Techniques to Finding Happiness

by Burt Goldman

I thought it would be nice to share with you something I received in my email inbox not too long ago from Gerald O’Donnell.

These are three things you should start doing every single day to increase your level of happiness NOW.

These three exercises are intended to be done at home on a daily and ongoing basis. They will open up a new level of awareness and prepare you foradvanced personal and spiritual development.

Exercise 1: A New Way of Being

This first exercise is a pleasurable and powerful life-changing tool. The effects of daily stress associated with materialistic obsession (and its by-products: anxiety, isolation, frustration, fear, anger and depression) can be dissolved by this technique. It is at the same time simple and very profound. It increases greatly the vibratory rate of your non-physical Higher Self. Its premise is “smile at the world and the world will smile back at you.”

As you go about your daily activities, from the moment you get up in the morning up to the the time that you go back to sleep, constantly imagine that you are smiling inwardly at your outer reality as you go about your daily activities. Imagine that you are smiling from the deeper recesses of your mind, originating from within your heart area, and that you are projecting that happiness and smile outward through your eyes and expression. No matter what the circumstances are. You will find increasingly that your eyes will be smiling and so will your mouth, that will often curl up to a slight smile.

At the same time imagine that your heart constantly expresses a great inward smile filled with pure joy of being alive, no matter what.

After 2 weeks or so, you will notice an incredible amount of changes, not only in the way you interact with the ‘outside’ world, but also in how the ‘world’ acts and projects reality toward you. Your fears will begin to abate and an inner feeling of peace and love will emerge. Notice how people seek your presence and ‘Inner Love.’

Exercise 2: The Witness

Set aside 5 minutes at first (keep increasing by 2-3 minutes every other day until you reach 20 minutes) and close your eyes. Turn your attention inward and, from being a ‘thinking’ human being, start viewing your thoughts as an independent observer in a detached remote manner, as if your thoughts were ‘things’ or a spectacle to watch. Watch the train of your thoughts and images, the succession of often unrelated thoughts that appear to you. Don’t analyze anything.

Learn to switch from the perception of being ‘in’ your thoughts to withdrawing from them and becoming the detached totally passive observer of them. Get the feeling for the mental shift that occurs when doing so. Go within the thoughts and then withdraw to a more detached level. After a while of repeating this exercise you will notice that your thoughts become more isolated and that your inner mind starts taking a break.