Happy Thoughts, Happy Life

Our happiness and depression depend on the nature of our thoughts. As we learn to observe our thoughts, we can learn to shift them to a more peaceful place.

Please note, this is a talk, not a guided meditation.

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

Why does it seem like sometimes it's so easy to make life go well and our lives just seem peaceful and happy and then at other times almost in a blink of an eye?

This changes and our lives can seem so hard and so difficult.

Why is this?

I don't know about you but over the course of my life I've had some really intense gnarly dreams and when I am awakened by these dreams I can feel the full impact of the emotions that go along with these dreams.

For example,

I've had several dreams over the course of my life as you may have too where someone I deeply love has died in the dream and then when I wake up after a few moments I realize oh that was just a dream and then I relax but at the time when I wake up I can feel the full force of the impact of my emotions from the dream.

My thoughts create my feelings.

Once I'm able to readjust my thoughts my feelings calm and I feel better.

We all know how powerful these dreams can be.

They can seem so real and when we wake up it can take a few moments or sometimes the feelings last throughout the day because we're remembering the thoughts we had during our dreams but once we readjust our thinking then our feelings subside.

But the question I want to ask us is,

Is this any different than our own lives?

Do our thoughts shape the way we feel and our thoughts are far more important than what's actually happening?

What I want us to think about today is how our happiness depends on the quality of our thoughts.

After all,

Sometimes we can have really good dreams and we wake up from them feeling great like wow we want to hang on to this feeling but again it's preceded by our thoughts.

And in life the same is true.

We're not happy because we're happy.

We're happy because of the way we interpret our lives and whether we see the events in our lives as good or bad and if they're bad we tend to be unhappy and if they're good we tend to be happy.

But it's very much dependent upon our thoughts and how we interpret what is happening in our lives.

Here's where it gets a little tricky because when reality happens we think there's a way of interpreting it and that interpretation is correct and thus we feel a certain way.

It seems rather black and white to us but if we've lived long enough I think we can find holes in this argument.

In life there are a lot of bumps.

Things don't go the way we want them to and sometimes we handle them magnificently.

We're calm.

We're peaceful.

We just do what we need to do to fix a problem then we move on.

Other times this is not very true.

We get upset.

We get angry.

We get irate.

We get miserable.

We are just having a rough time and it's because of our thoughts because our thoughts are saying this shouldn't be happening.

This is wrong and we're in that more peaceful state.

We think oh life is just happening.

How do I fix this?

Is there anything I can do to make this better?

The situation can be exactly the same.

It's our thoughts that make us experience it very differently.

Let me use a simple example just to illustrate this.

We wake up in the morning and we have a headache.

Well the simple approach would be hmm it's is there anything I could do to fix this headache?

Perhaps I could take some aspirin or Tylenol.

Perhaps I could drink some water.

Perhaps I can do some stretching and see if I can relax my body a little bit.

Perhaps I can take a shower or perhaps I'll just let the headache be there and probably with time it will go away.

That's one approach.

That's one train of thought.

That's a good one.

A second one might be wow this is so unfair.

I hate getting headaches.

Why do I have to get these headaches?

This is so irritating.

I hate it when I get headaches.

I wish it'd go away.

Other people don't have headaches.

Why do I get headaches?

That's a second train of thought and that's probably going to be a harder day.

A third one,

A more dark one might be I have a headache.

Wow.

I wonder if something's wrong.

I wonder if I have a brain tumor.

I wonder if I'm going to die.

What will happen if I die?

It will be horrible.

I don't know.

This is really bad.

I better make a doctor appointment.

But even if they don't find anything,

I know I may have brain cancer and this could be really awful and painful.

I could suffer for years with this headache.

Oh my God.

That's a third example.

They're all three true for the person experiencing them.

But each person has a very different experience.

The truth is our happiness depends on the quality of our thoughts.

And if we're honest,

We really all know this.

