Doorbar What Happy People Know

Find mental health; Feel more enthusiastic and optimistic; Be more confident
1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-3-7568-5303-8
Verlag: BoD - Books on Demand
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 192 Seiten

If you are depressed, sad or worried read this book to understand how to: Rediscover your mental health Feel more enthusiastic about life Enjoy quiet inner confidence

I really love teaching people how to feel better about and I would love to get to know you personally. I have a simple goal in life. My aim for everyone who I meet is that they feel a little bit better than they did before they met me. This is especially true for those people who feel sad, depressed and lonely, as I did before I understood something about the ideas in this book. As a reformed introvert who used to be unbelievably shy, my aim is to help people to speak in front of a group confidently and memorably so that they can communicate their important message with joy, fun and enthusiasm. I think that we can all influence the world in a positive way.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Doorbar, John

Leseproben

Letter to My Readers
What on earth are these Three Principles? As you open this book you might be thinking this to yourself. What is this 3 Principles stuff all about? “Some weird new-age psycho-babble garbage?” If that is what you are thinking, then we have a lot in common. Because that is exactly what I was thinking when I first heard of these principles. So what are the these principles? The Three Principles are a way of understanding where our experience of life and feelings come from. People often look questioningly when they hear this sentence. Let me begin with a simple example to illustrate what I mean. The good news about happiness
This good news gave me hope, especially when I felt unhappy and depressed. People we call happy do not always feel happy. I always used to think that being happy or being unhappy was a continual life-long state. You were either one or the other. However, this is not true. How we feel in life changes quite often and our feelings depend on our thinking. Happy people sometimes feel unhappy too. But they do not think about it very much. They do not see their unhappiness as affecting who they are deep-down. They do not think of themselves as being permanently unhappy people. The do not identify with their temporary unhappiness and low mood. They know that the bad feelings will pass if they do not hold onto their stressed, hectic and overwhelming thoughts. My dad was like that. He knew that he was fine just the way he was. He did not try to change. He just waited for his innate happiness to come back. Then he got on with his life once again in his own jovial, inimitable way. These are the things my dad used to say when he was feeling low. “I am not really feeling quite myself - “I am not quite on form today.” “Dad, can I help you to feel better?” I used to say when he was feeling “out of sorts” as he called his feeling. “No, I will be alright, John. I am fine. I just need a few minutes. Just leave me alone and I will be back to normal soon.” Mental health
Mental health is not about trying to change. It is rather to do with really understanding deep down that we are all OK exactly as we are. Our moods go up and down but our basic nature is to be happy and peaceful. Little kids do not feel happy all the time but when they feel unhappy they do not think about it too much. They just forget about it and go back to enjoying themselves. If our basic nature is to be happy you might be asking, why on earth do I not feel happy? How on earth can I feel happy? I sincerely hope that the answer to this question will become clear as you read through this book. Let me begin with a simple example
This short story has a worrying beginning and a happy ending. It even has a P.S. (a postscript) at the end. A dear friend of mine, Barbara, lives about 30 kilometres away from us in Germany. She has, over the years, become a close family friend of Michi and me. (Michi is my lovely girlfriend and partner). I quite often call Barbara to see how she is getting on. I had not heard from her for about 8 days. So, on a Saturday morning in June about four years ago something strange happened that made me think. Barbara did not answer the phone. And she did not call back. During this period, I went through 6 levels of thinking. Step 1: I thought to myself, “that is no big deal.” “Just give it some time. Maybe she has just gone out to do some shopping.” Then I forgot about it and went for my regular Saturday run. Step 2: Towards mid-afternoon on the same day, I still had not heard from her. I called again. No reply. Oh, I now noticed that my thinking was starting to get a bit noisy, “I hope she is OK. I am sure she will be fine. Maybe she has gone for a drive. Drivers are sometimes crazy in Germany. They drive much too fast. Oh, she will be OK. She can look after herself…and so on.” Step 3: I noticed myself getting a bit more concerned. The thinking was getting to me. I