Good Morning! Still Exploring Happiness.

Happiness is the best path to take!

I look back and realize the reasons for my unhappiness, that my happiness meter depended on others more than myself. I felt sadness in my heart more than happiness for most of my life. How I responded to the world was through a filter of sadness, and a need to protect myself from being hurt. I also borrowed how others felt by sensing keenly how others felt. For example, the first responses to my world were ones where I observed and heard my mother’s frustrations. Her hurt and anger. I wanted so badly for her to be happy! There I was a child who could not have understood or affected the world around me, yet keenly observing the choices of my parents. This is the case for all children. I soon learned I couldn’t make her happy. I felt guilty somehow. Children feel “If I am good! If I try harder! Then things might change. But they don’t. Then we become adults and start out on life’s path.

What I know now: That at each age and stage of life, we have experiences that we file away during each age and stage, and these become our belief systems. The mind files away this information “good, bad, indifferent” so that we can call it up for references. However, what we don’t understand readily is that the mind predicts the information we might want. Picture a huge filing cabinet with thousands of filed information. That information may or may not be updated. The next thing to understand is our minds and our bodies remember this information whenever it is called up. Think of something that deeply hurt you. Notice your body’s response. What happens is a chemical response send out by the brain. Things such as endorphens____ These are not just found in the brain, they are in the heart and stomach! So when the brain predicts woosh! What we feel is sent out!

The thing is that what is sent forth affects how we feel If we are happy the brain responds. If we are unhappy it responds. And it gets used to being in that state. But we can change this state of being ourselves! Then when the brain sends out the happy chemical if you will. Then those files the mind predicts from are brought up first pushing the unhappy files further back. Another way to put this is that we have what is called short-term memory. To get anything to stick in what is called long-term memory we need to think of whatever it is more often!

Thoughts do come rolling by….but we don’t have to take them in, rattle them around…..understand why they are there.

I like how this is explained in Happiness For No Reason. This has made a big impact along with other research I do in neurobiology. My current writing project is a manual about how the mind works during the creative process. Happiness is definitely a part of the creative process. My research will help me to explain what happens in the mind and body as we create. This information will help people heal mentally. physically, emotionally and spiritually. It needs to be stated in ways people can internalize it. Then it can affect the pathways within the brain itself. We know today that the body can heal itself. It will do a better job if it can maintain a happy state of well-being.

Best wishes! And find happiness! Pejj Nunes