Having a goal helps to focus your mind and energy. If we have an emotional goal, it makes us more aware of what we are thinking, how we are feeling, and it can sharpen our ability to let go of anything that keeps us from our goal. Having an emotional goal can make finding happiness easier…

During a recent group zoom call for inner peace, someone asked about dealing with a sense of dissatisfaction they were feeling in their life. Hopefully this simple approach can help in dealing with dissatisfaction and finding happiness…

During recent group Zoom meetings I have been asked if the desire for happiness or the desire to feel good implies resistance against negativity within ourselves.

"If I want to be happy, does that mean I am in resistance to unhappiness?"

I would say not necessarily. Happiness is a natural preference, in the same way that pleasant food is preferred over garbage. Once the fight against unhappiness or negativity starts to come to an end, there gradually becomes more space for us to choose a way to feel, if we want to do such a thing…

If we are actually choosing to feel good or happy instead of feeling negative in any way, are we not resisting the negativity in order to feel better? Is there not some kind of conflict within us if we want or choose to feel happy?

The desire to feel good - is it wrong?

Something that came up in a recent group Zoom meeting…

The desire to feel good or experience happiness - does this mean we are resisting ourselves being in a state of non-happiness?

A simple trick you can use if your mind is ever stuck in a negative pattern of thought, useful for getting out of your own head…

From this week's newsletter - For many of us, the challenges of life become far more deeply engrained in our minds as troubles, because in the background there is a secret assumption that the world should make us happy. If you don’t act the way I want, do what I think you should do, or if things don’t go exactly how I wanted them to go - if the assumption is that you or the world should make me happy - then I will suffer.

Let’s take the example of someone snapping at you. For no good reason. You aren’t doing anything wrong or harmful, but the person snaps at you or scolds you for a relatively insignificant thing. There are two main ways we can deal with this...

Let’s take an example of a mind that will not stop producing thoughts, particularly thoughts that feel uncomfortable, limiting, harmful or negative...

We usually have unconsious reasons for doing things. Comparing yourself and your life to other people’s for example, is probably a habit of ours as we think we can assess ourselves or how well we are doing. It is how we are used to gauging how good or bad we are, or how good or bad our life is...

Hi Adam,

Love your books and online meditations. They have helped me accept the anxiety or "feeling" as I now call it as its easier to accept that way.

One question I have and I think I already know the answer is. I am in a job I dislike, the job itself is fine but it's a desk job and feels wrong to be sitting at a desk for 7 hours a day. I have tried to accept it but find it difficult. Is the next step to accept the resistance to the job?

What hurts is the resistance. If you had a thought of something bad, what makes it seem offensive or disturbing is the fact that another energy inside contracts and tries to push back against it. If you are experiencing thoughts you don’t like, what makes it feel bad is the resistance to them, calling the thoughts bad, believing that they should not be there...

When you feel as if you are trying to pick and choose between what kinds of experience you want and don’t want, like and dislike, then you will probably find yourself in conflict with experience...

In society there seems to be an inherent assumption that everyone must justify their own existence and their own actions.  If someone challenges you to justify your action or non-action, to remain silent is misinterpreted as rudeness or anger...

One of the biggest hidden agonies of the human experience is the need or the desire for the present experience to be different. We often have a background feeling of “my current experience is somehow not enough, it needs to be different in some way”, and this manifests as many different desires and intentions to make us feel better, to take away the background sense of unease or discontentment...

"Happiness cannot be found through great effort and willpower, but is already present, in open relaxation and letting go..."

We are often told, in one way or another, that things as they are, are not good enough. We usually grow up learning from people who...

This saying may be helpful in promoting patience...but on the other hand, you can get so accustomed to waiting for ‘the good’, that even if it is right in front of you, you miss it.

Rather than trying to avoid letting people down in terms of how they want you to live or be, how does it feel to allow yourself to be a complete let-down, without resisting it?

Authentic happiness is different to what most people think happiness is. Realise where authentic happiness lies - within you...

If you wish to be at peace, never look to attain praise. Often we can look to get praise from others, because the personal entity inside feels it is inadequate, that it lacks something...

A heavily consumer-based culture requires an element of dissatisfaction in the people. It also requires fear. When people are not happy, they tend to look for something to fix it...

Some may have noticed, and some may disagree, that often within our social or familial circles, there is a common underlying theme or assumption...

Thoughts arise. The movement of thought creates the idea that there is a “me” who is thinking all of the thoughts - someone who is responsible for thinking every thought that comes or goes...

One of the most common and wasteful traits of humans is seeking approval from others. You do not exist so that you may meet the approval of others...