Psychology of Happiness (Part 1 of 2)

The psychology of happiness, interestingly, follows exactly the Universal Laws and metaphysical explanations for how we create our reality. In twenty years of research, psychologists studying happiness discovered that the human brain can only access one emotion and point of focus at a time.

What does that mean for you? You heard it before-you can either feel happy or you can feel unhappy in any given moment. You get to choose which.

Similarly, your body cannot experience pain in two different locations simultaneously. Again you choose which pain to recognize. You likely, at some point in your life, created an injury in more than one body part. As soon as you tended to that first focal point of pain suddenly you discovered you had hurt more than one spot as the second place now demanded your primary attention.

What do I mean? Years ago I suffered a brain injury. My head hurt so badly for so long I did not know my neck also incurred an injury until my head stopped throbbing. Then, ouch, my neck hurt really badly. I could not feel the neck pain because the pain signals from my head over-rode those coming from my neck.

In popular movies like What The Bleep you learned that people set intentions for how they want their days to go. They also express gratitude to speed up their trek along the road to happiness. Psychologists, experts in what they call positive psychology (the study of happiness) give their students those very assignments: keep a gratitude journal and set your intentions each morning for how you want the day to go.

Why would that happen? What you focus on expands. There is a scientific explanation for that concept too. When your brain sees you focus on something it deems that something to be important. So it hones in on whatever you focus on.

When you express gratitude you look for the good things in your life for which to feel grateful. You create the habit of looking at the positive feel-good things. What a contrast to mainstream thought that says reality is all about looking at the negative things!

Studies prove that gratitude journals increase one’s level of happiness. Duh! Metaphysicians knew that years ago. Science is finally catching up to the teachings of the past thousands of years-all the way back to the Kabbalah that noted events even before the Big Bang. All those early records described what science is just now discovering.

The act of journaling about a positive experience every day (note this is different from keeping a gratitude journal) raises your degree of well being, improves your immune system and overall health. An added bonus-your social life will improve.

What? Think about it. You now live the habit of noticing your positive experiences. That behavior increases your level of happiness which in turn raises your frequency. Your energy feels good to others. They want to be around you. When you look for someone with whom you want to pass the time, don’t you prefer someone who thinks about and focuses on positive things?