Читать книгу Secrets About Life Every Woman Should Know: Ten principles for spiritual and emotional fulfillment - Barbara Angelis De - Страница 9

This is an amazing and radical revelation about one of the secrets of life:

Life happens from the inside out. If you are happy, it is because of what is going on inside of you. If you are sad, it is because of what is going on inside of you. Your world is all happening inside of you.

The world itself is a neutral place. Nothing that happens to you is inherently positive or negative. It is your interpretation of it that makes it a positive or negative experience. It is what you do with it inside yourself that makes it positive or negative. In fact, nothing really happens to your true self on the outside. All of your reactions to life take place on the inside. That’s why, whether you have understood it this way or not, you are already living life from the inside out.

Here are some examples of this principle:

Let’s say you are in a relationship with a man. He comes to you one day and announces, “I don’t want to be with you anymore. I am leaving.” Is his leaving you a positive or negative event? The answer is: It is neither. His leaving is neutral. It is just an action. He is walking out. What is positive or negative is how you react inside to his leaving. If you are madly in love with him and think you are meant to be together, you will react with sorrow and conclude that his leaving is negative. If you were tired of him anyway, and trying to figure out a way to break it off yourself, you will react with relief, and conclude that his leaving is positive. Do you see how the same event can be experienced as producing happiness or sadness when in fact, the event isn’t doing anything—it’s your inner state that is producing those emotions, those reactions?

Here’s another example: You are in a car accident and are seriously injured. You end up having to take a month off from work to stay at home and recover, and your mother, with whom you don’t get along very well, comes to stay and take care of you. “This one is definitely not neutral!” you may be thinking. But look more closely. If you focus on how awful it is that you had the accident, that you are missing work, and that you have to put up with your mother, you will be unhappy and conclude that the accident was a negative event. But what if you take that time to contemplate your life and how fast you’ve been moving, and see that this month was a “forced vacation,” so to speak, in which some higher power is insisting you slow down? And what if you realize that your mother is again able to feel useful in caring for you, in a way she hasn’t for years, and that you are able to receive her love in this form, which is a great gift to her? And what if you allow yourself to feel vulnerable and out of control for the first time in a long while, and notice the harshness of your hard-driving personality softening in a way that is undeniably healthy? Then, in spite of your injury, you might feel a deep sense of well-being, and conclude that the accident was a very positive and, indeed, even necessary event.

Happiness is a decision you make to experience a situation in a particular way. It is not something that is bestowed upon you from the outside. It comes from the inside out. In the same way, unhappiness isn’t something that is inflicted upon you from the outside—it, too, is a choice you make.

You are the person with the most power to affect your life. You are the one who decides to be happy or unhappy about what you are experiencing.

Isn’t this a mind-bending discovery? Isn’t this great news? The happiness you have been looking for is available at any time! It is right here, right now. You have been waiting for something on the outside to trigger your happiness, so you could give yourself permission to experience it, but the ability to be happy has been inside you all along. In fact, happiness can only be attained from within.

Nothing can make you happy without your permission.

Nothing can make you unhappy without your permission.

This is the meaning of Secret Number One: Everything You Need to Be Happy Is Inside of You—that you already possess the power to decide to be happy or unhappy. In this way, you create your own heaven or your own hell, your own contentment or your own misery, from moment to moment.

Understanding this principle is the first step in becoming emotionally and spiritually free, because you begin to see that what you feel and experience at any time is ultimately up to you. This kind of freedom isn’t something anyone else can give you—it’s the freedom only you can bestow on yourself by living each day from the inside out. Then you start to have true control over your life and your destiny, not by trying to make everything perfect on the outside, but by learning how to tap into your own source of happiness and peace on the inside.