The Choice to Be Happy

by Penny Watson

Overview

The Choice to Be Happy is written for those searching for a way to become master of their own state of health and happiness. To begin to recognize the relationship between our happiness and our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual state of health-and most of all, to enjoy the journey! It teaches us to literally lighten up as we participate actively and adventurously in creating our own state of well-being.

This is a practical, step-by-step approach that invites you to be imaginatively and intimately involved in creating your own path towards happiness, health, and fulfillment. A digital download is included; it is designed to be used in conjunction with the book. They combine to assist and support individuals on their journey, allowing them the opportunity to adapt the meditations to their own specific needs and personal circumstances.

Be conscious ... You can choose to be happy and healthy.

What is your choice?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781504334372
Publisher:	Balboa Press
Publication date:	07/10/2015
Pages:	138
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.32(d)

Read an Excerpt

The Choice To Be Happy

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By Penny Watson

Balboa Press

Copyright © 2015 Penny Watson
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5043-3437-2

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CHAPTER 1

An Invitation to Choose Happiness

Let's start with a basic question: do you actually wish to be happy?

Stop, think, and ask yourself, "Who benefits from my being miserable?"

Does anybody?

Then ask yourself, "Who benefits from my being happy?"

I doubt there are many people who truly benefit from your being miserable. It's worth exploring for a few moments those among your family, friends, colleagues, clients, and customers who are helped by your being miserable.

Now ask yourself, "Am I truly happy being miserable?"

Some people are. In this case, continue as you have been doing, but recognize this is your decision.

If you are one of millions who would like to feel differently but are perhaps stuck in a rut and have no idea how to go from being in the dark, grim space you now inhabit to being in a different lighter, brighter place where you can feel better and make a move towards happiness, then this book and digital download are designed to help and support you in discovering a way forward.

Begin by making a commitment to yourself here and now. Create a personal contract with yourself. Your commitment to you could read something like:

I, ________, agree to do everything from now on to support myself towards my own happiness and well-being.

At this moment, you may not know or be able to differentiate between the signs and signals that will direct you on your journey towards well-being and happiness from those that will keep you stuck in your present state of mind and misery. However, like most journeys, first of all you have to make a decision to begin and to take the first step.

I deeply understand The Choice to Be Happy because I have made it literally and figuratively, and I know that each of us makes that choice moment by moment. Often we do not recognize that we have options when faced with physical pain, emotional, or mental trauma, and spiritual abandonment. When confronted by blind alleys, dead ends, obstacles, fears, and sheer terror, most need huge support to find a way forward, let alone a different way.

You are invited to discover that when we support ourselves at an inner level of being, then we find that we are truly supported on our journey toward happiness in all aspects of our lives. How do we begin any journey?

From where we are now.

This book is designed to equip each of us with a map, compass, and toolkit to start the journey towards happiness, but first:

Have You Ever Asked Any of These Questions?

Why do we become ill?

Are some people just born happy?

Is it all chance? Random? One of life's mysteries?

Are we just victims of circumstance, or is it in our genes?

Why do some people diagnosed with a certain condition go on to make a full recovery while others, given identical treatments, rapidly deteriorate or even end up dying? Are some people just born lucky?

I'm sure at some time in your life you will have asked the same questions. I know I certainly have. This book is essentially about my personal quest conducted over the last twenty-five years to explore the nature of happiness and whether we can influence our own state of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.

My background is that of a "domestic goddess", the mother of three now-grown boys, a registered nurse, reflexologist, registered spiritual healer, and teacher of meditation and self-healing techniques. Over the past thirty years, I have worked in a variety of posts as a nurse, ranging from chronic care to the high-tech world of endoscopy, where we look at more of your insides than your outside. My resume also includes care of the elderly, gynaecology, the intense acute and often challenging environment of accident and emergency, and in recent years as an emergency nurse practitioner in a rural community hospital.

I have been employed as a nursing officer on cruise ships, which probably sounds like a dream job, and often it was. However, several days of nursing in gale-force winds, with equipment flying off the shelves, passengers toppling over, and queues of vomiting holiday-makers can rapidly turn the dream into a nightmare! Furthermore, management of the critically ill patient onboard might make you reconsider the job when the first questions to ask – whilst trying to save a life – are, "Where in the ocean are we? Are we in or out of satellite range? Do we prepare for Option A – diverting the ship; option B – the boat rescue; option C – air-sea rescue; or option D – none of the above due to poor weather conditions!"