We know that there's people out there that have gone through incredibly difficult times that are fine.

Their lives are doing well and others that are going through perhaps in our minds things,

Events that aren't that big a deal,

But yet they seem morbidly depressed and even suicidal.

Our thoughts affect the quality of our lives.

And what I'm going to say next,

You may not like,

But I want you to at least be open until the end of the podcast before you make your final judgment.

And that is,

It doesn't really matter what happens to us.

What matters is how we interpret it.

Let me start with the small things of life.

When we live life,

Things go wrong.

They just do.

Lots of things go wrong,

But they go wrong because we have expectations of them that go a certain way.

And this in and of itself isn't something bad.

It's just we really do create expectations.

I mean,

If we get in our car to drive somewhere,

We're hopeful that our car will work well and get us there and won't break down on the way there.

When it does break down,

That can be from something that's quite irritating to just something we have to fix.

It all depends on how we see it because life has a lot of bumps along the way.

It just doesn't go the way we often or sometimes expect it to.

And when it doesn't,

It all depends upon how we interpret it.

Is it just something that we need to fix to adjust to or is it something that's going to give us or make us have a very bad day?

I mean,

Because of social media,

We're all very aware of this.

We can watch a YouTube video about someone just freaking out because their order was wrong at a restaurant or because someone stepped in front of them or whatever it may be.

There are so many videos showing people having horrible days when something rather minor happened.

And this can happen to us.

But for most of us,

We just suggest and it isn't that big a deal.

And for minor things,

Most of us are surprised or we find it kind of amusing when someone misbehaves or gets really upset over something minor.

And even when we get caught up into something that's minor and get upset over it later,

Often very quickly,

We realize that was silly and we let it go.

We can maybe even laugh about it.

And we just get back to living life.

And this is how most of us live on the little things.

Again,

Using traffic as an example,

If you drive in traffic,

Most drivers are polite.

They're not in a big hurry.

Everyone drives smoothly.

And even when there's bumps along the way,

They just flow with the bumps.

The irate driver,

The rage Rover are rare.

We do see them,

But they're rare.

We don't see them as often.

They just stand out in our memories because they're so incredibly obnoxious in their behavior.

I mean,

We probably have done it too.

So we don't want to judge others,

But we need to realize they're the exception and not the rule.

So life,

When it comes to the little bumps in life,

We tend to do better.

Those that don't,

Those that get upset over the little bumps tend to have very challenging lives,

As you can probably imagine,

Because our thoughts are focused on being upset all day long.

And that upsetness creates a lot of unhappiness.

And the only difference between an unhappy person and a happy person on these little things is their thoughts.

And that probably makes a lot of sense.

But when it comes to the big things,

This is where we get caught.

Because when it's a big thing,

We think,

Well,

I have a right to be upset.

I should be upset.

And this should be horrible.

And I'm going to let it be horrible,

Perhaps for the rest of my life,

Because that's just the way it is.

But it's this last statement that catches us.

Is that true?

I mean,

If we believe it's true,

It's true.

Because our thoughts create our reality,

Our happiness.

It's dependent upon what our thoughts are.

And if we think that going through this crisis means we need to be unhappy now,

Perhaps again for the rest of our lives,

And even contemplate suicide as a way to end this unhappiness,

Then that may be our reality.

But no matter what example you could give me,

Any,

I can guarantee I can find someone who's going through the exact same thing you are,

Or the example you come up with,

And they're going to be doing fine.

They may not like what they're going through,

But they have adjusted to what they're going through.

And life is still good.

It's our thoughts that create our unhappiness or happiness.

We have to look at them and say,

Okay,

What am I thinking?

Why did I think this event is happening would never happen to me?

I mean,

Think about the platitude that's out there,

That bad things happen to good people.

They do.

They happen to all of us.

The question is,

Why did we think it would never happen to us?

Because things happen to all of us.

We don't know when we can't control that.

The one thing we can control is our response.

