The relationship between the physical & emotional is nothing new:

Oh Charlie Brown!

If Charles Schulz figured it out in 1960, it's reasonable  to expect science to have filled in some gaps since then. In fact, there is now an entire specialization dedicated to the physiological bases of psychological processes.

It's no surprise that our mind affects our body — how else would we lift our arms or smile? What's more interesting is that the reverse is also true. Our body affects our mind.

Some neat examples:

• Standing up or lying down affects how angry you're likely to get.
• Folding your arms increases perseverance and activates an unconscious desire to succeed.
• Upright or slumped physical positions affect how easy it is to generate positive or negative thoughts.
• Manipulated postures (to look "sad" or "angry") have an effect not only on subjective emotions but also on perception and judgement processes.

There are a LOT of muscles in the face (the exact number varies depending on who you ask & how they measure them). What is interesting is that voluntarily "making a face" can actually cause the associated emotion, not just (as you would expect) the other way around.

As I said, I'm possibly the worst poker player in the world. Why? Because pretty much every thought or feeling I have is reflected in my face. I'm ok with this. I figure bluffing in poker is basically lying, & I'm ok with not developing lying as a core skill. It's a personal choice.

I've recently started paying more attention to what the muscles in my face are doing. If I relax a muscle in my face, I'm also forcing myself to let go of the thought or feeling that's causing it. What's most interesting is that most of the time I'm not even aware of what that thought or feeling even is. What I'm actually releasing is deep, subconscious tension.

The simple act of incrementally relaxing all the muscles in my face relaxes my entire being. It helps me drop all thoughts and feelings.

If this sounds familiar it should, this is what "being in the moment" is all about. No thoughts, no feelings, just awareness.

Obviously there will be other thoughts & emotions we hold in other places in our body — but once your face is completely relaxed, noticing tension in other places (our scalp, back, shoulders etc) is relatively easy — those muscles are much bigger, after all. It's not an accident that noticing & relaxing specific muscles is one of the core activities within Yoga.

pic by chocosaur

It's such a simple thing, but the act of paying attention to & consciously letting go of facial tension is the simplest & fastest way I've found of assessing & improving my deep levels of pure, present beingness.

I have another theory that doing this will also reduce my wrinkles.. but I'll have to get back to you on that.

There are many releasing techniques available. They're relatively similar though, so I'll discuss the two key ones I've found so far.

If you're interested, both of these stem from discoveries made by a guy called Lester Levenson about 40 years ago. Anything he's written is worth reading, & there are many great videos of him on YouTube.

Sedona Method

This is a relatively brain-centred approach. You ask the following question about any issue X.

1. Can you let go of X?
2. Will you let go of X?
3. When?

And, well, that's it. I've met several people for whom this technique works incredibly well. For me, if something is really bothering me, I can find it hard to detach emotionally enough to answer the questions clearly.

I do like the gradual loosening of your attachment to the issue, along with the final "When" question. The implication being, of course, that if you can, and will, why not just let go of it now? A lot of times it's just never occurs that we're the ones in control, & that we always have a choice about whether or not we focus on or attach to something.

RELEASE TECHNIQUE

This is more of a feeling based, rather than mind based approach (ie kinaesthetic, not intellectual):

1. Become aware of the feeling
2. Feel the feeling
3. Identify the feeling
4. Relax into the feeling
5. Release the feeling

By identify, I don't think they mean "oh, that's the pain from being sworn at by my sister when I was 3" (although you may get those kinds of realisations), rather "oh, it's just below my bottom rib, about an inch in."

This method is more or less what I've found useful to do, except I just instinctively stay relaxed, and aware/feel/identify all kinda blend into one smooth "oh, I have a dark blue pain about there" sort of understanding.

It's also helpful that you don't need to even know what the feeling is about. It's just an 'it', so you just let 'it' go. A lot of times our subconscious will protect us by hiding certain details from our conscious mind.

The release technique guys have a couple of other variants too:

1. Take each feeling/issue/thought back to its underlying core: Is it an issue about wanting (or lacking) control, safety or approval/love. Once you know then let go of that wanting/lacking control, safety or approval.

This is super helpful since letting go of wanting (say) approval in one area of your life, you then let go of a little bit of it from every area of your life, so your entire life benefits.

