Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Excerpt from John Gray's
The Mars & Venus Diet & Exercise Solution
Create the Brain Chemistry of Health,
Happiness, and Lasting Romance pg 29:
UNCONDITIONAL HAPPINESS
"Unconditional happiness means you smile for no reason at all, execept for being alive. Certainly, life has its ups and downs, but through it all you are happy. This happiness is not an abstract concept but a tangible feeling that pervades your life with such emotions as enthusiasm, excitement, joy, and pleasure. Put simply: Even little things make you happy, and big problems don't knock you over. At difficult and challenging times, when things upset you, you are quickly able to come back to a warm feeling of gratitude for the good things in your life. In the bigger context of all the good in your life, the negative no longer has a grip on your mood.
Unconditional happiness doesn't mean that you are not dependent on circumstance to make you happy. Whatever the circumstances, good or bad, you are rooted in your ability to see the whole picture. You don't drop into a depressed state by focusing on the negative and forgetting all the good in your life. Whenever someone is unhappy or depressed, that person has temporarily forgotten the good things about his or her situation.
In the zone of unconditional happiness, you may feel sad or disappointed after a loss, but not unhappy. You may feel angry and frustrated when you don't like what has happened, but not unloving. You may feel afraid in the face of loss or danger, but you are still in touch with your inner confidence. To be courageous does not mean you have no fear. It means you act in spite of your fears.
All imbalanced mental states - worry, hate, anxiety, depression, for example - result from focusing on the negative in life to the exclusion of the positive. These states of imbalance can now be measured by brain SPECT imaging, which gives a picture of the imbalance of activity in the brain. Different parts of your brain become overactive or under active. With balanced brain chemistry you are able to see the whole picture and avoid focusing on the negative.
No matter how bad things get, there are still many things to be grateful for. If you are in balance and things upset you, you quickly regain your balance by feeling the positive feelings as well.
Experiencing unconditional happiness is like lying in a warm bathtub and enjoying the waves of pleasure that come from moving in the water or feeling the water move over you. Some things make you more or less happy, but you are always connected to your essential nature, which is to be happy. When the water is still, you may even forget that it is warm, but once there is movement you feel it again. Likewise, you may forget you are happy, but all it takes is doing something enjoyable and a wave of happiness fills your being with joy and gratitude."
The Mars & Venus Diet & Exercise Solution
Create the Brain Chemistry of Health,
Happiness, and Lasting Romance pg 29:
UNCONDITIONAL HAPPINESS
"Unconditional happiness means you smile for no reason at all, execept for being alive. Certainly, life has its ups and downs, but through it all you are happy. This happiness is not an abstract concept but a tangible feeling that pervades your life with such emotions as enthusiasm, excitement, joy, and pleasure. Put simply: Even little things make you happy, and big problems don't knock you over. At difficult and challenging times, when things upset you, you are quickly able to come back to a warm feeling of gratitude for the good things in your life. In the bigger context of all the good in your life, the negative no longer has a grip on your mood.
Unconditional happiness doesn't mean that you are not dependent on circumstance to make you happy. Whatever the circumstances, good or bad, you are rooted in your ability to see the whole picture. You don't drop into a depressed state by focusing on the negative and forgetting all the good in your life. Whenever someone is unhappy or depressed, that person has temporarily forgotten the good things about his or her situation.
In the zone of unconditional happiness, you may feel sad or disappointed after a loss, but not unhappy. You may feel angry and frustrated when you don't like what has happened, but not unloving. You may feel afraid in the face of loss or danger, but you are still in touch with your inner confidence. To be courageous does not mean you have no fear. It means you act in spite of your fears.
All imbalanced mental states - worry, hate, anxiety, depression, for example - result from focusing on the negative in life to the exclusion of the positive. These states of imbalance can now be measured by brain SPECT imaging, which gives a picture of the imbalance of activity in the brain. Different parts of your brain become overactive or under active. With balanced brain chemistry you are able to see the whole picture and avoid focusing on the negative.
No matter how bad things get, there are still many things to be grateful for. If you are in balance and things upset you, you quickly regain your balance by feeling the positive feelings as well.
Experiencing unconditional happiness is like lying in a warm bathtub and enjoying the waves of pleasure that come from moving in the water or feeling the water move over you. Some things make you more or less happy, but you are always connected to your essential nature, which is to be happy. When the water is still, you may even forget that it is warm, but once there is movement you feel it again. Likewise, you may forget you are happy, but all it takes is doing something enjoyable and a wave of happiness fills your being with joy and gratitude."
