Author signed copies of The Guru Next Door, A Teacher’s Legacy available at $3.99 plus shipping at Amazon. The teachings of the creator of the Option Method told in a heartwarming story of a young girl’s journey to happiness.

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If you are at the point where your answer is No, I no longer believe that, know this:  There is nothing more to do.  You have done your job.  You have examined your unhappiness and gotten down to the beliefs behind it.  There is no need to replace the belief with another belief.  There is no need to engineer a new state of mind.   You have done your job in removing obstacles to happiness; it is not your job to create happiness.  Happiness is a grace that comes to you when you are open.   Allow yourself to be at peace and enjoy the miracle. 

As Bruce said, “To enter into a new life, which is in our sense spiritual and miraculous, it is possible to do so by choice.  One can choose a way of life and state of mind which makes it possible to receive the gifts and graces which are fruits of being in union with happiness.”

Be happy and do what you want.  You are already changed.

My wish for the next decade is this. To age gracefully and healthfully. To keep moving in the direction I want to go – stronger, happier, freer. To keep learning and creating and growing and loving. And being delighted and surprised.

And I wish the same for all of you.

When you were a child, were you afraid of creatures that might be hiding under your bed?  Or in the closet?  Did your parents always have to leave the night light on because you were afraid of the dark?  What other bogeymen (and women) populated your life?  Characters from scary movies?    Slimy squirmy beings under the sea?  Creepy, crawlies that might scoot up your pants or down your back in the woods? 

But then you grew up.  You left childish things behind.   Your toys, tricycle, two-wheeler with the training wheels, your Radio Flyer wagon, blocks and books – you name it –  have all evaporated into the past for the most part.  Along with the little kid you used to be.    Along with so many childhood illusions that have since been brought into focus.

And those childhood fears,  those bogeypeople that populated the dark side of your childish mind -  those are all gone too, right?

Maybe not.  A lot of us have blossomed quite nicely into adulthood with many of our childish fears intact.  We still shiver a little bit when our bare feet hit the floor in the middle of the night.  We still get freaked out about the unseen creatures in our world that might suddenly grab us.  Or those skittering  insects that might infest our lives.  We have our own crew of Jersey or New York or Pennsylvania devils that roam the dark corridors of our minds.

Let me just say that I appreciate the fun in scariness.  Although I’m not a fan of scary movies, I can’t seem to go through a Sunday night without watching True Blood.  I get it that it’s fun to be caught off guard when someone pops out from behind a tree in the woods (you know who you are) or sneaks up behind you so you jump out of your skin.

But it’s not fun is to be scared when you don’t want to be.  When fear puts a serious dent in your mood, or prevents you from doing things you’d love to do if you weren’t afraid.  There’s a big difference between being momentarily startled or thrillingly titillated by things that go bump in the night – and having a lifelong fear of the dark.  One is adrenalin; the other dampens our happiness and sense of well-being.

So let’s put those devils to work.  What can we learn from them?

 Take a lesson from The Jersey Devil

Spooky legends like The Jersey Devil can be helpful in understanding a little more about the nature of fear.  It’s a lot scarier to think about some amorphous creature (aka, your greatest fear) wandering the backwoods searching for prey, than it is to actually be face to face with it.  With all due respect to the JD, when we imagine it stalking us, it may bring terror to our hearts, but when we turn around and see it standing before us, terror may evaporate – self-preservation kicks in.  

 In horror movies, people always seem to resort to screaming first and then running through the woods looking backwards, where they are bound to trip on a tree root and fall to the ground, then get immediately clawed to death or eaten alive.  Come on!   it’s just a bird/dog/dragon combo  with a lot of bad press.  Stare the sucker down.  Pick up a limb and club it to death.  Shriek like a girl and unleash your pepper spray with both barrels! 

That’s silly, I know.  But the point is that there is a huge difference between imagining scary situations and actually being in the situation.   Fear of bad things happening is based upon believing that we will be a certain way if that thing were to materialize – both in how we act and feel.  The truth is we don’t really know how we would act. We don’t really know how we would feel.  It depends on the situation.  That’s not a problem in and of itself.  The problem arises when we believe we will have to experience some form of unhappiness, whether it be fear, terror, sadness, victimization, helplessness and that we’ll act in such a way that would be bad for our health and happiness. 

What if you thought of all your fears as if they were legends?    Instead of imagining them as some amorphous creations with the power to defeat you and make you unhappy, look at them for what they really are.  Separate the fact from the fiction. 

Be scared on your own terms

Fear is a wide-ranging emotion that varies in intensity and manifestation.    We may be afraid of things we see, think or feel; things that actually happen or we imagine will happen; things about ourselves or others.  Fear can freeze us in our tracks or in our lives, or pass over us like a shadow.  It can be as debilitating as a fear of open spaces resulting in the inability to leave the house or as glancing as a slightly squeamish feeling when we spy a mouse scurrying along the baseboard. 