2. Instead of pushing the bad feeling etc down, by saying 'no' to it, or avoiding it.. do the opposite! Say yes to it, welcome the bad feeling/thought up, then just let it go as it comes up.

3. If things are crazily overwhelming, just say "not so bad" to the issue, letting it go as you do. This is surprisingly effective at detaching & releasing things.

Of course, this is just a brief overview. There are subtleties to both these variants. The important thing is to find one approach that resonates and works well for you.

amazing pic by just k

How to find a feeling (if it hasn't already popped up)

First, calm yourself down ("not so bad" helps a lot). Try to sit or stand still, and take 3 regular breaths without thinking anything at all.

Next, look downwards (which triggers the kinaesthetic part of the brain & helps you focus on physical feelings). I also find it helpful to tap the karate chop point (ie, the side of your hand between little finger & wrist) with the fingers of the other hand. This helps "tune you in".

Finally, say 3–4 times (for example) "Wanting approval from Pepe". If this is an issue for you, you will often feel unexpected feelings arising. They could be sharp pains in odd places in your body, or a rushing sensation, or, as happened when I did the Vipassana course and was very calm/aware, you'll feel like your head is on fire and your eyeballs are going to explode. Hehe.

The important thing is — it's just a sensation. Don't become attached to it. Don't react to it. It'll pass if you let it go, as all sensations do. The less you react to it, the easier the letting go is. Just try to locate the feeling internally, as accurately as you can. If you don't feel something no matter what you try, either it's not a problem for you, or just keep practising. Like all things, the more you do it, the better you'll get and the more subtle the feelings you'll be able to detect.

The great thing about this is you can then systematically clear every aspect of your life, without having to actually be in that situation. Anything you think you might have an issue with you can think about, feel, bring to the surface & let go.

A great starting point is to look for wanting (or lacking) approval, control, or safety, in any situation or towards every person in your life.

How To Let Go

As well as the Sedona/Releasing approaches above, here are the other methods I've tried:

• Imagining myself detaching from the feeling/problem, and it floating off
• Imagine a tube coming out of your chest or stomach (wherever the feeling is located), & the feeling sucking out into it
• Turning my grounding tube into a vacuum and letting that help me remove it
• Creating a rose (neutral object), grounding that, then sending the feeling/problem to that
• Imagining the feeling/problem in my hand, and dropping it
• Creating a rose around the feeling, sending it out over nearby water, and blowing it up

For a while I struggled a bit with "letting go", or "releasing". A big part of this is, of course, just my brain/ego making things more difficult (after all, our ego feeds on this kind of nonsense). The whole thing, as with life, is only as drawn out & complicated as I choose to make it.

It's really just about practice though. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. After a while, you stop needing any kind of visual imagery, it just becomes "something you do", as simple & easy as dropping something to the floor.

pic by kyle muraca

What it's all about

Given that the mind and body are intrinsically linked, what I'm starting to realise is that by paying close attention to my body, what I'm actually releasing aren't necessarily physical issues at all. They're negative thoughts, behaviours, patterns, reactions. These pains that appear and disappear are my body/mind trying to communicate with me, in the best way it knows how — through feeling.

The great thing about this is you really don't have to rationalise anything or figure out what any underlying cause is. Just being in a situation, feeling the feelings and releasing them will automatically clear out massive amounts of junk. From my own experience, just going to a place with a large number of unpleasant memories, or interacting with people that typically bring about aversive reactions can result in literally hundreds or thousands of these feelings coming up in a single day. All of them you simply drop.

The beauty is, once you starting doing this everywhere, next time you're exposed to similar stimulus you can watch yourself barely reacting, if at all.

An Example

Oh, & if this sounds like a whole load of hokum? Try checking this vid. It's a bit slow to start with (the first 20secs is just intro — but I can't seem to skip it with an embedded vid), but well worth perservering with:

I see so many smaller examples every single day, this doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

Recently I found myself feeling rejected, in various ways, in 6 or 7 different situations over the span of a week or so.