was starting to feel my worried thinking. I started to pace around my flat a bit like a lion in a cage. So, around 19.00 I called again and again. Now my thinking started to go into overdrive. My imagination took over. Step 4: “Maybe she has fallen and hit her head on her bath and was lying unconscious in her bathroom in a pool of blood. Or perhaps someone had broken into her flat.” My thinking was getting darker by the minute. I hardly got any sleep that night and woke up at 6.30. Step 5: My thoughts were still going round and round in circles and getting worse. I noticed that my blood pressure was going up. Step 6: I telephoned her once again. Barbara still wasn’t at home. So, I took my jacket and picked up her keys (She had given me a copy of her keys in case of an emergency) I got in the car and drove much faster than usual over to her flat. The drive was not very nice, and my head was full of lots of crazy thoughts. When I got there, I put the key in the lock and opened the door. I was greeted with my friend hiding behind the door holding a very big dictionary in her hands. She was ready to bash me on the head as I came in. As you might have imagined, we were both surprised when she recognized that it was me! And I was relieved. Barbara smiled at me and asked me what on earth I was doing there at 6.30 on a Sunday morning. I explained what I had been thinking. This story ended happily. Barbara had been at home the whole time. Her phone had been out of order for 6 days or so. She had not been able to hear the phone ringing even though, from my end of the line there had been a normal ring tone. In this situation with Barbara, I had “thought myself” into a state of panic. This book is about how our own feelings are created from our own thinking. We do not consciously do this. It just happens. These feelings are so strong that they feel real. And these feelings are what we experience in the world as our personal reality. This story taught me that my experience of an event (i.e. how I feel) is created 100% by my thoughts. P.S. There is a postscript to this story. From 10thNovember-12thNovember, 2022 I was fortunate to attend a wonderful course with Robin Charbit and Ken Manning, two of the leading practitioners in the “understanding of human experience” which this book is based on. On day two of this course, I called Barbara to see how she was getting on. I had called Barbara 4 years earlier and had created the horrible scenario in my mind which I have explained above. This time I had a new thought, which I had not had 4 years previously, “oh that is nice, I thought – I am sure she has gone for a run and is enjoying herself in the lovely November sun.” I felt great that she was having fun! This was the same event, an unanswered telephone call, both on a very early morning on sunny, summer Sunday, separated by 4 years. But I had a very different experience – the first very negative, the second extremely positive. With this new thought my experience had changed. And this was a completely different feeling for me. The experience which I had was being created in my mind by my incredible power to generate my own experiences. This is how we experience our own personal world, and this is what the Three Principles are about. If you feel depressed
As you read this book you will see why it can be so useful and important to know about this if you are feeling sad or depressed. And as you will see, I have known what it feels like to be low and depressed. So, I can imagine where you are coming from and how you could be feeling. A different experience of life
The Three Principles are remarkable in that they are easy to grasp and once grasped have the power to change lives. They helped me personally to experience my life differently. Although my outside life has not changed very much, I have felt very different. I feel much freer and more relaxed. I do not take things as seriously anymore. I go with the flow of life. Not always. But a lot of the time. For me, this new feeling is worth its weight in gold. And I never imagined that this change would ever be possible. It is strange but we never really know that good things can come out of what, at first, seemed such a negative experience. Nevertheless, being depressed can be deadly. Literally. I know well what it feels like to be depressed. I have personally “done that” and got the T-shirt. This is the reason why I have written this book. If I had not experienced being sad and depressed, I could never have written it. I now see this as something good. Something good can now come out of my previous sadness and unhappiness. I hope that I can help other people to see that their life can get better, even if they think it can’t. A parable
There is a great Chinese story that shows us how good things can come out of something bad. Maybe you have this great parable before. It is called “The Farmer and his Horse.” The farmer and his horse
There was once a farmer in ancient China who owned a horse. “You are so lucky!” his neighbors told him “to have a horse to pull the cart for you!” “Maybe,” the farmer...