Let's use divorce as an example.

If we get married,

Particularly here in the Western world,

There's a high probability,

50% chance that we make a divorce.

So when we walk down that aisle,

We have to think,

Hmm,

This could end a divorce.

So when it does,

If we're mortified,

Which of course is sad when things end a divorce,

But if we get to the point where we're stuck and our lives are over forever,

That's where we've taken it too far.

Of course it's appropriate to grieve.

Of course it's appropriate to express our emotions,

But then we move on and we're only going to be able to move on if we watch our thoughts and say,

What are they?

Are my thoughts helping me move on or are my thoughts keeping me stuck?

The big events in our lives are like our car breaking down.

We didn't expect them to happen,

But they do happen.

And a question to ask ourselves after we may get frustrated because our car broke down or we're going through a divorce or we've been diagnosed with cancer or our child is suffering and going to have health issues,

Whatever it may be.

Then we take a deep breath and we say,

Okay,

This has happened.

My car metaphorically has broken down.

How do I deal with this and move on in life?

Because life will throw us things,

But it doesn't have to be the end of our life.

It doesn't have to be even that long of suffering.

It just means an adjustment to this change,

A change of course that we don't like,

But one that we can adjust to.

As humans,

If we watch our thoughts,

We can be very good at adjusting to anything.

That's how come people have in many cases,

Very challenging lives and yet their lives turn out beautifully.

We know this.

We all know examples of either people we know or people through history that we've read about or we've learned about that have had incredible challenges in their life and yet their lives turned out beautifully.

The difference between that beautiful life and one of pain and suffering is the thoughts.

Events happen to all of us.

Sometimes they're big,

Sometimes they're minor,

But the key is after we feel our feelings,

Then we say,

Okay,

Now what am I going to do to make this work?

We can make anything work,

Anything.

If we don't give up and we keep working towards finding a solution to the problem before us and sometimes that solution is just acceptance.

Oh,

My car is broken and it can't be repaired.

So now I'm going to not have a car in my life or I've lost my job and I'm too old to get another one and I need to adjust to that or my relationship has ended and I need to move forward now and perhaps seek new relationships or my child who I deeply love has moved on into the next journey in the afterlife and I need to allow myself to grieve that loss and then move on and live my life well for how many days I have left.

Life throws us things we just cannot control.

Sometimes they're minor and sometimes they're really big,

But the one thing we have control over is our thoughts and our thoughts will affect our reality.

The quality of our happiness is dependent upon our thoughts and we're pretty good at the little nuances of life that don't go well.

What catches are the big things,

But we need to stop saying big things can't happen.

They can and they do and they happen to many people,

Maybe not very often,

But what our job is when they happen,

We take a deep breath again and we say,

Okay,

Now that I've felt my feelings,

How am I going to live the rest of my life well?

And it will be dependent upon the thoughts.

We need to pay attention to our thoughts.

We need to have good thoughts that say,

Yes,

I can make this work.

I know there's been people that have been in equal or even more difficult situations than I am in right now and their lives have been good without the thing that I thought I needed to have.

I can do this.

I'm going to work on this and I'm never going to give up because I believe,

Deeply believe that I can have a beautiful life.

These are the thoughts that we listen for.

These are the thoughts that we create and when we create these thoughts,

Then we'll find that our lives are good.

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

Accept what is love what is.

Reviews

This is so encouraging & helpful. Thank you.

Excellent, thank you

Excellent excellent excellent ! You really help me change the way I think about things. I’m going to choose happiness

this is so positively delicious - just listening to it inspires me 🙏

Excellent

Vety good. Thank you.

This is just what I needed to hear! I tend think about the bad things that could happen instead of being thankful for what I have. Thanks for sharing 💜🦋🌈

Loved this just what I needed to here

Thank you! I really enjoyed your talk. It helped me see that I have a choice, in how I think and accepting what is to be happy. ☺💐