Typically it would go something like this:

1. I'm looking to make a connection with somebody — to spend time, or go see a movie, say.
2. I get enthusiastic & excited, looking forward to this situation.
3. They then deny me that connection.
4. I feel rejected, & disappointed that it's not happening.
5. I then react badly (get grumpy, upset, or act coldly towards them, etc)

So then we have two people feeling crappy, instead of one.. that can't be good!

pic by lady vervaine

I've taken to going for monster 3 hour walks while listening to various soothing podcasts. It's a wonderful way to get exercise and get things clear in my head.

On one of these recent long walks, I had the following realisations:

The key issue with rejection is this — said person is not behaving the way I want them to. I.e., I'm trying to control them.

If you stop and think about it, wanting to control anyone is the height of arrogance. It's taking away their own free will, not to mention assuming we know better than they do what's right for them — and how would we feel if someone else tried to do it to us?

So, when that control fails (as, of course, it will — we can't ever really control anyone else), I then disapprove of them — ie, I withdraw my love.

pic by sephorah

Now, for a start this doesn't tie in well with my intention of unconditional love always.

Secondly, my not feeling rejected is entirely predicated on my control of them succeeding (which, of course, it won't).

I'd been tying how I loving I feel towards them to whether or not they behaved the way I wanted them to. So, sooner or later I'm going to end up being 'not loving' towards them (and as a side issue, feeling crappy myself).

To shortcut the whole rejection thing, I need to let go of the expectation that they will always behave exactly the way I want, or indeed that I have any control over them at all.

Once I let go of wanting to control them, I can choose to love them regardless of their behaviour.

Oh, and voila, since their behaviour makes no difference to this choice I'm never going to feel rejected by anything they do. Sometimes they'll behave in a way I might enjoy more (which is great), sometimes they won't (in which case, who cares, it's their life to do with as they wish).

Of course, I'm always free to remove them from my life if what they're doing is particularly deleterious to myself — but that's a whole other conversation.

Dogs never try to control, always just love. pic by ingrid0804

In summary:

Wanting to control others leads to feeling rejected when this control fails.

Choosing to love (have positive regard towards) them regardless of their behaviour means never feeling rejected again.

If there's one thing I'm learning in spades, life really can be very, very simple.

In case you don't know the show, here's the back story. Tara is a woman with dissociative identity disorder (aka multiple personalities). For the sake of TV, they are 5 (or 6) very distinct & endlessly trouble making identities. A key part of the show, of course, is the actual woman herself (played by the incredibly talented Toni Collette) trying desperately to keep her life together despite the chaos sown by her sub personalities.

In the episode I watched, she'd been taking her drugs regularly, & all her sub-identities had disappeared for several months. The family declared her life permanently changed, and everything was wonderful… for the first 15 minutes of the 22 minute show.

I sat there through this wondering why my entire body was tense. As far as everything on the screen, the family was getting on well, things were humming along, and life was normal.

So why was I stressed?

pic by james good

Then I realised. I was waiting for something to go wrong. Which eventually, of course, it did.

Stepping back from this particular show, I realised a deeper (yet in hindsight obvious) truth: TV Drama thrives on.. well.. drama.

If something isn't going wrong, there's no story.

Stepping back again, this applies to comedy, horror, thriller, reality TV… in fact, every genre other than educational or documentary TV.

Why? Because drama of some form is a critical part of telling a story, any story.

If the hero/protagonist doesn't have something to overcome, how can they prove they are (or become) a hero?

Jack Bauer of 24 is the perfect (& thus oft caricatured) example of this, of course.

In other words, something must necessarily always go wrong. No matter how great things seem, something bad is always about to happen.

pic by rock creek

The real issue here is this. Time watching TV is, in a very real sense, time spent training our brains to operate in a certain way.

For example, we take it for granted, but when multiple camera TV first appeared, people had to retrain their brains to understand that shots from different angles were all telling the same story, & how to piece it all together into one linear narrative. Seeing things from multiple angles at once isn't something that happens to our brains normally (let alone fades, swipes, crabbing, zooms, etc).

Why is this suddenly all so clear to me? Because I have been wondering recently why my entire life I've always been expecting things to go wrong.

Thanks TV!

At this point, I am undecided about movies — their one-off nature & longer running times have more opportunity for  flexibility & depth in story telling (eg, starting with something bad having already happened & climbing out of it from there — eg Shipping News), but I think it's safe to say my days of watching a lot of TV are over (except maybe Doctor Who, heh).