But regardless of what our fears are, we don’t have to be stuck with them.   We can understand the inner workings of our own fears by looking at the beliefs behind them, especially the belief that fear happens to us – that things by their very nature make us afraid.   Think about the implications of that.  If it were true, everyone would react to similar situations in the same way.  The whole world would be standing on chairs when a mouse passes by.  No one would climb mountains because we would all be afraid of heights.  No one would ever go into the woods, or turn the lights out at night, or fly on a plane.  There would be no actors because everyone would have stage fright.  There would be no surgeons because everyone would faint at the sight of blood. 

Obviously, that isn’t the case. Nothing can make us fearful.  Fear is personal.  If we are afraid, we each have our very own reasons.  Even people who are afraid of the same thing may have different reasons for being afraid.  For example, I may be afraid of heights because I believe I might jump.  You may be afraid of heights because you’re afraid you’ll fall.  I may be afraid of mice because I am afraid of getting bitten; you may be afraid of mice because you are afraid of getting a disease. 

To stop being afraid, we can see all our bogeymen,  past and present, as the illusion they really are – propped up by own beliefs.   Like the scary façade of a haunted house and the creatures within, we can look behind them and see them for what they really are – representations of what we believe can make us feel bad.     

So if you’re passing through the Pine Barrens, have a good scare.   But remember, without your imagination –without your beliefs –  there would be no Jersey Devil.  No devils at all. 

Can you find the two letter “Bs” in the picture?  Try visualizing the B in your mind first, then look.  Make a difference?  It did for me.   When I focused on the Rs, the Bs were hard to find.  But as soon as I fixed a B in my mind first, they popped out at me.    My eye went right to it.

Visual brainteasers are fun and challenging because they show us a different way of looking at things.  They demonstrate how a shift in consciousness can actually change our vision.  Things that were invisible to us become visible.  We have the same eyes and the same brain, but something happened.  We made something happen.  We figured out how to see differently.

But what about when you find yourself stuck in negative ways of thinking?  Is there something you’ve been angry about for the last twenty years?  Is there a fear that you can’t seem to overcome?  Have you been beating yourself up over a mistake you made several months ago?   Are you anxious right now and can’t seem to shake it?  Are you stuck in a bad mood this week?  This morning?  For the last ten minutes?

Are you considering the possibility that you could be free?  Within each of these emotional conundrums, does the way out seem hidden from view? 

If your emotional problem was like our little puzzle of Rs and Bs, are you so focused looking at the Rs, that you don’t see the Bs?  

R is for Reality

Imagine if our puzzle represented your view of the world when you are unhappy.  Let’s say you are unhappy because you lost your job.   Let’s say the Rs in the puzzle represent reality as you see it.  What is your Reality?  Perhaps you are saying:  Jobs are hard to find.  I don’t have the credentials I need.  I don’t have the experience I need.  I am running out of money.  I look bad to friends and family.  I am not going to find a job.  I may have to give up my home.   This is your view of your world according to you.  

Some of these things may be true.  So how can you feel better?  Does reality have to change in order for you to feel better?  Do you have to feel bad until you find a job?  Or have some good prospects?  Isn’t it enough of a problem that you lost your job,  do you have to be unhappy about it as well? 

Looking for a way out?  What is hidden in plain sight that you are not seeing?

B if for Beliefs

Think about the one aspect of your reality that is actually within your control right now this minute.  You may not be able to change the situation.  But you can certainly change the way you feel about it.  How?  By examining the beliefs behind your unhappiness.   By looking at the reality you see before you and finding out what you believe about its power to make you feel bad.

Often when we are unhappy, we only see the reality of the situation – which we think of as the truth. We don’t see our own beliefs about how that reality can affect us. It is one and the same to us, so that the belief that we have to feel bad also seems like the truth.

If we are willing to see the Bs in our view of the world and consider that they may not be the truth – that they don’t have to be part of our reality, we can begin to find the way out of emotional conundrums.

Consider the Possibilities

So consider the possibility that you don’t have to be unhappy.  Consider the possibility that feeling bad doesn’t have to be part of reality.  It may be true that you lost your job, or are dealing with other challenging problems.  Consider the possibility that those things cannot make you feel bad.

If you focus on the things that you can really change – your beliefs about your own unhappiness – you will be free to illuminate the possibilities of your life.

I have a friend who always knows how to find lost objects.  It’s uncanny.     Whenever I lose anything, I always ask her to find it.  And she always comes through.  I asked her once how she does it.  She said, I consider the possibilities of where it might be, and then I go get it.  

Picture of Hy Dolber and the Polka Dots.  Hy is the one top left.