Why you're not happy? Change your State!

“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking.”

─ Marcus Aurelius

What is the ultimate desire of human beings in life? Is it something else than true happiness? You and I might have very different values & goals for our lives, but we are not that different in the end. Ultimately, we all seek happiness in our lives despite the different paths we might take to get there. In other words, each person might have his own definition of happiness. If you agree with me that the ultimate purpose of life is to find true happiness, then we might be wondering that why we often suffer from worthless situations in our daily life? If we get trapped in those situations, what can we do? How can we rescue ourselves from suffering?

The most important lesson You and I need to always remember is that we are the real source of our happiness not anyone or anything else. Your happiness is defined in your mind not anywhere else! If that's true, You and I should be able to be happy all the times. But, why do we have difficulty to be happy most of the times? Why it is so rare for us to be free (independent) of the external factors in our circumstances?

One of the best ways to be in full control of your mind and emotions is to change your state. Your state could be defined as your physiological & psychological conditions in a moment which enable you to respond to your internal & external stimulants in a specific way. Let's get clear about this; how do you picture a depressed person? Most likely, a guy with sad face, down shoulders, low voice, low level of self-esteem and energy, etc. Can you imagine the downsides of having this kind of state in your daily life? Clearly this person is in the wrong physiological & psychological conditions. Most likely, he's not going to take any actions and doesn't enjoy from his moments in life. 

Then, how can we change our state, if we notice that we're not at the peak of our state to be happy and productive? 

1. The first way to change your state is to be mindful and aware (conscious) of your emotions. You can read here, that how our subconscious mind works and how destructive it could be by having negative emotional patterns installed on it.  And, the worst part is that most of these patterns have been created through no choice of our own. They have been formed during our childhood and afterwards in our living environments (by our parents, friends, colleagues, teachers, etc.). So, analyze your emotional patterns for at least a week and write down all the emotions that you feel in that period of time. Be committed that you stay aware of your emotions during the whole day. In the first day, you just have to notice the emotions and write them down. For example, write down Anger, Fear, Gratitude, Joy, Frustration, etc. if you noticed that you experienced those feelings during the day. When you do this exercise, you would notice that the range of your emotions which you feel during a day are not too broad. There are mostly a bunch of emotional patterns which come up occasionally and put you in different states. The next assignment is to find the situation or environments which trigger these kinds of emotions. So, for example, the next day whenever you realized that you got angry! Ask: Why did I get angry? What was the case that triggered the feeling of anger? What was the situation? By asking this kind of questions, you consciously try to find the reason which caused you to experience that specific state (in this case anger).

Up to here, you have categorized your patterns of emotions which you mostly feel during your daily life, and you have found the situations that trigger those emotions. So, what is the next step? 

Now, you have to figure out how you can get more of the positive emotions such as gratitude & joy and less of the negative ones such as frustration & anger. To get more of the positive emotions, you could simply put yourself more often into the situations that triggered those emotions. For example, if you see hanging out with a specific friend brings lots of fun & joy into your life, do it more often. If you realize that helping others makes you to be more grateful for life, do that more often. On the other hand, to get less or none of the negative emotions, you should practice on their antidotes. You can have your own ways to deal with the negative emotions and find your own antidotes for them. For instance, to deal with anger, you might want to work on yourself to take things less personal. You could practice to let the things go when they're out of your control. You can relax by breathing deeply and counting your inhales & exhales. This is always a great antidote to anger because it makes your mind to cool off and better appreciate the present moment. You can get some more tips about coping with anger here.

To sum up, be aware as much as possible during the day, analyze your feelings, their triggering situations and work on the solutions (antidotes) to optimize your emotional patterns.

But, what if you got stuck in a bad emotional state without knowing why!? For example, you feel angry or frustrated because of something during the day that you don't remember the cause of it! In this kind of situations, when you can't recognize the triggering source of the emotions, it is much better to instantaneously change your state to a positive one without wasting a second! It's always better to focus on solutions than to focus on problems, right? So, how's that possible to change your state in an instant? This is where the technique of anchoring is used.  

2. The second way to change your state in an instant is anchoring. Anchoring is a psychological technique to get you attached to a desirable state in an instant regardless of any situation or environment you're in. Have you ever heard a song that reminded you of a specific period of your life? This could be a reminder of either a good or bad period of your life regardless of the song itself! Let's say that you were in a relationship for a year. In that year you were having fun with your partner and listening to a specific music all the time. What kind of feeling do you think you get when you hear that song again? Of course, all of those good memories & good feelings keep coming back to you. This could be the other way around too. Imagine a tough period of your life, when you lost someone. A lot of your friends came to you and said "I am sorry man" and gave you a red rose. After a year, what happens if someone gives you the same kind of red rose or says "I am sorry man" with the exact same tone as before?! That could subconsciously bring all the negative emotions to your mind that you had linked to loss of someone. Then, you'll suddenly feel down and don't even know why! Keep in mind that it's in the human nature to attach meanings & feelings to experiences in life.

I guess up to now you've realized how the anchoring technique could work on people. It links a specific feeling to a specific stimulant. Then, if you get the stimulant, you'll get the same feeling attached to it. So, how could you take advantage of this technique? The good thing is that you can attach all of the good feelings to anything you desire. Imagine the best possible scenario for your life. Imagine that all of your desires and goals have come true. Picture your life dreams in the present like they're 100% real. At the same time, you can listen to your most inspiring music to increase the feeling of pleasure in your mind. When you're at the peak of pleasure feeling, give a stimulus to yourself such as squeezing your thumb or arm. The important factor is to give the stimulus exactly at the peak of your pleasure feeling. And, you have to repeat this process a couple of times (let's say twice a day for at least a week) before you get anchored to the feeling. After that, you can instantaneously change your worst states into a great one linked to lots of pleasure. So, whenever you're feeling angry, frustrated, etc. just squeeze your thumb or whatever your stimulus was to start a whole new state fueled by pleasure. It could be like restarting your computer system.

You don't need any specific reason to be happy. You should always be able to feel happy no matter what. So, engage yourself in positive and empowering states that support your happiness because that's the ultimate purpose of life. Learn, practice and grow.