Finding Harmony In Disharmony

Life can bring all of us challenges at times. The key to finding harmony in the disharmony of life is to change the way we see the challenges. Please note, this is a lecture, not a guided meditation.

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

When we're unhappy with our lives,

I think there's a tendency to believe that if our lives were different,

Our lives would be better and we would be happier.

There's a real tendency,

When we're unhappy,

To look for external causes for our unhappiness and say,

If these things weren't there,

Then we would be happy.

And the sad truth is,

You're right.

If we believe that our external circumstances make us happy or unhappy,

We're right.

And because life is always throwing something at us,

Even when things are at their best,

Because then things can go wrong,

We're always going to be unhappy.

But we're not right in the way you may be thinking.

It's not that this is a truth.

It's just that if we believe it,

Then it is a truth.

Our thoughts,

How we see the world,

Shape our level of happiness or unhappiness.

Because the truth is,

The external circumstances of our life are irrelevant when it comes to our level of happiness.

And if we're truthful and we think about this,

We know this is true.

Why?

Because we know people that have far less than we do and are doing well.

We know people who have gone through so much more than we have and are doing well.

They may be the minority,

But we all know people like this.

So in today's podcast,

I want to talk about a technique that we can use to find happiness when it looks like externally things aren't going well.

So to begin,

Remember our thoughts matter.

Whatever we think,

Our thoughts have a lot of power to them.

So what do people do who are happy when they go through tough times?

How do they interpret these difficulties and still keep a smile on their hearts?

Well,

One of the things they do is this.

They perceive that chaos on one level can be harmony on another.

Let me use a couple of examples to explain this.

I live in California and we have a park called Sequoia National Park.

It is beautiful and it's home to the Sequoia trees,

Which are these mammoth trees that lived for centuries.

And yet in California,

If you listen to the news,

We have fires periodically.

And sometimes we have a lot of them and we have big ones.

And so how do these trees not only live but thrive for hundreds of years with all these fires?

It's actually very simple.

Their barks are very thick so even though they have scars from the fires,

The barks can protect them.

But the other thing is,

They actually need the fires in order for their seeds to be released and planted in the new soil from the fires.

So even though fires are usually seen as incredibly destructive,

For the Sequoias,

They create life.

So what can be interpreted on one level as destructive,

As bad,

Can at another level be seen as beautiful and life-creating.

Here's another example.

I think most of us when we hear the term bacteria,

We think disease,

Illness,

Sickness.

And yet,

If we didn't have bacteria,

Millions and millions of them,

In our stomach,

We would get very sick.

Without these bacteria living in our stomachs,

Our lives would not go well.

So at one level,

What can seem chaotic and destructive,

At another level,

Can be interpreted as beautiful or life-sustaining.

So if we want to find peace and happiness in our lives,

The first thing we want to do and the last thing we want to do is we want to stop believing that other people's lives are happy because their lives are going well.

That is just not true.

What it is,

Is they're seeing life through a different lens.

Their lives can be just as hard and often are.

It really has nothing to do with the challenges of life.

The difference is how they see it,

How they interact with these challenges.

The person who's struggling with life sees the fires of life as destructive,

As harmful,

As death-causing,

As pain-inducing.

The people who have found peace and happiness in their lives see the fires as necessary,

As just part of life and that beautiful things,

Even life,

Can come from these fires.

The fires in many ways are irrelevant.

Life has fires.

Life has bacteria.

It's just whether we're going to see the beauty or the pain and whatever we see,

That will be our reality.

So people that are doing well see that when the fires come or that bacteria of life are there,

They see purpose,

They see reason and they realize that these things do not in any way have to distract from their level of happiness because they're just part of life.

Fires come.

Bacteria are there.

Instead,

They say,

Okay,

This is what I'm given to deal with.

I will deal with it well and I'll be okay because I'm always okay.

I don't need life to go a certain way to be okay.

Life is just okay.

And because I see it that way,

Then what happens is instead of struggling with life,

We begin to flow with life and see the beauty all around us.

But if we truly want to find happiness and peace in our lives,

We have to stop doing this one thing.

We have to stop saying in our hearts that the reason that other person is happy or doing well is because things are going well in their life.

And the reason my life isn't going well because things aren't going well,

It isn't that at all.

It's all about how we see things.

I can absolutely guarantee you that people who are doing well still have incredible challenges in their life,

But they don't see it that way.

