Happy New Year!
December 31, 2009 by dr. lam · 7 Comments
I wanted to interrupt my regularly scheduled blog to wish everyone a wonderful (and safe) new year celebration! I think as we mark the passing of 2009, we should look back at where we have come over this year and where we will plan to be going this coming year.
I have had probably my most profound awakening in 2009, and I owe a lot of it to writing these blogs. As I have repeatedly said, these blogs are a form of therapy for me, as much hopefully as they are good fodder for you as well. This past year, I have attained a much deeper sense of peace and tranquility despite whatever storm surrounds me, as you have seen reflected in these blogs that focus more on spirituality, peace, and happiness than achievement and attainment.
I have lost over 20 pounds through a radical change in diet (and more importantly attitude toward my diet) and also diligent, almost daily yoga practice. Yoga has given me greater peace, cleaner skin, more flexibility, better posture, a stronger heart, increased muscle tone (every muscle in my body), stronger neural stimulation through better balance, lower blood pressure, weight loss, daily meditation and also represents a metaphor for my life (that is a quiet peace about everything.)
Although my business actually increased despite the downturn, what I am most happy with is that my staff has continued to mature along with me in their sense of peace, happiness, and fulfillment. I have also seen a focus in my practice toward healing in which I am now actively looking for ways to heal my patients in a more holistic fashion.
In the spirit of this blog and all my blogs, I have no interest in recounting the lectures I have given, courses I have run, or other things that do not deserve the deep merit of what my life’s main mission is, i.e., to pass peace onto the world and healing energy through love, compassion, and growing self awareness.
I look forward to grow with all of you in the coming year 2010. As a leader (and you are leaders too!), I would like to recount what Ben Zander taught me (and his blog series is coming up soon on The Art of Possibility), “a leader is the relentless architect for the possibility of what others can acheive.” Well put. Let’s all grow and become greater in our peace, wisdom, and love in 2010. Wishing all a happy new year!
Psycho-Cybernetics Part 13 of 30: Happiness is not Conditional
May 26, 2009 by dr. lam · 2 Comments
In our pursuit of happiness, we oftentimes are pushed by external circumstances to define that level of happiness. Maltz uses the example of a game show host when the “Applause” sign goes on, we applaud. When the “laughter” sign goes on, we are asked to laugh. We are like sheep that must respond to the external circumstances that dictate to us how to behave. True happiness falls outside of external circumstances.
In his book, a woman of a drunkard asks Maltz, “How can I be happy?” Maltz responded, “I don’t know but you can be happier by resolving not to add resentment and self-pity to your misfortune.” The sage Epictetus said, “Men are disturbed not by the things that happen, but by their opinion of the things that happen.” Don’t add your opinion to unhappy events. Don’t make the situation any worse. Instead, when we try our best to liberate our mind from unhappy events and live in a state of happiness, we can be in a much better place.
Maltz also envisions human beings as goal-striving. When we are moving in a certain direction, we are happy. When we are not, we are not. Obviously, this striving can be read as a stark contrast to the idea of contentment espoused in previous blogs extracted from the Far East. I would say that we can put this paradox to rest by seeing that “goal striving” is a product of what I would like to call purpose or meaning. If our goals are superficial, e.g., just to be rich, then perhaps we will not arrive at happiness. But when we have more meaningful goals in our life, we can perhaps have something to move toward, which can be a source of happiness. Put another way, when the anxiety over that goal makes our current state unhappy, then we have failed to grasp Maltz’s true meaning of being happy today with that happiness amplified by seeing a direction in our life that we are moving toward. All of my faithful blog readers know that I use the word “journey” to describe the process that we are all on in self growth and self actualization. Accordingly, we can fully grasp the apparent paradox of current happiness and goal striving. I think Lao-Tzu would be proud of how we can resolve an apparent paradox. Namaste.
Psycho-Cybernetics Part 12 of 30: Happiness is a Habit
May 22, 2009 by dr. lam · 2 Comments
If we can achieve a profound level of happiness, we can then let go of the cloud of anxiety, fear, and other thoughts that plague our mind. At that point, we can allow our unconscious to move us forward in a positive direction. When we are unhappy, we are constantly pervaded by negativity, judgment (of self and of others), and poverty/scarcity. When we are happy, we can live with great joy and open the chance for success and to fulfill our goals.
How do we achieve happiness? The first thing we need to do is see happiness as a habit not as a future earning. Many of us live life as a deferred payment plan. We will be happy when we are in the right relationship, perfect marriage, obtain the perfect job, get better grades, have a thinner waistline, etc. Whatever we then achieve, we will then be daunted by another problem to distract us. Only by practicing happiness as a present emotion/condition, can we be truly happy individuals.
Happiness should not be viewed as selfishness. We have talked about this before when we discussed the Art of Happiness a few months ago. When we are happy, we radiate that joy to others. When we are sad and miserable, we remain in a completely selfish state that will hurt ourselves and directly/indirectly hurt others. We need to remove any moral appendages to happiness as a right, a virtue, as a merit. It simply is. We all should live in unmitigated happiness and when we do we can establish the underlying foundation and premise for our unconscious mind to flourish and for us to exercise a great degree of liberation in the practice of Psycho-Cybernetics.