CHAPTER 1

HAPPINESS FROM A DIFFERENT ANGLE

If you're still looking for happiness, you're not alone. An Internet search forit can get you over 100 million results. A search for "wisdom" will produceabout the same. Who would have thought being happy and wise could be so elusive?You'd think by now we'd have absorbed the guidance of the multiple traditionshanded down through time—spirituality, psychology, philosophy, shamanism, self-development,and even today's Energy Psychology and New Age.

We haven't absorbed it because a fundamental problem makes this guidance lesseffective than it could be. It's a core confusion that leads us to take sidesinstead of cooperating to find new ways to make the wisdom practical andaccessible.

The essential problem is not the wisdom offered, but how we understand it.Whatever meaning we take away consciously, the unconscious mind consistentlyinterprets the wisdom (regardless of how it's offered) as saying this: thesolution to our pain and suffering is to permanently establish the positive andthe good by permanently eliminating the negative and the bad. That will bringhappiness and joy. This is the crucial issue: our deep misunderstanding ofopposites and how to handle them.

I see this with most people who come to work with me. They are intensely engagedin removing anything bad or negative, but they feel overwhelmed with all itentails—and the unsatisfactory results. Emily is an excellent example.

Chasing After Happiness Is What We Humans Do

Emily, a thirty-eight-year-old supermom, had a handsome, loving husband, threepre-teen kids, a nice home, a career in the medical field, and a way to giveback through volunteer work at the homeless shelter. She was convinced this wasas good as it got and should have been the key to her fulfillment and happiness.Yet when she came to see me, her stress level was off the charts and anxiety washer constant companion.

One day, desperate for relief, Emily flew into my office, gripping her cup ofjasmine tea so tightly I thought she would break it. She flopped into her usualchair and began to cry. "I try my best, but I just can't keep things undercontrol. I can't keep my husband happy, the kids focused on school, the houseclean, and my career on track and stay sane. Tell me what I'm doing wrong. I'msure I could do it better if I just knew how."

Emily isn't alone. She is one of the thousands of unhappy individuals I'veencountered in my work who have had the same complaint: "I can't seem to dealwith all the choices I have to make every day and be happy. There has to be abetter way, doesn't there? My life is driving me crazy!"

And it's not just that Emily has the stress of being a working mom. Emily wantsnot only happiness, but also wisdom—a practical way to better manage herresponsibilities. She told me she wants to stay calm and make decisions withoutgoing in circles, worrying if they're right or wrong—decisions such as whetherto

• pick up the kids' clothes or leave them lying around for a day

• cook good organic food for dinner or eat out at a fast-food restaurant

• finish that art project sitting in the garage or put it off for another day totake a seminar for her medical career

• have coffee with her friends or hang out at home by herself

Emily goes in circles because she wants to feel good and pick the right choiceto get her there. But she's not aware that all of her decisions, big and small,are deeply influenced by something outside her awareness: her unconscious mind'sdrive to feel good, be happy, and choose what will bring maximum good feelingsand pleasure. This seems like it should make her happy, right? The problem is,following your unconscious directive to always choose what feels good doesn'talways make you happy in the long run.

When you find yourself struggling with an either/or situation, it's yourunconscious mind that makes deciding hard. And you may not realize that you'refaced with these kinds of decisions all the time:

• Being alone or being together

• Taking care of you or taking care of others

• Being safe or taking a risk

These dilemmas can leave us paralyzed, corner us into arguments, catch us inpower trips, make us controlling, debilitate our health, make us lose courage tostand up for ourselves, exhaust us, turn us into workaholics and codependents,block us from choosing our career path, and hook us into other addictivebehaviors.

All of this is because we don't know how to navigate the flow between oppositesand the tension between them—the things that make up dilemmas.

A Different Brand of Happiness Is Available

I'm glad to report there is another way to find happiness and feel good. Itstill requires you to choose and make decisions (after all, that's human life),but there's a wise way to do it that frees you to feel good about yourself—nomatter how bad you feel. Paradoxical? Yes. Impossible? No.

I'm going to map out for you another route to a different brand of happiness—onethat doesn't depend on outside circumstances, or whether your body is feelingpleasant or unpleasant emotions. This is very different from the happiness thatcomes when you get what you want (and don't get what you don't want), the mostordinary go-get-it brand of happiness. It's also not the same as that moremysterious, esoteric brand of happiness that comes for no reason at all.

The focus of this brand of happiness is creating a sustainable sense of peaceand calm in the presence of your own emotional turmoil, not in its absence. As abonus, it offers you a wonderful way to travel between the other two brands ofhappiness.

