Come join us for the Grow Happy Concert/Workshop
When? Sunday November 2nd 1 -2:30PM
Where? Influence Music Hall, 135 SE 3rd Ave Hillsboro OR 97123
All ages welcome
$5 suggested donation (only suggested, no one will be turned away)
Details: Discover the 5 Transforming Steps of Lasting Happiness from Andy’s new book “Grow Happy” and hear Andy Harrison and the Ambassadors of Possibility Duo perform some of the latest Transformational Rock songs. Learn what the latest scientific breakthroughs are telling us about our potential for happiness and some simple and powerful strategies for implementing these new understandings into your daily life.
Here’s what people are saying:
Andy has been called a “stellar performer” and a “superior entertainer” by event organizers and reviewers.
“Get ready for the most amazing change of your life!” -Diane U. / Trauma Therapist and Success Coach for Olympic Gold Medalists
“The change happened instantly!” -Judy S./ Hair Stylist
“I have had an amazing, life-changing experience… it has opened up a whole new world of possibilities for me!” -Bede M. / Financial Analyst
“Jaw droppingly amazing!” -Richard W. PHD / Neuroscientist
$5 suggested (but not necessary) donation
How to Make Your Problems Go Away Forever
Let me ask you a question:
When you have a problem, how do you know you have a problem?
You know you have a problem because you feel it, right? It feels like a problem. It fees bad, right? If you were experiencing the same events but didn’t feel bad, would it be a problem?
You might say, well yeah if I’m falling off a ledge but I don’t feel bad, I still have a problem!
Studies have proven that when you are in real physical danger, your body reacts with it’s fight or flight response and you don’t feel bad, you just do what you need to do to be safe in that moment.
So a problem is a set of circumstances (where you aren’t in immediate danger) that you feel bad about.
When most of us feel a problem, our first reaction is usually to try to get away from the problem or try to make the problem go away so we don’t feel bad anymore.
Have you noticed that this doesn’t seam to work very well a lot of the time? I mean honestly, what is your success rate with this strategy?
Maybe we’re just not seeing the whole picture of what’s going on.
What if there is a way that you can actually make your problems go away when they happen? What if the very reason that you experience problems in the first place is so that you can grow in your ability to never have to experience a similar situation as a problem ever again? Would you be curious about how to do it?
Let’s look at what a problem really is.
As an example, let’s say that I come home to find that my electricity has been turned off because I forgot to pay the overdue bill by the cut off date.
Is this a problem? Well that depends on me, right? It depends on how I feel about it.
So for our example, let’s say that I feel bad about this and so I am experiencing this as a problem.
Let’s look at all the stuff that would go into making this a problem for me.
First we have the situation of my house not having electricity for the moment. This by itself is just a situation and is not, on it’s own, capable of feeling like a problem for me. I have to actively participate in making the situation into a problem. So how would I do that?
I might think about how much it will cost to get the electricity turned back on. I might think about whether I have enough money to do that right now or not. I might also think about all the things I was planning to do within the next few hours that require electricity.
Then beyond that, I could think about how this might effect other people and how other people might view me as a result of this situation happening. I might beat myself up with internal dialogue about forgetting to make the payment.
These are just some examples of how I could make the situation into a problem.
So looking at all the stuff going on here, what stuff made the situation into a problem?
It wasn’t the situation stuff – the fact that my electricity was turned off, because that by itself couldn’t make it feel like a problem to me. It was all the thought stuff that happened inside my head after I found out about my electricity being turned off that actually made it into a problem.
So if it’s the thought stuff that made the situation into a problem, how would I make the problem go away?
My first inclination might be to get my damn electricity turned back on ASAP. But would this really make the problem go away?
You might say, well yeah, because I won’t have a reason to have all those thoughts, so I won’t feel bad, and so I won’t have a problem anymore.
While getting my electricity turned back on would probably be a good thing to do, this only makes the immediate situation change, not the problem itself go away.
The problem itself was all the thought patterns that my brain ran through as a reaction to this one situation. While changing the situation might, for the moment, stop my brain from running through those thought patterns thus allowing me to fell better for now, what will my experience be when another similar situation happens? What will my experience be when something even more dramatic happens?
Of course it’s obvious – my brain will be running through the same patterns or worse all over again and I’ll feel just as bad or worse all over again.
So if I only get my electricity turned back on and do nothing else, I have only bought myself a little time before I have to feel bad all over again when something else happens that is somewhat similar. I really haven’t made the problem go away at all. I have only delayed the problem until later.
So how would I make the actual problem go away forever?
I could simply stop holding onto those thought patterns when they come up.
Our brains make neural connections that become habits the more we use them. Whenever we experience similar situations over and over in our lives, or a habitual problem, it is because our brains have developed a particular set of connections to the point that they have become a habit. We just get really good at thinking these thoughts.
Thoughts are carried through energy. When you experience similar problems over and over in your life, it is because your brain has developed a closed circuit -the same energy carrying the same thoughts over and over with no new energy coming in.
The only way to make the problem go away, is to open the circuit and allow different energy into those connections and this will naturally allow different thoughts to come in as well.
You’ve had the experience before of thinking long and hard to try to solve a problem only to get nowhere, but then you took a break and the right idea popped right in your head, right? That’s because you opened up the circuit and allowed different energy in and along with the energy came the new thought – the new idea.
Let’s jump back to the beginning of our example and see what it might look like if we made the actual problem go away forever.
So I come home and discover my electricity is turned off.
My brain runs through all the thought patterns already mentioned and I feel the situation as a problem.
Regardless of what I do about the situation, let’s say that I understand where the real problem is – the thought patterns in my head.
I ask myself, “what is it that I really want more than any-thing?”
I answer myself: “I want to not feel bad like this ever again, no matter whether my electricity is on or off”
I ask myself: “How am I not loving this right now? What am I focusing on instead?”
I answer myself: “I am focusing on my electricity being turned off, how much it will cost, do I have enough money, all the stuff I was planning to do with electricity this hour, how this will effect other people, how they might view me, how bad I feel about myself for letting this happen etc…”
I ask myself: ‘What must I be assuming this could prove about me in order to feel this way?”
I stay with the question and I answer myself: “That maybe I’m not competent, smart or successful, that people won’t like me, or that I’m a looser etc…”
Then I let go of that assumption and allow the opposite energy in. I let those thought patterns go and allow myself to feel the opposite feeling.
If I have trouble doing this, I ask myself: “Do I want to keep holding onto this assumption, or do I want to feel better?”
I ask myself: “What would it feel like to know I am competent, smart successful, that people will like me, or that I could never be a looser, etc no matter what happens ever?”
Then I allow myself to feel that energy. I take the time to really feel what it feels like.
Anytime you feel something as a problem you can begin to recognize that every problem is a gift from your life giving you the opportunity to never have to feel that way again.
If you continue to experience the same or similar situations as problems in your life, it is simply because you have been overlooking the more valuable opportunity that they are offering you; more valuable then just changing the current situation.
So how you can make all your problems go away is to embrace them fully and notice them for the incredible gift that they are; they are showing you the exact thought patterns that you can let go of now so that you will experience ALL stuff including the stuff happening right now with more love, peace and happiness forever.
This can turn every problem into the greatest opportunity to grow happier right now.
-Andy
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