Can I Choose How to Feel?

“Sometimes I feel as if I’m being torn with all of my responsibilities. Between my job and family responsibilities, I have no time for “fun”. Some days I’m so overwhelmed I feel completely depressed and don’t know where to turn.”

From an early age, we as human beings experience upsets wherein we make things up about ourselves, others and the world in general. These interpretations cause us to react emotionally to these upsetting challenges. Generally speaking, most people respond to such challenges with one of three predominant emotional reactions: anger, sadness, or fear.

As life goes on, we become accustomed to reacting in a way that reinforces our emotional reactive response. Before long, we become addicted to the mood that these interpretations provide us in times of upset. This addictive response to challenges and life overall is as addictive as heroin is to a heroin addict.

For the majority of people, this emotional reactive state is invisible – they do not realize that they tend to create interpretations that give them their addictive moods. The mood is so addictive that we will attract people, situations and experiences into our lives just to get our fix of anger, sadness, or fear!

Your addictive response to life is apparently sadness. You don’t like being sad but this chronic state of depression allows you to avoid responsibility for creating happiness in your life. Instead of gravitating to people and situations that make you depressed, you can in that moment decide to look for a happy interpretation that empowers you rather than make you sad.

For this to be successful, you’ll need to develop the habit of looking for the good in every challenging situation and taking action to magnify your blessings and the gratitude you have for the experience of life.

You must be willing to give up your right to be depressed, willing to release the sadness, willing to create an empowering interpretation that supports your happiness. Do this every day for 30 days and it will become a habit.

For more exercises and details on how to live your happiest dream life, visit my website.

– Dr. Joe Rubino