Richard Carlson - Stop Thinking, Start Living

Your healthy functioning can be pointed to and it can be felt. You can see the effects of its energy. You can see acts of loving kindness, compassion, and caring. You can see people who used to be angry and depressed who are now peaceful, loving, and happy. You can see people who have so much love and self-respect in their hearts that they rarely get defensive, upset, or critical of others.

Looking for the Clues

You can begin to look for clues to point you in the direction of your healthy functioning. To begin, you must first acknowledge that you have it in you – and then appreciate it when it is present. Don’t just look for healthy functioning when you feel upset, but pay attention to it when you are feeling good. In this way, your healthy functioning can grow. As more and more of your energy and attention are directed towards this other part of yourself, you will find yourself experiencing it far more often. The better feeling you experience will feed on itself, giving you more confidence and more hope, setting forth a positive, life-enhancing cycle. Over time you will be able to see yourself moving in and out of your healthy functioning, and eventually you will be able to live in this state of mind most of the time. Even when you aren’t able to tap into this happier state, you will at least know that it exists. This knowledge will protect and shield you against the grips of unhappiness and depression.

Your healthy functioning must become more important and more real to you than your unhappiness has been in the past . If it does, you will see new light and new hope emerging in your life. The moments of mental health you have experienced in the past will become minutes, then hours, and finally a way of life. If you can see the truth in what I am saying, that there is so much more to you than your unhappiness and your negative thoughts about yourself, you have reached the start of your road to freedom. You must begin to acknowledge that you do indeed have mental health, that you do have healthy functioning. You must realize that even if you don’t feel it at the moment, it’s still there, waiting for your attention.

Imagine that you have a special pair of orange socks that you have lost but would like to wear. If you are certain that you own them, and you know what they look like, and you really want to find them, then you are a thousand times more likely to find them than if you don’t even know that you own them! How would you ever find something if you didn’t even know what you were looking for – or for that matter that there was even anything to look for?

If you begin actively to search out, explore, and yearn for your own inner sanity, you will find what you are looking for. As your understanding and faith in the existence of your healthy functioning increases you will discover a better feeling surfacing. As this part of you that is never depressed is recognized and acknowledged, it will begin to conquer your unhappiness in the same way that sunlight will bring life to a plant that has been left in the dark. Light is more powerful than darkness. Healthy functioning is more powerful than unhappiness. Once your inherent mental health and happiness are acknowledged, they will be too powerful to remain an inactive force in your life. Once you recognize this feeling for what it is, it will become self-reinforcing until it overshadows any unhappiness that remains.

You don’t find light by studying the dark. I know this sounds obvious, and to a certain degree, it is. But this common-sense way of approaching life is anything but common. More often than not, therapists and friends will get you to describe your pain and look at the implications of it and the ‘reasons’ behind it in an attempt to bring you to a state of peace. You will be asked to explore the parts of your past that were painful and to ‘get in touch’ with your negativity and your dark side. If you are depressed, you are already in touch with your negativity . To become happy, you need to travel in the other direction – towards your healthy functioning. Please don’t misunderstand what I am saying: a good listener and a sympathetic ear can do wonders for the soul, and is a sign of a good friendship. I’m not attempting to place judgment or criticize typical therapeutic approaches and certainly not good friendships. Instead, I’m showing you how to decide for yourself what is going to bring you what you want in life. If you have a dark side, fine. Acknowledge it and move forward. Excessive thinking about your past and your problems will only convince you that you do, in fact, have good reasons to be upset and unhappy.

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