A web site dedicated to enhancing human
happiness and self-development
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YOU CAN CHOOSE TO BE HAPPY* Tom G. Stevens PhD My book, You Can Choose To Be Happy: "Rise Above" Anxiety, Anger, and Depression, is the result of a personal quest that began when I was 16. I decided to try making happiness for self and others my top goal in life. Dr. Abraham Maslow's description of self-actualization later served as a role model. My book summarizes the knowledge I gained during the past 40 years--first as a United Methodist minister and then as a psychologist in Counseling and Psychological Services. The biggest single factor controlling people's happiness and self-actualization is their choice of what the great philosopher Paul Tillich called our ultimate concern. Many people think that making human happiness a top goal is selfish or naive. But great philosophers such as the Buddha, Aristotle, Kant, and Bertrand Russell all said happiness should be number one for many reasons. Jesus also implied that happiness for self and others was of highest importance. A powerful benefit of making your ultimate concern mental values like happiness, love, truth, beauty, and growth is that they automatically bring peace of mind. The choice of internal, mental values over external values is vital for overcoming anxiety because you can directly control only mental/spiritual values. As the Buddha recognized, becoming too attached to something you can't directly control-such as success, money, other people's opinions, or any external condition-is a major cause of anxiety. For example, the instant you make success a top goal, you will feel bolts of anxiety whenever anything threatens your success. What causes our emotions? Our emotions measure the condition of higher brain states. Overarousal emotions like anxiety come from being overwhelmed with more input than we can cope with. Underarousal emotions like depression come from too little input-often because we have withdrawn to avoid anxiety and/or lack meaning in the situation. Happiness comes from input being optimally challenging and validating in such a way that maximum learning and inner harmony occur in the higher brain centers. Victor Frankl found happiness even in Nazi concentration camps. He did it by getting mental control of the situation. Later he used this knowledge to form a new school of psychotherapy. You too can learn to overcome your past history, your biology, or any situation to find peace and happiness. My book presents six basic strategies for getting mental control of our emotions. You can learn to "get into the zone" of harmonious functioning for peak learning, performance, and happiness. The center of your self-worth and unconditional love of self and others is your Higher Self. It is a cognitive system that develops naturally in childhood. A Higher Self raised in a negative, dysfunctional family may remain weak and underdeveloped. To make your Higher Self the strong, democratic executive over your other subparts, choose happiness for self and others over others' opinions, success, rules, coercion, or any other challenger. Develop a well-thought-out philosophy based upon your highest mental values to effectively cope with any situation. Then your Higher Self will become your inner core, your inner hero, and your inner conductor bringing harmony to all parts of your personality and life. Another vital aspect of achieving happiness is facing and overcoming your worst fears and your most negative subparts. Many people can use the self-exploration method and other suggestions in the book to overcome these sources of unhappiness, although good psychotherapy may be necessary for others. Other important aspects of learning to be happy covered by the book include learning how to be grateful for all that you have, learning how to overcome being too externally controlled by others, learning to forgive, learning how to develop a more positive-yet realistic-view of life, and improving your ability to accomplish more and have more fun through effective management of your life. These ideas only scratch the surface. To see more, visit my web site at www.csulb.edu/~tstevens
and download the Choose To Be Happy Checklist
or a pre-publication copy of the book. Or, download one of my free handouts on
many self-help topics from learning and study skills, time management, and
career planning to coping with emotions, meeting people, intimacy, and
conflict-resolution. You can get the book at www.bookzone.com or 800-537-6727.
Our bookstore has the lowest price ($10.95). My book is also the basis for my
workshop series and my EdP 357: Self-Management class. I wish you a happy life.
You Can Choose To Be
Happy: "Rise Above" Anxiety, Anger, and Depression, Tom G. Stevens PhD
*Article published in In Touch, April 1999 free website counters |
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to Contents of Dr. Stevens' book, You Can Choose To Be
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Success and Happiness Attributes Questionnaire (SHAQ) to assess self on many
factors [Go to companion web site] Copyright 2005, Tom G. Stevens PhD |
