Let go of your beliefs about how things should be...

What does "change your thinking" mean? Letting go of your beliefs about how things should be. Those beliefs are blocking happiness.

Where do your ideas about how things are supposed to be come from? Do they simply come to you, through spontaneous generation? No, you accumulate them, everyday, all through your life, mostly sub-consciously. Then, you call them up, just at the right time to express your "feelings" about  how things should be!

The human brain is a marvelous machine. It is said that every single experience of your life is stored as a memory. Scientists have proven by stimulating sections of the brain, participants will recall in clear detail, events that they didn't remember they remembered! The problem with all these memories is that we humans attach an editorial to each one. And, during the process of recall, we re-read the editorial first. The editorials are heavily influenced by Ego, but even more so by the culture in which you were raised. When you were told as a child, "Don't touch that handle, 'colored' people carry germs!," the memory of having to leave your wagon out in the street after a black child had pulled it in play, is not the most pressing part of the memory, the editorial attached to it is.

We receive uncountable thoughts/rules/warnings throughout our lives, which shape the way we see things. How else could something like the Jim Crow South exist? Only through heavy indoctrination could such cruelty and poverty be accepted as HOW THINGS SHOULD BE. How else could people in today's world, a world filled with the wonders of science and technology, believe in the musings of bronze age farmers that state the world is only 6000 years old? Because of the brain-washing of culture...

Not that it's not a free world. Everyone has the right to do and think what they choose. The problem with this "culturalization" is it leads to thinking that causes unhappiness. Culturalization GUIDES us into thinking that buying stuff will make us happy. It tells us, OURS is the true religion, and that there is only one true God, OURS! It tells us that people(s) that are different from us are not to be trusted. Culturalization tells us what kind of sex is permissible, and between whom. It tells us how to "act like a man" and "that's not ladylike."

The bigger problem, the one that leads to all of the unhappiness, is we each get a CUSTOM culturaliztion, one that is unique to us, since no one else gets to experience exactly what we did. Knowing this, how could you possibly expect everyone else to see things from your perspective, or to act as YOU see fit? But you do. Thus, you allow your daily observations, which run counter to how you think things are supposed to be, ruin your day, and make you unhappy...

The solution to this is simple. Stop thinking things are supposed to be a certain way. Begin to recognize that how you see things, is not how others do, nor how they are going to. How could they? They didn't get your unique brain-washing! Recognize, there is no intrinsic "right" and "wrong." Those judgements are yours (and possibly those shared by the groups you identify with). Nobody does anything outside of their own view of right and wrong. They follow their own culturalized guidelines. The secret to happiness is: YOUR happiness relies on you ending your frustration(s) with others not following your personal "shoulds."

Today, begin to allow and accept that all BEings, all souls have their own journey, and their own point of view. Each has a right to experience themselves in their own unique way, free from your judgements. If you desire to change them, do it by showing them love. The only way for them to see from your perspective, is to respect/love/admire your thoughts/words/deeds enough to want to...

Duffy