Happiness is only a thought away.

EVERY DAY YOU MAKE a thousand choices. You choose what to wear, where to go, who to meet, what to eat, and what to do. Most important of all, you choose what to think. One thing is for sure: today will not be any better than your thoughts. Choose your thoughts wisely, therefore, as you can only go as high as your thoughts.

Look inside your mind and notice all of the thoughts. It is estimated that your mind thinks at least 2,000 thoughts an hour all through your life. Unless you are in samadhi, deep sleep, or a coma, your mind is thinking. Perhaps this is the problem! Maybe you are thinking too much!

Notice how your mind is full of thoughts of love, peace, fear, grace, guilt, joy, anger, forgiveness, attack, laughter, work, play, judgment, kindness, isolation, oneness, etc. In your mind is every thought in the world. Which thoughts are you identifying with right now? Which thoughts are you choosing to go with?

My work in psychology and healing has taught me that mental health is the capacity to choose your thoughts. The ability to choose your thoughts is the difference between pain and freedom. For instance:

• When your child crams another cookie into the DVD player, it doesn’t ruin your day because you choose not to let it.
• A flat tire doesn’t give you a headache because only you can give yourself a headache and you decide not to.
• A personal criticism could cause a cardiac arrest but you choose to laugh it off instead.
• A computer crash could be the end of the world for ten minutes or a month. It’s your choice.
• A friend who lets you down could trigger Armageddon, but you choose otherwise.
• A bad hair day does not mean you have to write a suicide note because you know better.

In difficult times perception collapses and you lose sight of your choices. Fear plays tricks with the mind. Thoughts appear to take on a life of their own, running up one-way streets, getting lost in mental cul-de-sacs, hitting a wall, and being beaten senseless in dead-end alleys. Your mind is out to get you. It is not a safe place! True perspective is shattered. There appears to be no choice.

When you are in trouble, your thinking will never get you out alive. What you need is faith. Faith is the willingness to look past your thoughts and see another possibility. Better still, it is the courage to stop your thinking altogether and let yourself be inspired and blessed and guided by something other than your ego, i.e., the clear mind of your Unconditioned Self.

Your ego uses a slow, limited form of thinking called logic. Logic is a device of the separated mind which believes that you have been left to think your life out all on your own. Your higher mind—the part of you that is unconditionally connected to all life—does not have to confine itself to singular logic. It is an Aladdin’s lamp that uses inspiration, intuition, vision, eureka, miracles, and love.

The greatest truth I have learned about happiness is that happiness is only ever one thought away at most. One fresh perception, one new belief, one innovative thought, one powerful decision, one moment of surrender, one instant of complete openness, is all it takes to experience a world of difference. Nothing but your thoughts can hurt you. Therefore, whenever you are in fear or pain you are being called to choose again.

Every day the world shows you your state of mind. Life comes right up to your face and says, “This is what you are thinking—have a nice day!” The good news is you are free to change your mind whenever you want. When you shift your thinking, the world shifts. This is because the world is an effect of your thoughts.

In every event, encounter, or situation, cultivate the habit of asking yourself, “What is the highest thought here?” Be still an instant, lay aside everyday thoughts, delete the ego, release your fears, jettison your judgments, and make yourself available to the higher wisdom of your Unconditioned Self. Inspiration goes wherever it is made welcome.

Excerpted from Shift Happens by Robert Holden, Ph.D. Copyright © 2011 (Hay House).

 my kindred friend KIM SORENSEN sent this to me this morning...I had heard it on audio tape, but written is beautiful.....

Goes right along with Matthew Kelly's...BEST VERSION OF MYSELF....