No, I'm talking about the moments that define our character, and as a result, ultimately us as human beings.

It breaks down like this. Anyone can be magnanimous, compassionate or loving in good times. What truly defines us is how we behave when things go wrong.

That's right, when something or someone pisses us off. The neighbour runs over our dog, our girlfriend runs off with a leper or someone just doesn't quite behave the way we want them to (which is really a control issue on our part, but I digress).

I once heard the definition of maturity as "The difference in time between our emotional & rational responses to a situation."

That's succinct, but I don't necessarily believe that what's rational is always what's best.

Is it rational to be unconditionally loving towards someone that is treating you like shit? No, but it sure as hell is the fastest way to defuse the situation. See also: Gandhi. It worked out pretty well for him, except for, you know, right at the end.

A less succinct but more accurate definition might be "The difference in time between our fear & love based responses to a situation."

As we get more mature, our love based responses get closer & closer to the surface, and that time delay between fear & love gets ever shorter until it disappears altogether.

For example, I know when I was younger, kids screaming or leaving mess everywhere used to drive me mad. I mean, really crazy. Growing up as the oldest of eight might have done that to me. Heh. These days though, I watch myself, & my first reaction is just "Is it happy screaming? Ok, that's cool." As for mess, well, they're kids. You gently guide & provide a consistent example over a period of years, & eventually they'll sort it out, but there's no rush, they've got a ton of other learning to do too.

This is where those minor daily upsets are actually a good thing. They provide feedback in two ways:

1. Are we still instinctively reacting badly?
2. How long is it taking us to calm down afterwards?

The first tells us whether we still have more healing/growing to do in this area, while the second is a quantifiable measure of the progress that we're making.

This doesn't mean I think you should welcome bad/upsetting events into your life, but given that these sorts of things tend to happen anyway, why not take advantage of them?

Ultimately, it's this ongoing collection of upsetting or unexpected situations & our reactions to them. That's what defines us as people.

As we grow & improve, these things bother us less & less.. & we become better people.

I guarantee you one thing. If you can remain positive & loving when everything is falling apart around you, you're going to be incredible when times are good.

The first, let's call "Event X", was that someone made me very, very angry. There's no value in getting into the specifics, but I've wracked my brain & been unable to come up with a worse thing that anyone has ever done to me. There probably is, I just can't remember it, so let's put it in the top three.

The second, let's call "Event Y", was that I made someone else very, very angry. Again, little value in the specifics — except to say that it was very definitely not intentional on my part (but of course I'd say that! I'm the one telling this story!)

So, Event X. How did I react? Well, firstly, I don't get angry very often. Not really angry. Maybe once every few years. I can distinctly remember the last time it happened, & that was February 2002. I get aggrieved, frustrated, annoyed, miffed.. but not real, cold anger. All these things are happening less & less these days (thankfully), but I'm still human.

To start with, I was in shock. Plain, simple shock that such a terrible thing could be done to me. I then transitioned into serious, hardcore anger. I had a very brief flirt with thoughts of revenge — for less than a second — but where's the value? Then you just have two upset people. As Ghandhi put so eloquently put it "An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind."

Then followed about 5 or 10 minutes of loud swearing (I was home alone), some surprise, disappointment, disbelief, & then, as I let more & more of it go, peace. And action, lots of action, to sort it all out.

pic by urline

So, not ideal, yet. But, over it in a day or so tops. Over the worst of it in about half an hour. For me, that's a huge step forward. I'm happy with it. I'll keep working on it. It will improve.

Ok, let's leave that for the moment & move on to Event Y. Me making someone else angry.

I can't explain how the other person felt, except that they were still bitter & spewing unrequested vitriol in my direction several hours later.

Here's the funny thing though. This wasn't even anyone I know. I'd never met them before. Yes, a completely random internet stranger. Now, if I was going to be completely fair about it, I'd say I might have been a bit pushy. They might have been a bit careless — not paying as much attention as they could have been. Basically a very minor misunderstanding led to me doing something that they deemed utterly abhorrent. In my value system, it qualifies as "uhh, *shrug* so what?" but ok, everyone gets upset by different things.

