HAPPIER CHOICES
The following excerpt is from the self help
psychology book, Be Your Own Therapist.
A middle-aged client one day was expressing her anger to me
about her mild birth defect, which somewhat limited her
physically. Part of my response to her was that choosing a new
spiritual system was likely to be essential if she were to
eliminate the anger. Obviously, I was confronting rather than
being empathic with her conscious mind then. For the empathy of
friends, therapists, support groups and her spouse in the past
had not helped to change that anger. She needed the belief that
the birth defect, instead of being something that "should not
have happened," was a positive life challenge for her to
overcome and move beyond.
The challenge for her was to feel OK with her physical
condition, to accept it and its limitations without anger,
regret, sadness or angst of any kind. Her spiritual beliefs were
based upon the common "What we get in life is random chance"
belief and the so-called "scientific" belief that when our body
dies, our mind does also. Her beliefs caused this woman (1)to be
forever angry at how unfair it was to be so randomly selected
for a disability and (2)to feel forever cheated because she
would never experience a normal body. Happier choices were
available to her:
(1)A religious system in which God gives out such defects for
reasons known only to God is potentially a happy belief system.
(2)A system such as Buddhism or Hinduism in which reincarnation
and perhaps karma play vital roles would give her the faith that
she would have other lifetimes with a normal body.
(3)A system that espouses a Higher Power (perhaps one's higher
self or God) who gives out such problems as challenges to
overcome could prove to be a path of contentment.
(4) Any other belief system, in which one vital meaning of life
is that this is Earth School for her, would be a potentially
satisfying belief system. This schooling could be learning about
overcoming disability, learning about people, learning how to
overcome poor self-esteem or childhood abuse, learning how to
love, also learning in the more traditional areas of reading,
social studies, etc.
|
It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who made him... Abraham Lincoln |
If she (my client with a mild birth defect) chose any of the
above belief systems, then happiness was possible. But it would
require changing herself! (She had already accomplished much in
therapy before ever coming to me.) It feels so much safer to
blame life or others for our discomforts. We feel so
self-righteous. The problem is out there, not with us. For
anyone who is likely to be permanently different, (differences
might include physical disability, skin color, ethnic
background, religious orientation or sexual inclination), the
standard USA beliefs of random chance and one-time-around will
result in perpetual unhappiness. In fact, all of us are
different from the majority in many ways because there really is
no majority these days. If we persist in being unhappy about our
differences from others, it is our responsibility to change
ourselves. If we don't change, we glue ourselves to perpetual
unhappiness.
Next Excerpt 
| Much of today's science depends upon the idea of "random chance." Few scientists are aware of how human consciousness can interfere with many scientific results that supposedly "must" be random. |
More Excerpts This Chapter
WAS THIS CHAPTER BANNED IN BOSTON?
GOLDEN RETRIEVER MAGIC
SPIRITUALITY - TRUTH OR QUACKERY?
SPIRITUALITY IS NOT RELIGION
WHEN DOES RANDOM CHANCE BECOME A FRAUD?
EARTH SCHOOL
HAPPIER CHOICES
TWO HAPPIER BELIEF SYSTEMS
ONE-TIME-AROUND VS. REINCARNATION
PAST LIVES THERAPY
ASTROLOGY
THIS IS A SAFE UNIVERSE
I GET EXACTLY WHAT I NEED
WHAT ABOUT BEING A VICTIM?
SUMMARY OF BELIEFS HAPPY AND UNHAPPY
This Chapter's Quiz
Book Table of Contents
Psychology of Sex Education - Psychological Sexual Health Care
HAPPIER CHOICES © 1995-2004