I have been fortunate enough to travel quite extensively over the years, and as a consequence I have had the opportunity to observe many different cultures, belief systems, and ways of life both abroad and at home. As a young mother, I lived in Malaysia for a period of two years, arriving with my husband and twenty-two-month-old son when I was seven-and-a-half months pregnant with my second child. Some might say this was courageous, others think it quite stupid, but it certainly proved to be one of those "character-building" experiences.

Due to us having such a young family, travelling throughout the developing countries of Southeast Asia proved somewhat challenging. Out of necessity we travelled at a considerably slower pace than the average independent adventurer, in order to accommodate the frequent nappy changing or toddler-training requirements that took place in anything from a rickshaw to a dugout canoe whilst going down a rapid or two! However, the "occasional" frustrations encountered were often compensated for by being welcomed into the many private homes, kitchens, and lives of local inhabitants, purely by virtue of having such small children in tow. This afforded us an insight into quite striking and vastly differing ways of living this life, as varied as those from a hill tribe in Thailand to that of a long-house dweller from the jungle of Borneo.

We often bore witness to many strange and almost fantastical temples or cultural ceremonies that could involve pushing a two-meter solid-steel spear through the cheeks without so much as a whimper of pain being expressed or a drop of blood being shed. If that wasn't to your liking, many would choose the alternative activity of strolling across double-ended machete knives or a potter across hot coals.

Furthermore, working on cruise ships exposed me to a truly international community. There could be anything from up to thirty-five different nationalities onboard, with a job description that took me through the engine rooms located in the bowels of the ship, to the galley, laundry department, boson's workshop, or the bridge. You could be rubbing shoulders with a deck boy from India one minute or with a celebrity the next.

There is not a single one of us who has had exactly the same life experience; however, the brief overview of my life that I have shared with you has led me to certain conclusions.

First, there is certainly more than one way to live this life. However, I personally am not going to opt for the spear-through-the-cheeks ritual!

Second, happiness and peace seem to bear little relation with material wealth. Not that I have any problem with material wealth; it just doesn't seem to be the case that the more money or possessions we have, the happier we will inevitably be. When I was trekking through Nepal, the question uppermost in my mind was, Why do the Nepalese genuinely chuckle and dance with joy? As far as I could see, they possessed little more than a pair of flip-flops that should have been condemned to the rubbish bin years ago and were leading lives of hardship by anybody's standards.

Third, was there a relationship between happiness and health?

Fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and so on, there are always more questions but relatively few clear-cut answers.

I can't claim to have many letters after my name; however, I have had quite a depth and breadth of life experience and am a fully paid-up member of the human race, which I reckon entitles me and you to explore these questions.

I have experienced tragedy, grief, heartache, and all shades of grey in between, as I'm sure you probably have in your lifetime, even if the shape and shade of our grief may differ. I have at times witnessed overwhelming, sudden, inexplicable loss of life and human misery in the emergency room, but equally I have observed the intensity of unimaginable love, compassion, and personal strength in the face of adversity that has left me feeling truly humbled. Some patients and certainly many of my colleagues whom I have had the privilege of working with have been quite inspirational in the manner in which they coped with a situation.

It became increasingly apparent that we will probably at some time in our lives have to face an illness; we will undoubtedly come up against loss, whether of a loved one, a home, money, or whatever. As we mature we become aware that from the moment we are born we are bound to die, and that the process of living this life can expose us to, well, anything. Some events we can maybe anticipate, but many we can't. It doesn't seem to be so much a question of what we are going to experience but how we are going to experience it. In this I believe we have infinitely more choices and powerful alternatives of which the majority are unaware.

There seems to be a common factor underpinning whether we have the capacity to rise above certain situations or be overwhelmed by them. This factor is crucial in determining the outcome, but perhaps more importantly, this factor seems to influence whether we developed an illness or attracted a certain situation in the first place.

This all-important factor would appear to be us. You and me! Our own personal makeup. By this I mean our attitudes, beliefs, and self-esteem.

I began to look into complementary therapies, spurred on by a husband suffering from a serious back condition that orthodox medicine seemed unable to alleviate at the time. I approached this in quite an open-minded fashion, the main aim initially being to return my husband to a pain-free, fully functioning father, able to take his turn at changing the nappies.

At the time I was unable to determine whether any of the daunting number of available therapies held any real benefit to the patient, or whether it was all just placebo. So I began reading and questioning a variety of practitioners, attending lectures and workshops, and eventually trained as a professional reflexologist.

In the beginning I was more astounded than my patients. I couldn't believe the results after a mere one or two treatments. Could twiddling the feet really make such a difference? Or was it just the hour or so of relaxation and being given my undivided attention? Undoubtedly both, but ...

