5. Learning Efficient Happiness

Efficient Happiness

Is a method of guidance that teaches people how to be happy, it’s a simple concept but one that is missed in almost every person. Happy people tend to be less depressed, how many happy depressed people do you know? Not many, so when someone comes in with a diagnosis of depression, that terminology is quickly re-labeled to “not happy”, this terminolgy gives power back and allows you to take action. It is only after that can we see the person as an open slate ready to learn. Just to clarify, there are many life lessons that teach us to close off emotionally, not to trust, and to overprotect ourselves, all of these are attempts to avoid pain, however avoiding pain is not the same as creating and being happy. Most people have just never been taught how to be happy, have you been taught? When we are growing up, there are no classes that teach us how to use our hurts to create peace, or ask for extra love when we are going through pain, there is no training in emotional and spiritual awareness, there are no classes in how to use our free will and how to feel or how to be in the moment.

There is an Indian Belief that everyone is in a house of four rooms:

A physical, a mental, an emotional and a spiritual

Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time, but unless we go into every room everyday, even if only to keep it aired, we are not complete.

-Rumer Godden (House of Four Rooms)

Efficient Happiness Training

To begin efficient happiness training you must first understand the gifts and tools that you have been born with. First you have an amazing self-healing body capable of carrying you through all your life, next you have a creative part of you that exists in the present moment that you feel with (heart), then you have a part of you that calculates, plans and thinks (mind) and then you have, “you” (soul or witness), the driver of your life that gets to pick and choose how to work and merge all of these parts together. Most people are unaware of the simplest truths that we have these unique and amazing parts given to help us create an amazing life. In relationship to the mind and heart, many people don't realize that these two are distinctly different. Now it must be stated that I am not dividing these to separate them, but rather to allow a wonderful contrast so one can see how to merge and use them together. This would be the same an artist learning the difference between the canvas of the mind and the paint of the heart. The mind and heart, along with your body and soul are all meant to communicate, be friends and work together. One confusion for people is that they have been brought up to assume there is only thing inside of us that just talks alot, instead of recognizing that there are two distinct and unique voices.  The mind for instance has all the characteristics and qualities of a computer, it is fast, stores information, attaches and associates for speed, plans, calculates, and judges threats to assist in your survival and avoid pain. The heart is the opposite it is the creative feeling part of you with all of the characteristics and qualities connected to a sparkly eyed child that has never been hurt and is seeking love in a constistant open state of gratitude. If we used the word god, your heart would be your doorway or connection to god, truth and wisdom.

Are you aware of the these distinct parts of you or do you believe that they were all just one? Do you know the differences between the part that you think with called your mind, and the part that you feel with called your heart? Which is your dominate state, which one is the boss, in other words are you more of a avoid-a-painer or a seek-a-lover? Which one do you believe guides you towards happiness, your head or your heart?

Next, consider accepting these certain simple truths:

• That we are all born clean and good, in other words that you are not broken built to suffer
• That no part of you has be created with the intention to hurt you or cause you to suffer, every part of you is here to help create happiness.
• That force of love is stronger than fear or hate, the world is evolving everyday.
• That we are all connected and part of this force.
• That life is a gift.
• It is okay to be happy
• That your heart is your connection to your feelings and what is true for you.
• That you are not your mind, you have a mind to serve you.
• That your mind looks to you for guidance.
• That you are born with free will.

Gaining Happiness
Most people at the start live their lives in a fairly automatic survival mode, waiting for life to start and reacting to every life situation as it comes up. The main growth, learning and change happens through life experience, painful and happy. This living style is what most people do; it is a survival program that does not use the fullest potential of the person’s gifts and tools and free will. The person is bound repeating patterns that were taught to them. This is painfully scenic way of changing and evolving and because the person is not really steering their own life, emotional and spiritual movement is gained more through lost time and suffering. Again this style still works; it is just not very efficient or as fun.  A person in this mode can still experience great moments of happiness and still evolve, it is just simply a life filled with more time surviving than thriving, and it is not as purposeful. This person can be happy they are just not as happy as they deserve to be. Its like old technology that needs to be updated.

Practicing Efficient Happiness

Efficient happiness is the understanding, attention and practice of the art of being happy through the use and merging of all your tools and gifts. It is living in a consistently increasing state of gratitude. It is the enlightenment that is attainable by all.

You can practice Efficient Happiness by using your tools and aiming them to any one or combinations of the following;

• Emulating others that are happy. If you decide to use this method remember do not take guidance from people more miserable than you. This only shows you what not to do; it does have some value but is quite different than knowing what to do.
• Actively involving or inducing yourself into specific circumstances that provoke and trigger you to feel and then choose. This can be a little scary at first, since you are actually using in some cases your fear to move you. This is excellent for triggering up past hurts that can become clean. Hang in there, after the fear and sadness, comes more love, gratitude and peace. This method is best to do in a relationship or with a close person.
• Directing, focusing and drawing attention to your mind through imagination on how to react before you are in a situation, in other words giving your mind the most loving answer before it asks what to do. This is very similar to a mantra or positive affirmations with the added benefit of attaching the feeling to the focus, in other words it is a confirmation. It is done the same way a child uses imagination, it has the excitement sensation as they bring the future to them without leaving the present moment. This is very powerful at re-attaching, re-associating and reprogramming your mind to be in the present moment and actually serve you.