August 17, 2013
BUILD A CATEGORY OF HAPPY - OR AMAZING OR WONDERFUL THOUGHTS
Our society concentrates on the negative. All the past hurts which can never be resolved haunt us daily. Dr. Daniel Amen has named them ANTS (automatic negative thoughts). Getting rid of the ANTS can be challenging as we cling to them as if they were the most wonderful events in our lives. In most cases doing this accomplishes only making us miserable. I does not and usually can not solve the past problem. If it does solve the problem successfully, then by all means do problem solve.

If, however, it accomplishes no benefit for you, then build and use a category of happy/amazing/ or wonderful memories to replace the upsetting recollections.

I will share with you a group of such reminiscences of mine to give you an idea of the scope of circumstances that you might include in your pleasant memory bank.

Under amazing; I was able to look a hump back whale directly in the eye while on the scientific tour into the ocean off of Long Island. I wanted to touch it, but it was lying alongside our ship: i was concerned that it might react by turning over which possibly would turn our ship over. I settled for just looking into the eye who seemed as curious about me as I was about it.

Under wonderful; I saw a mother rabbit give birth to three offspring. I wrote about it in detail in another article. Her male counterpart ran off the curious intruders: birds and another rabbit. After she gave birth, he sat up and the white of his chest expanded triple the former size.

Under happy; there are a number of happy events which continue to grow exponentially.

I observed a sunset of gradually multicoloured and continually changing kaleidoscope of colours in Tahiti.

The love of my friends and family warms me when I think of how they are there when I need them.

The birth of each of my three children created overwhelming happiness to the extent that I never slept for an entire 24 hour/ 7 day week due to the joy I experienced.

Keep collecting these pleasurable impressions so that when you have difficulty getting in touch with a soothing stress free mind set, you can transfer your mind toward these occurrences to help create a balanced calm state of mind.