself and all others for everything that has ever occurred, or not occurred, in your life.
* Be grateful for everything that you have, and everything you are. Have Zero-Based Gratitude - don't compare your life with anyone else's.
* Be yourself. As Judy Garland said, "Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else."
* Play to win, but be a good loser. Have a plan for your life, but accept whatever comes your way with grace and gratitude.
* Be courageous and patient, but not stubborn. Balance persistence with discovering new paths to your highest goals.
* Celebrate all of life. Gratitude is the prayer, but celebration is the song and the dance of praise.
* Rejoice in unity with all that is. Feel the palpable oneness of all people, nature and Spirit.
Commitment: What role does gratitude play in living an inspired life? What advice do you have for those who are not naturally grateful, but more prone to complaining and seeing the cup as half full?
Jonathan and Mary Anne: Unconditional gratitude for everything that happens, or does not happen, in our lives is central to a happy life. For those with an abiding faith in God, accept everything that happens as God's Will - who are we to question that God knows what is best for us in the long run?
For those with other belief systems, just try this experiment... For one day, focus on everything that is wrong with your life, the glass is half full, life isn't fair, you deserve better, it shouldn't be this way.
On the next day, focus all your thoughts on the goodness of life, nature, beauty, whatever degree of health you have, whatever love is in your life, food, clothing, shelter, those that serve you (including those who transport your food and keep your electricity and telephone working), your very existence as a human being. Now choose whether viewing life as a glass half empty or as a glass half full brings you greater happiness.
Visit the on-line home of Simply An Inspired Life is http://www.SimplyAnInspiredLife.com
To Purchase Simply An Inspired Life click here.
About the authors: Mary Anne Radmacher, co-author of Simply An Inspired Life, is the creator of famous art posters and the author of several books, including Live Boldly and Lean Forward Into Your Life, Her classic signature work combines inspiring words with beautiful art.
Jonathan Lockwood Huie, co-author of Simply An Inspired Life, is known as "The Philosopher of Happiness," and writes the popular Daily Inspiration - Daily Quote which is available on-line at http://www.DreamThisDay.com and via free email subscription.