Anyway, I could see that this person was in pain. They were screaming furious (sound familiar?) All over what to me was a simple misunderstanding, fixed with one click of a button. Them being upset didn't bother me particularly, I just thought, well, they should have paid more attention, & besides, it's such a minor thing, really, who cares?

But of course, different value systems — you can see where the misunderstanding might creep in.

The practical upshot was this — that person poured a ton of negative energy (bile, acid, stress) into their body for an extended period of time. Net effect on me? Basically zero.

Ok, so back to Event X.

Here's what I realised today.

This person had been threatening to do what they actually ended up doing for weeks. I just figured they wouldn't go through with it, so of course it was a huge shock when they did. However, if I'd actually listened to them, and taken action much earlier, I wouldn't even have noticed what they'd done. The effect on me would have been absolutely nothing. Less than nothing. Actually the outcome has been very positive.

So, hang on, I got that angry, for what? Not paying attention? Not acting on what I'd already been told. Basically, I got angry because they did what they said they would do. Because they were as good as their word.

Uh, what?!?

I know I got stressed. Probably shortened my lifespan in the process.

What a complete & utter waste of energy.

Carrie Fisher had a great quote about resentment — but the exact same thing applies to anger, so I'll paraphrase (Thanks Carrie, love your work!):

"Anger is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die"

So true. So very, VERY true.

So how do you go about becoming more confident?

Well, there's a bunch of physical attributes: head up, shoulders back, firm eye contact, firm handshake, steady voice. None of this is new or complicated. You can read more about it here & here.

Changing your posture does change your emotional state, so by all means do the physical stuff as well (it'll help how you feel), but I'm going to talk about working directly on the non-physical stuff.

Let's start with the easy side of things — how we're perceived externally. Other than posture, how do other people assess how confident we are?

By our speech. What we say, how we say it, the words we use.

I got to thinking about this when reading Jeannette Maw's excellent Good Vibe Blog. She was talking about wiping out wimpy words. Words that disempower us, make us sound wishy washy, limit us.

These are all words & phrases that will make us seems significantly less confident than we may actually be.

pic by nnn27

What are some examples?

• Hopefully
• Probably
• Should
• I suppose

So, my hypothesis is, if we stop using these kinds of words, we'll appear (externally) more confident.

Well, that sounds worth doing, but wait up a second. Before we rush into this, let's think a little.

Who do we talk to the most, out of all of the people in our lives?

Ourselves, of course.

For every time we say something out loud that makes us sound insecure, we're going to be saying the exact same thing to ourselves dozens if not hundreds of times.

Removing these words from our vocab will not only make us more confident to others, but will also make us notably more confident internally, when talking to ourselves.

As within, so without — maybe it's not quite so much of a surprise after all.

Of course, a healthy goal is to remove that nagging inner voice entirely (through meditation, releasing etc), but until we reach that noble pinnacle of enlightenment & inner peace, we still have to contend with our ego. Why not push things in our favour in the meantime?

What's a good way of removing (or at the very least drastically minimising) specific words & phrases from our vocabulary? Well, the tool I've found best for this task is EFT. It's super simple to use and ridiculously quick.

If you haven't used EFT before, I've put a quick intro up here. The basic gist is to tap (just like tapping a keyboard, but with a coupla fingers at once) on various points around the body, while thinking or saying whatever-it-is you want to fix. The tapping loosens up energy blocks in the body, your energy starts flowing properly again and you automatically heal (since our natural state is to be 100% healthy).

So how to remove a word from your vocab? Just tap the karate chop point (side of hand) while saying something like "Even though I say 'hopefully' I love & accept myself", or "Even though I use the phrase 'I guess' I love & accept myself." Really, the words don't matter too much, just say whatever pops in your head & feels right for you. Once you've said that a few times while tapping your karate chop point, work your way around the points on the body (pic here), saying "I say 'hopefully" or "I use the word 'hopefully'" etc & tapping each point 5–10 times.

Once you've done a couple of full rounds, & if you want to be really thorough, you can do a couple more rounds, saying something like "I still say 'hopefully'." This will clear out any remants that might be left over.