What precisely was going on here?

Then purely by chance (though I now believe nothing is by chance), I happened to read Mind to Mind by Betty Shine, which suggested we all have the capacity to heal, and to influence both our own state of health and others. It further claimed that we could all do this from the comfort of our own homes and it wouldn't cost a penny! This sounded too good to be true.

Having been inspired by the book, I decided to have a go; what did I have to lose? I was fortunate insomuch as I had nothing wrong with me personally, but there was no shortage of needy candidates.

It worked! The vast majority benefited physically, mentally, and emotionally, and they seemed, like me, to begin to discover a sense of the spiritual, which began to underpin their lives, as well as creating a depth of peace and state of well-being that had not been present prior to their treatment.

I went on to train professionally and found myself working with all types of people with all manner of conditions, from life-threatening to sports injuries, the acute to the chronic, the grief-stricken to the schizophrenic, the newborn to the dying. I found that rarely did anybody who happened to cross my threshold not benefit, regardless of his or her condition.

So once again I started questioning, "What is going on here?" Certainly our lifestyles make a difference – the food we eat, whether we smoke, take regular exercise etc. They do make a difference. But again we all know people who smoke like a chimney, drink like a fish, eat all the food additives they shouldn't, and do precious little exercise, and they have the audacity to remain untouched by even the common cold! Others run themselves ragged at the gym, eat only organic foods, and lead a puritanically healthy lifestyle, yet they are besieged by every passing virus and suffer a variety of medical disorders.

So once again I invite you to ask, "Is it all chance? Random? Are we all victims of life's whims?"

I began observing a little more closely. What were the common factors amongst those who seemed troubled and constantly afflicted by illness (mental, emotional, or physical), and when did they occur? Likewise, what were the common factors that these super-beings possessed?

If their lifestyle was only a contributory factor, what was it that made the difference? Well quite simply, it seemed to be them – their beliefs, their attitudes, their approach to life, their belief in themselves!

Where do these beliefs come from? Parents? Society? The media? A whole host of different sources. Nothing new there perhaps to consider.

But what determines how we respond to these beliefs?

Well ... us!

But what makes some people feel inspired by what they hear, see, and experience and others overwhelmed, unmoved or disillusioned?

What precisely determines how we interpret what is going on as either positive or negative? Certainly our family, culture, and the media can and do try to influence us and tell us what is deemed good or bad, positive or negative.

The vast majority of us share similar needs. We need to eat, sleep, get up, work, shop, complete the household chores, and attend to the children and a multitude of other basic common activities that underpin our day-to-day lives. But what makes one person experience these commonly shared activities as exciting, stimulating, fun, and an opportunity, and another experience them as boring, dull, fearful, and depressing?

Is it our brain? What makes us look through our eyes and see either the good in everything and everyone we touch, or the seemingly bad and ugly in everything and everybody with which we come into contact? We can each be meeting the same people, looking at the same view, and hearing the same sounds, but interpreting them quite differently.

Our brain really is just a highly sophisticated chemical transmitter. It interprets what is going on and tells our body what to do and how to react and respond. It does it brilliantly most of the time with or without our conscious input.

However, what tells our brain how we should be interpreting what we are doing and seeing and experiencing as positive or negative? What tells our brain whether we should be laughing or crying, peaceful or anxious, compassionate or condemning?

Our Mind!

I invite you to ask yourself, "Who is responsible for my mind, my perception of a certain event, and my individual take on life?"

If you are not sure, or do not feel you are in the driving seat all the time and that you have become the victim of that little voice inside your head that tells you that you are no good, you are too ugly, too fat, or too thin, or that life has and will invariably thrown you a double whammy stroke of bad luck or that you will never amount to anything, and what is the point anyway?, etc. Then it is perhaps time to take responsibility. By that I mean discover the ability to respond – to take back and restore your mind to you.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Choice To Be Happy by Penny Watson. Copyright © 2015 Penny Watson. Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgements, ix,
My Aim, xi,
Introduction, xiii,
Chapter 1 An Invitation to Choose Happiness, 1,
Chapter 2 Is There A Better Way To Live This Life?, 23,
Chapter 3 What Is Feeling Whole About?, 29,
Chapter 4 Do You Need This Book?, 33,
Chapter 5 Learning to Select Your Thoughts, 65,
Chapter 6 Additional Suggestions, 97,
Chapter 7 Feeling Frayed around the Edges, 107,
Chapter 8 Changing Our Responses in Difficult, Uncomfortable, and Challenging Situations, 111,
About the Author, 119,