I introduced Emily to my Six-Step Process, guiding her through the notions andpractices you'll learn in this book. Daily challenges didn't disappear, but shediscovered how to handle them without the overwhelming anxiety and stress oftrying to eliminate everything she perceived as negative or bad.

After using this process for a few months, Emily came back to see me—with a bigsmile on her face. She shared, "My life's just more workable now. I neverthought I could change like this, but now I see things differently and handlethings differently. I'm not just happier; I think I'm a whole lot wiser, too.And secretly, I'll tell you I finally feel like a real adult."

Most people just want their dilemmas to go away. They have too much to do andtoo many decisions to make to take time for happiness. Yet, they can't get awayfrom their deep unconscious desire to feel good—and perhaps more problematic, tonot feel bad.

Not Feeling Bad Is Happiness, Too

Everyone wants to feel good. But is that the same sensation you get when youavoid feeling bad? Your unconscious mind thinks so. In fact, for yourunconscious mind, feeling good is survival. It's following our core biologicalimperative that goes like this: go toward pleasure (keep the species going) andstay away from pain (don't die).

Whatever you choose to do, this imperative always influences your decisions. Itbecomes problematic when your unconscious mind also applies this directive toyour emotions as well. It then forces you to move toward emotional pleasure andaway from emotional pain (which isn't death, but can sure feel like it). Thissurvival imperative makes you believe that not feeling bad will make you happy.The problem with this belief is that you can't get away from pain—physical oremotional—in human life. So no matter how hard you your unconscious try, youcan't avoid the experience of is following feeling bad.

Life is as tough as it is gracious. It imperative: go brings each of us amultitude of disappointments. And each distressing turn of events motivates yourunconscious mind to once again get you moving toward that impossible goal ofnever feeling bad (so you can feel good and survive).

Disappointments Galore

Rationally, you understand disappointment, discomfort, and un-happiness are apart of the package, but your unconscious mind doesn't. So when pain andsuffering enter your life, your unconscious mind has to assume you're doingsomething wrong, someone else is to blame, or God has it in for you, or you'd befeeling good, wouldn't you?

Emily's unconscious mind might say to her: "You know, you're supposed to be ableto handle all of these challenges. You must not be doing it right. You shouldsquash that anxiety fast and be calm or your whole life is going to fallapart ... and then, it's all over!"

Inner dialogues are often kind of melodramatic, with an aura of life and death.When dialogues continue (and they do), you may start feeling frightened becauseyour unconscious mind thinks that feeling bad is dying! Avoid feeling bad at allcosts.

Your unconscious mind also makes up lots of rules for how to reach its goal offeeling good: "Just do your to-do lists, have positive thoughts, be a goodperson, save money, be loving, connect with others, become successful, havefaith, and cultivate kindness and compassion. Then unhappiness will leave youalone—and maybe you'll even get enlightened, and feeling bad will be gone forgood."

These tactics don't work, because your unconscious mind is blind to a hugetruth: you don't get pleasure without pain, positive without negative, orenlightenment (living a conscious life) without endarkenment (living a lifewithout awareness).

Some paths say living in the middle is the way out of this predicament. But lifeis both the middle and the extremes that create the middle. When you realize youdon't get one without the other, the question becomes how to live with oppositesand the predicaments they create, and still be happy. This book is all abouthelping you find the answer to that question.

You Cannot Not Want to Be Happy

When I heard the notion that, by design, life consists of both pleasure andpain, I thought it was a pretty stupid idea. Really, aren't love and success theanswer to happiness, the ticket to a good life?

At the unconscious level, everyone is engaged in a quest for happiness—just likeI mentioned at the beginning of the chapter. You cannot not want to be happy. Nomatter where you search for it—food, alcohol, mochas with whip, relationships,children, community, career, hobbies, religion or spiritual path—happiness (andpeace of mind) is always the unspoken promise.

The quest is a great motivator, like the proverbial carrot at the end of thestick. But the happiness that comes from getting what you want (and not gettingwhat you don't want) can't deliver what your unconscious mind is seeking—apermanent state of feeling good. Blithely following this path only leads youinto that same blind alley I mentioned in the Introduction.

