Do you feel depressed or unhappy because that’s how you think you should feel?

I’d come across a method of getting rid of feelings of anxiety, which would eventually lead to great things that I wanted to create in my life.  Who wouldn’t want that?

So I bought the book The Sedona Method, by Hale Dwoskin.  It was a pretty easy read and the exercises were really simple.  In recommending the book to my best friend, he’d got it but had one complaint.  

“I wish the feeling of peace would last longer,” he said.

I agreed. 

Then I was listening to one of my favorite speakers and author, Michael Neill, and he mentioned that most people felt any variance of unhappiness  because they thought they should. 

For example, if someone insulted you or cut you off while driving (man, I hate that) would you get angry?  Want revenge (guilty)?

If you lost someone special, do you need to feel bad in order to mourn? Or can you mourn and feel at peace, or happy?

Maybe in some way we’re trained to feel unhappy.  Bad thing happens, time to feel bad.  Kinda like Pavlov’s dog.  Or ever heard too much of a good thing is bad (religion anyone)?  Don’t wanna feel too happy or else…what?

I don’t know.  Happiness?

Then I realized that we practiced feeling not at peace that we got to be pretty goddamn good at it.

So when tools such as The Sedona Method comes along, we need to practice feeling happy, peaceful, instead of feeling unsatisfied that it didn’t work.

Working in the corporate world lends my ears to a lot of complaining.  Currently we’re getting a lot of rain.

But for the past few years we weren’t receiving the needed amount of rain and headed toward a drought.  So I’m thankful for this storm.  But all I hear throughout the office is how terrible this weather is.  How awful it is out there.  How inconvenient the rain is.

So would they rather have this?

Because people were complaining how we didn’t get a lot of rain.  Either way, complainers can’t seem to be satisfied with anything.

Here’s a good one.  A lot of companies are going through layoffs.  Mine was no different.  But some of my coworkers complained how busy we were.  We were so busy that overtime was authorized.  I don’t know about them, but busy should equal job security.  I’m not a proponent of guarantees, but in a time when unemployment is higher than normal, you’d think they’d be glad it was busy.

I’m not saying I don’t complain.  I tend to do it in my head.  And once I’m done, I feel tight, angry, and depressed.  So I’ve become aware of it and do what I can to quiet my mind.  Sometimes, though, I whine like a baby.  In those cases, I either write a post, surf the web, workout, take a drive, listen to music, watch a good movie…you get the idea.

But a habitual conscious effort will replace a lot of complaining.  Because the best way to replace a habit is with another one.  Just don’t replace it with another bad one.  I’ve seen this before.  When people know their complaining doesn’t do anything, they take on addictive habits.  Like watching reality TV.  Sit at bars staring at the ladies and giving them the hibbie jibbies.  Or eat crap food.

Find what gives you joy.  True joy.  And do it.  You never know where it’ll lead.