En-JOY Your Life!

Have you ever noticed that your state of mind, whether
you're happy, sad, angry, fearful, feeling any emotion at
all, is directly related to what you're thinking? True,
there may be an external situation that's causing you to
have those thoughts, but it's your thoughts that dictate
how you are feeling, not the situation.

I'm sure you can think of a time when you heard a piece of
news that would normally have caused a negative emotion,
but you were in such a good mood that it didn't throw you
off balance. You were able to look at the situation in
perspective (the place you usually get to anyway) because
you were feeling, and 'thinking', good. In fact, you've
used this knowledge. How many times have you picked the
'right' time to tell someone bad news, knowing that bad
news isn't so bad if you're in a good mood?

And when your thoughts are positive, when you're happy,
aren't you at your best? Don't you find that you're more
productive and creative? Don't you find every aspect of
life to be exciting and you look forward to what else it
has to offer? I suspect these are the days you enjoy most.

These are two facts that we all know. But most of us have
stopped there and haven't made the connection between the
two. What if we took it to the next logical step, which is
to control our thoughts, so that we're always (or almost
always) in a positive place? Instead of just observing what
you're thinking and the effect it has on you, if you
don't like what you're thinking, consciously choose to
change your thoughts to something that makes you happy.
This is the secret to en-joying your life, to put -- and
keep -- joy in your life: constantly monitor your thoughts
and when a thought isn't bringing you joy, change it to a
thought that does or start enjoying the thought you're
having.

As you go through your day, ask yourself 'Am I enjoying
this thought?'. If yes, wonderful! Keep it up. But if you
can't answer that question with a loud, resounding, and
immediate 'Yes', then it's time to work on your
thoughts. You have two options. First, you can choose to
change the thought and just start thinking of something
that does bring you joy. I find this works best if you have
some 'joy-ful' thoughts ready, particularly if the
negative thoughts you are having are recurring ones. Write
down 5 negative thoughts you keep having. Cross each one
out and write down your 'replacement' thought. For
example, if your negative thought was 'I can't help
myself', your replacement thought could be 'I can help
myself' or 'I love the roses in my garden'. It doesn't
need to be connected, it just needs to replace the old
thought and be a thought you enjoy having! Being prepared
with a new thought allows you to save valuable and critical
time in changing your mood. Every second you have a
negative thought, the more entrenched it gets.

If you're like me, however, you may find it difficult to
just switch gears, or your negative thoughts are too random
to prepare for in advance. I find it much easier to work
with the second choice. Start playing with the thought
until the mood or energy around it lightens up. There are a
number of different ways you can do this. You can visualize
the thought (the easiest way to do this is to put it in a
word balloon, like in the comics). Make it big. Make it
small. Make it tall and narrow, or short and wide. See it
close up, then far away. Add color to it. Take color away.
Add sound. Just play with it!

What works well for me is to say it out loud, using funny
voices, changing the pitch and the rhythm, slow, fast,
drawing out different words. I find is that after a while,
I'm smiling at how silly the whole thing is. And the
negative thought? It just loses its juice. It stops
controlling me once I start controlling it. I am constantly
amazed at how effective such a simple thing is, that it's
possible to start enjoying every thought I have.

'There's nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it
so.' -- William Shakespeare

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Adapted from the work of Dr. Christian Almayrac, as
described in the book 'The Enlightened Smoker's Guide to
Quitting' by B. Jack Gebhardt.