Whether you're aware of it or not, your unconscious desire for survival—otherwiseknown as feeling good—is always there, influencing your decisions. Itworks tirelessly to pull you toward certain choices and away from others. Andit's also tiring (unless you know how to manage it). I think that's why thenotion of heaven (perpetual pleasure and freedom from worry about making wrongdecisions) is so appealing. It sounds like you'll be out of that blind alley andno longer have to make choices and decisions all alone—decisions based solely onyour own assessment of what's right and what's wrong, what's good and what'sbad. You'd be free from those unpleasant inner tugs-of-war in your body thataccompany the process of trying to resolve a dilemma.

Sounds just lovely. But unfortunately, that's not how life works.

Emily, like many of my clients, let her newfound wisdom about opposites guideher in a different direction. Her desire to be happy didn't go away, but her wayof going after it did. She stepped away from the painful blind alley with thestreet sign of Perpetual Pleasure. Instead, she accepted that both feeling goodand feeling bad were always going to be a part of her life. Through that, sheexperienced a deep relaxation. Then she was able to put her energy into findingthat different brand of happiness I've been talking about—the kind where you getto feel good about yourself no matter how bad you feel.

Taking an Alternate Route

Is that same blind alley Emily and I found also in your neighborhood? Most of uskeep turning into it, again and again, despite the fact that it always leaves usfacing a dreary dead-end. The following chapters detail what this blind alleyis, how to develop what you need to recognize it, and my precise map forlocating the bridge that leads to that different brand of happiness.

This bridge is your alternate route. Actually, it's right there, now, in frontof you. But don't worry if you can't see it yet. The next few chapters are goingto stir up a few ideas in your head, and then the bridge will appear right therebefore your eyes, sort of like—dare I say it—magic.

This stirring begins when you recognize that the fabric of your life iscomprised of opposites—like success and failure, trust and doubt, or alonenessand togetherness. Opposites are undeniable and unalterable experiences in yourlife (what I call "facticities"). Not knowing how to handle the tension betweenthem creates your stress. When you understand opposites and how they work—it'slike "open sesame." The wisdom of all the ages can flow into your life, grantingyou that different brand of happiness and peace of mind.

You may not see these opposites yet, but I'll show you how to verify that theydo in fact make up the fundamental fabric of daily living. Why is this a life-changingshift? Instead of fighting them, you suddenly see for yourself that thetension between opposites is the flow of life. It's where life presents itsamazing performances—including the exquisite miracle of you and your journey.

It sounds so glorious!

But there's a catch to getting there. First, your unconscious mind needs anupdate (from Happiness 1.0 to Happiness 3.0), and your brain (operating system)needs an upgrade to run it. The Six-Step Process accomplishes both tasks.

Your Unconscious Mind Needs an Update

Every day your unconscious mind demonstrates its tenacious commitment to wipingout that tension between opposites. It doesn't recognize that tensioncontributes to life, much less that its presence is the flow of life itself.Your unconscious mind will drive you to spend long hours, lots of dollars, andoften an agonizing amount of effort following any path that promises toeradicate or banish the darker aspects of your life. Why does your unconsciousmind do this? The biological imperative once again—so you will feel good (andnot bad), and thus survive.

You might be familiar with the ways your unconscious operates. It will badgeryou to transform or transcend your "shadow self" (all the parts of you that youdon't like and might even hate). It keeps repeating the same theme: feel good,not bad, and thus survive.

If you're unfamiliar with the notion of a shadow self, think of it as agathering of all these parts: loser, fatty, ugly bitch, manipulator, peoplepleaser, coward, codependent, critic, know-it-all, judge, jury, and victim. Youmight have unwanted and disliked parts lined up around the block. Some may beresentful, some terrified, and others eager to become different and better. Butthe unconscious mind won't accept any of them as they are. Change is required!

Unfulfilled Promises

You can spend massive amounts of energy to change yourself ... for years and years.That's not bad. It's just human.

I spent many decades trying to erase my shadow self by either transforming it soall the darkness in me shifted into light, or transcending it and leaving itbehind. With great gusto and hope, I have

• zapped all my "bad" energy with imagined hues of divine illumination

• peeled darkness out of my energy field and banished it from my body and life

• thrown my shadow self up to the heavens for a modern-day makeover

• loved my self-hatred to death in daily morning meditation

• smothered my negativity and chronic complainitis with gobs of gratitude

I fell under the illusion (so easy to do) that when you get rid of the parts ofyourself that make you feel bad, you'll always feel good. But that's not so.Even when you do feel good, your unconscious mind is strong in its commitment.Without hesitation, it continues its mission and re-creates that familiar desireto rid yourself (permanently) of the next set of things you fear, don't like, orsimply find unpleasant about yourself, others, and life in general.