They see the fires of life as necessary,

As part of life.

And their job is to flow with them,

Accept them,

Embrace them,

And even see the beauty in them.

When we say other people's lives are easy and ours is hard,

And that's why they're doing better,

That is a path of suffering and it's an untruth.

And if you really want to find peace and happiness in your life,

You really need to stop doing that because it is one of the biggest lies your mind is teaching you and that lie is keeping you from being happy.

Everyone has challenges.

Everyone does.

The difference is how they interpret these challenges.

They don't see them as curses,

As tragedies,

As things which shouldn't be there.

They're just part of life.

And they realize that they can be at peace even during the strongest blazes of fire in life.

It's all how we see it.

It really has nothing to do with what's happening,

But that's why people suffer because they think that if their lives were going differently,

Then they'd be happy.

No,

It's because of how they see life,

That they're unhappy.

Other people,

The people that you may hear of that are doing well as far as being happy and peaceful,

Still have incredibly challenging lives.

The difference is they don't see it that way.

They just see it as part of life.

Cancer comes and they deal with it.

Death comes and they adjust to it.

Loss comes and they roll with it.

Pain comes and they flow with it.

It's all how we see it.

But saying that if my life were different,

Then I'd be happy,

That is the path to suffering.

And I know we do go through very challenging times at times,

But what we need to start doing if we truly want to find peace in our hearts is seeing the beauty in chaos,

In seeing that there is always something that can have meaning and purpose in our lives.

I know the event in and of itself can be incredibly painful,

But there are always something else that our attention can be on.

And when we put our focus on something else,

Things begin to shift inside.

We'll find that the peace and happiness that we're looking for has always been there.

And the cause of the disturbance to this peace is the way we're seeing things,

Is the way we're interpreting the events of our lives.

Life has fires.

It does.

But it doesn't mean we have to suffer.

It's just part of life.

When we see that at a higher level,

But at one level,

What can seem discordant at another level can be harmonious.

And we begin to flow with life and life begins to go so much better.

And do you want to know the secret of why people that are doing well are doing well,

Even though their lives can be just as challenging as ours?

Because of two benefits by seeing things as harmonious,

Even when they're discordant.

The one is,

Is that the events that happen don't last as long.

There's nothing to hang on to.

Yes,

That fire came and now it's gone.

Where other people,

When the fires of life come,

May spend days,

Weeks,

Months,

Years staying there,

Reliving the fire over and over and over again,

Even though it may have happened years ago.

We all know people like that,

That hang on to things from the past that have happened and they can't let go.

And so they continue to suffer over and over again.

The people that have found peace in their hearts,

Let it go because they didn't see it as a horrible tragedy.

They just saw it as part of life.

And it's so much easier to let go of.

The other benefit you get from letting things go is that you don't have to turn towards addictions because addictions are there to numb us.

Alcohol,

Drugs,

Food,

Sex,

Work,

Whatever it may be,

Addictions have one purpose.

They numb us from the pain.

The pain is our mental thoughts about what has happened.

When we let things go,

There's nothing to numb.

We don't need to turn towards addictions to numb.

So we don't struggle with them nearly as much.

These are the benefits of when the fires come,

Seeing harmony in the disharmony and then getting the benefits of not having to turn towards addictions from the creative pains in our minds and letting the pains go after they've come.

We don't need to hang on to them.

We truly can have beautiful lives,

But we have to have things in place.

One of them is truly believing that when there's disharmony at one level,

There can be harmony at another.

And if we see that,

Then when we're in the struggles of life,

We believe at our core that there is harmony even in the chaotic,

Crazy disharmony that we're experiencing right now.

So we flow.

We don't fight life.

We do our best at the time to adjust to the changes that we're going through,

Realizing that disharmony can always have harmony in it.

And so that we begin to flow with life.

We stop fighting life when life presents things to us that seem as challenges.

And we look for the harmony and we'll always find it because it's always there.

And then when life has fires or is a peaceful forest,

Both are fine.

Both are beautiful and all is well.

Thank you for joining me on the happiness podcast until next time,

Except what is love what is.

Reviews

Thank you so much for this talk. Especially like the 2 benefits from seeing the harmony in the disharmony. Makes for a happier/healthier life…. without the addictions; also events not lasting as long by not reliving them!!!! A lesson well worth taking in!🥰