It really is that simple. Total time? 2–3 minutes a word, if that.

pic by pixietart

Here's the list I cleared out yesterday:

• hopefully
• probably
• should
• try
• pretty sure
• I'll figure it out
• doubt
• can't
• want (since want is synonymous with 'lack', why not clear that too?)
• I guess
• I suppose
• I need to
• I'm not sure
• I don't think
• kinda

Of course, everyone uses different words & phrases, so your own list will likely be quite different, but these might help you get started. Just see what resonates for you.

The funny thing is, as you start to clear them out, other commonly used limiting phrases will start to become more obvious & bubble to the surface. I also felt the way I was thinking changing. Sounds insane but it's true. I could feel myself using different phrasing internally, & as I did, my body became more sure of itself. Not quite sure (ha! I'll add that to my list) how that works, but a definite example of the mind/body connection at play.

The net result of all this mucking about? More confident thought patterns, more confident speech & a significantly more confident persona. Total time taken? A little over half an hour.

It's a good question.

An easy answer would be "because bad stuff happens to us", but what for one person would be a disaster, someone else might barely notice.

So what's actually going on here?

In a nutshell?

We beat ourselves up.

That little voice in our heads giving us shit. Yep, it's our ego.

No big surprise there then. So what can we do about it?

Well, stop complaining is certainly a good start, but there's more to it than just that.

For example, how many different ways are there of beating ourselves up?

Regrets, disappointments, undesirable events, worrying about the future, things we dislike about ourselves, or (even sillier) things we dislike about others ("Why oh why did I choose a husband like this?") That's the craziest of all. Resentment about someone else is like drinking poison & expecting the other person to get sick.

Notice that all of these things are either in the past or in the future? Yep, that's not a surprise. More on that later.

A good rule of thumb though? Any time we say something to ourselves that makes us feel worse, that's beating ourselves up, in one way or another.

Ok, so we've mapped out the field, how to deal to this behaviour? How to stop it?

The Reductionist Method
Here's one method that has worked wonders for me.

Every morning I sat down & brainstormed a few lists "Things I disapprove about myself", "Regrets", "Disappointments", "Worries" etc. (You can use any phrasing that resonates). Next, I just worked my way down each list I'd made, healing each item in turn. The whole thing would take, 10 maybe 15 minutes tops.

pic by gwilmore

What I noticed was, each day the lists got shorter, & the items I'd healed didn't come back (or they looked like they came back, but were actually subtly different — i.e. different sub-aspects of a larger issue).

After a few days, I couldn't think of anything for any of the lists. Oh, & I also wasn't thinking any of those crappy thoughts about myself any more.

The fewer negative thoughts you have, the better you'll feel. It's not rocket science.

Of course, when you're making these lists, the things that come up first will be the things you're thinking most often. Those at the top of the list will be the loudest complaints. As you clear those out, you'll naturally work deeper & quieter, till eventually you're clearing out more & more subtle negativity. It's a great, natural way to clear through internal noise in a way that gets you the greatest benefits immediately, but gets more deeply powerful the longer you continue.

It's also good just to do it a little bit each day. Often we need a good night's sleep to fully process & clear things out of our systems.

How to heal this negative self-talk? Well, you can use whatever tool appeals to you. Some of the things that came up I used EFT on, some I used the release technique (aka the Sedona Method), & some I used Reiki. I just trusted my intuition & used what felt right (mostly releasing).

Our ego has a thousand ways of making us feel bad. Constantly nattering at us, trying to bring us down. This is just a good, time effective way I've found to proactively clear out a huge chunk of that crap. Each day getting clearer, lighter & happier.

The Holistic Method
Ok, so, remember how all this negative self talk was either in the future, or in the past? Well, that's not an accident.

Remember Eckhart Tolle? Well, he's way ahead of me on this one. See, if you're the kind of person for whom a methodical approach is just not for you, well, here's what he recommends.

Get yourself completely "in the present." Just be here now.

It's that simple. Let go of all the noise in your head. Stop thinking your thoughts. If they come up, simply let them go.


pic by savannahgrandfather

The important thing to remember is — you are not your thoughts. It's your mind thinking them, not you. Which means you have a choice, seriously, whether you want to keep thinking them or not. As with all things, you always have a choice.

Same thing with any feelings that come up. Just observe them, but let them go too.

This way, you stay 100% in the present moment. You can still be going about your day, doing whatever, but any thoughts & feelings that come up from the past or about the future, just let them drift off.

Now, there's a couple of interesting things about this. Firstly, if you genuinely do welcome up (without attachment) any thoughts or feelings you have, & let go of them fully, they won't come back. (Very loosely, this is how you release).

Be gentle with yourself though, because one large issue can often have a ton of little sub-issues to it that may all need to be cleared. It may seem like you're making no progress, but just keep letting go, keep letting go. Pretty soon you'll start to see the difference.

Secondly, the more you can hold yourself in that present moment, the more junk will naturally come up. Why? Because being in that state holds you in a very specific (very powerful) state of vibration. Much like shaking a dirty glass of water, anything counter to that vibration will float to the top. Of course, the important thing is just to keep letting go of everything that comes up. You feel bad? Great! Let it go. Nasty thoughts or memories? Wonderful! Let those go too. They're only coming up because they're not in accordance with the person you're becoming, with that powerful "Now" vibration that you're holding.

It's all good stuff.

Plus, if you're truly present? Well, it's feels great. Best feeling in the world. So that's a nice bonus too.

Oh, & there's nothing saying you can't use both methods — making lists and being present. Every little bit helps. As Buddha said, "There are many fingers pointing at the moon, but only one moon."

Take it back a step, of course.

If we're not our thoughts or emotions, well, who controls them?

We do! We're the damn boss, & it's about time they knew that.

Oooh, easier said than done, of course (or is it?) If you've (as I have) spent a lifetime believing that our thoughts & emotions were us, it can be a tricky mindset to adjust.

• "I'm angry"
• "I feel cheated"
• "I worried about this"

Nope, completely wrong.

• "I'm experiencing feelings of anger"
• "I'm experiencing feelings of being cheated"
• "I'm experiencing thoughts of worry"

Choose to walk? Choose to fly. Pic by missvivienne

Ever seen kids at play? They bang themselves, cry, then two minutes later they're back playing again, as happily as if it never happened.

What's going on here? Ok, short attention span might help. Being in the moment definitely helps, but a very important factor is this:

They haven't been trained that they're "supposed" to hang onto things yet.

They don't know about holding onto grudges, or resentment, or pain.

Remember the first time someone really, deeply, hurt you? Still feel that?

Well, how long are you going to hold onto that pain for? Hell, for all you know, the person that caused it is dead now.

Ok ok, so I'm not saying this to belittle the pain you've experienced in your life. Not at all.

The point is this — we make a choice. We always make a choice.

With every thought, every emotion, we make a choice. Hold onto it, or let it go.

Sometimes we have rules. Eg, it's ok for us to let go of these thoughts or emotions:

• After a certain period of time ("Oh, that was years ago")
• After the other person has behaved a certain way (eg, apologised)
• After the other person has suffered
• .. or is dead.

All these rules. Why? They're all bullshit.

They're all rules that we're holding onto that stop us from experiencing happiness now.

How about if you had new rules.

• When the physical pain dissipates, I choose to forget about the incident that caused it
• It's safe to let go of pain, because I remember the lessons learned
• Regardless of how those around me behave, I am the boss of my emotions, & I'll choose how I react (if at all)
• I will only continue to entertain thoughts that I enjoy & let the rest go
• I will actively choose to think thoughts that make me feel better
• If doing something makes me feel better, I'll do it more often.
• If doing soomething makes me feel worse, I'll do it less.

Or, best of all, just decide, "I'm the boss of how anything makes me feel."

Because, & here's a huge secret, YOU ARE.

pic by phuongthao202002

Now yes yes, I can hear you bringing up objections. Life isn't always that simple. It's complicated, messy, we never know what's happening next.

Well here's another secret (I'm full of them today). It's not about being perfect. It's just about being better. Just a little better, tiny steps at a time.

Sure, we all have days where we're a bit slow on the uptake. Get into a bad spiral & take a while to twig to what's going on. That's perfectly ok. Totally normal. Utterly usual.

The point is simply that every moment we choose a higher vibration thought or emotion over a lower one. Ie, we choose to let go of things that bug us, is a moment we become happier.

Another great thing about this process is that if we truly let go, then those thoughts & emotions, over time, stop recurring.

We do, genuinely become happier.

How do I know this? Well, this is exactly what I've been doing over the last few weeks.

In some very real & measurable senses, my life is currently the worst it's ever been. Know what? I don't care. Sure, I've had some freakouts. Total wigouts where I've been a mess for a day. Then I pick myself up, let go of the crappy thoughts & emotions. Heal anything obvious.

And then? Yes. Feel better. Feel happy. Truly. Peacefully.

Even in this situation, I can honestly say I have never felt happier in my life. What's more, every day I know I'm slightly happier than the day before, on average.

The mess around me will be sorted, and soon. Life always changes, & external things will improve. And I'll be happy then too. Because I've chosen to be. Just made a decision "I don't care what happens around me, I'm going to do everything I possibly can to be happy."

Life has ups & downs, definitely, but the more of those downs I choose to let go of, the happier I'm becoming… and if I can do it, so can you. One thought, one emotion at a time.

No, I don't mean half hour long soliloquies at the barista because your coffee is cold, I mean just everyday complaints.

Anytime you verbally express a negative thought, that's a complaint.

Why do we do this? Habit, typically. Sometimes boredom, But deeper than that — oftentimes it's a social thing (f***mylife is an example) — it's socially encouraged to bond over misery stories. To sympathise, express empathy & so on. Sometimes it's a way of adjusting social hierarchies — I'm your superior, but if I express misery that makes us more equal, & thus you more comfortable. If I feel inferior, complaining about you might (in theory) make me feel better about myself by diminishing you somehow. Many entire cultures have whinging as a core attribute (England, I'm looking at you).

With all those people doing it, what's the big deal? I mean, really?

Fundamentally, it damages us.

Talking about something gives it our attention, our energy. Gives it power.

Focus on the moon, not the clutter of trees.

Basically, whining makes you feel shitty.

If you believe in the law of attraction, then the more you talk about something, the more you're going to attract more of that thing. Want a miserable day tomorrow? Spend a bunch of time talking about how miserable today was.

If you think LOA is a bunch of hokum, well think about it this way — why the hell are you wasting you time, energy & attention focussing on something you don't like? How on earth is that making you any happier? Any more productive? Sorting the problem out, or improving your life? It's not.

Sure, undesirable things happen. So what? What really matters is how we react to them. Martin Seligman in Learned Optimism discovered that the key difference between success & failure in life is how we treat setbacks. Fundamentally, we do better, get luckier & have more success the less energy we give to these negative events. Pessimists talk a lot about setbacks. Optimists dismiss them. This is eloquently summed up by Sylvester Stallone who likes to dismiss negative situations with "They probably just ate some bad clams."

As Viktor Frankl said, (paraphrased) the only real freedom we have is the freedom to choose how we react to any event.

The less attention you give negative events (other than the minimum necessary to physically deal with them, of course), the more of your time is focussed on things you actually want. Your goals. Your happiness. Feeling good.

Whinging takes us out of that zone of joy. Out of expressing ourselves in the world. In the process, it adds nothing positive to our lives at all. The more we can reduce it, the better we feel about our lives. About our days. About how things are going for us. Why? Because how we feel about ourselves is the sum total of our thoughts. The more of those thoughts are positive, the better we feel.

If you remember nothing else, remember this:

Your quality of life is directly proportional to how much of the time you feel good.
Yes, that's incredibly obvious. You want to have a better life? Spend more of it feeling better.

Of course, the question is — how do you increase how much you feel good? Well (& a big duh to this one) stop making yourself feel miserable so often. You may not be able to help what happens to you, but you can definitely change how much time you spending talking, thinking or focussing on these bad things around you.

Try it for a week. Anytime you catch yourself whinging, deliberately let that thought go, & think (or better, say!) something positive instead. Or heck, if you can't do that, just shut the hell up — that's a great first step. See how great you start feeling, by comparison. Notice how much better things get in your life — people reacting more positively to you, opportunities arriving, things just somehow going smoother.

We only have so many minutes each day. Make them count. Make them positive ones. It's just a choice.

[If you'd like to read more, my man Dhrumil has a great podcast here about why we complain, & how to help others we see complaining. Also worth checking is AComplaintFreeWorld]