In this outtake from Episode #2 – The Elusive Mental Health Goal of Contentment Chris talks about where we find Happiness and Contentment and how to be more Happy and Content!
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Episode #2 – The Elusive Mental Health Goal of Contentment
Transcript:
Hello and good day Through a Therapist Eyes tribe. This is Craig Graves, your co-host, coming at you today with the Monday short.
We’re going to go way back, way back to episode two on the elusive mental health goal of contentment.
This was obviously one of the first episodes that we did.
And it’s really I mean, being content and being happy is really kind of the foundation, if you will, of mental health, at least in my opinion, you know. What do we all want? We all want happiness.
We want to be happy. We want our kids to be happy and those around us to be happy.
But where does happiness come from? You know? Is it external? Internal. I’m gonna give you a little hint.
So today I shared a quote from Musashi Who was a great samurai warrior and poet and artist and Musashi said there is nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better, stronger, richer, quicker or smarter.
Everything is within. Everything exists. Seek nothing outside of yourself. So in this little short episode takes about seven or eight minutes. Chris talks about happiness and contentment. What it takes to be happiness, happy and content. And how to deal with things that may get in the way. Okay. So hope you enjoy this little segment and I’ll talk to you again on the other side. So really, really, if we’re talking about being being happy and boiling it down to being content and then that coming from within, you know, I’ll put you on the spot.
And I know you can’t really give individualized advice at this point on a podcast. But what are some you know, we talked about some high level things, I guess, that you can do to be to be happy.
Let’s let’s kind of summarize those or maybe give our listeners something they could at least go talk to their therapist or their professional about in order to overcome some issues they’re having if they’re not on. And contentment or happiness.
Yeah. I wanted to begin wrap it up right on on. You know, these are some of the things people we don’t want to do and the negative influences on us is being aware that and there really are some depth things that we can do, you know, for positive generators of happiness. I mean, you think about them.
This isn’t a complete list.
But you if you think about things like giving people talk about that man, you don’t feel bad when you give freely about something, you know, to something you feel really good about.
Right.
Helping me, that could be money or time one or Allcott. Yeah. Or donating gold clothes or whatever. Absolutely. Had to be money when Chris talks about giving absolute.
Thank you for that. Loving other people. Know somebody you know, wrote a book or in the past has talked about, you know, having someone to love and loving somebody.
You see some quotes on Facebook all the time that are amazing when it comes to these kind of concepts, you know, being prideful, feeling good inside of our really working towards something and accomplishing it.
Prayer, praying on alone with yourself. You know, none so far, even as people can see. So people can’t see it.
Overcoming failures, persistent, you know, fighting towards something, the level of persistence and then again, accomplishing it, working hard.
People talk about working hard. A father, a law man, he’s a hard worker in it.
I think that helps him to feel good exercise. I know you’re big on taking care of the physical.
Yes.
But the thing is, when these things and you’ve heard them, I mean, nothing there is groundbreaking in earth shattering, but. When you’re doing these things, there’s a difference here to an external versus internal if you’re giving things to look good and you’re going to work.
Yeah, that’s true. I agree with that.
If you’re trying to accomplish, you know, pride is, you know, feeling good inside about accomplishing something. I don’t know if that’s really the definition of pride. But but if you’re trying to look good and look tough and look strong and really show someone else and pride, fullness really can be be negative then, right?
Yes, sir.
It’s funny how. Right. If you think about this, maybe the the big takeaway is when you’re doing it to prove things or to show things or to look for things from the outside world. Have we making a good case yet that that doesn’t work, right? Absolutely.
When you’re doing it inside and you’re really doing it.
So coming from the heart is what counts. Coming from the heart. Feeling it in your in your gut. Knowing, you know, there’s a phrase being comfortable in your own skin.
Well, that doesn’t happen because what somebody else did or doesn’t happen because of what somebody sees in you.
Right. Comfortable in your own skin. Is I really feel good about myself. Right. Right. I like. I like me.
I like me. I like what I’m doing. I like my direction. You know, I can manage things. I’m hopeful. Being hopeful is a big deal. Yes. So these are all I mean, you know, there’s a lot of things that we can get involved in. But let’s make them internally. Strong. Yeah. So that other people can see what we’re having. That’s yeah. Kind of for. Yeah. Yeah. You know, one thing I might add, and again, I’m no expert, but one thing that’s kind of helped me in my life is and I haven’t been as disciplined about this recently as I have been in the past.
But, you know, when I get up in the morning, I write down three things in my journal that I’m grateful for.
Gratitude practice, I think helps, helps, helps with contentment and happiness. You know, being grateful for the things that you do have.
Gratitude is a huge concern.
Whether it’s a cup of coffee or your house or your children, I mean, just we take a lot for granted. Yeah, we do. Absolutely. Do you know? Absolutely we do. We get we get entitled and think we should have more. Yeah.
And another thing I might say to our listener is, you know, Chris named off five or ten things there. You know, start with one start with one of those things and start doing that, you know, and don’t be overwhelmed by the big list. But, you know, starting with a gratitude journal, you know, and do it for a week, commit to doing it for 21 days.
I think it takes 21 days to make something a habit.
And, you know, I’m glad you said to make something a habit in 21 days. You know, I do hear a lot of times people will say, well, I’ve done that and I’ve tried this, you know, done that and I’ve tried things. And they’ll bring up things that they’ve thought of doing that I didn’t even, you know, suggest or try.
It’s really about being able to improve your ability consistently and focusing on that, which is, you know, maybe listening to a show like this gives you some focus to just start small.
Yeah. And begin to grow and build.
Don’t think that you’re going to, like, listen to it and to do a half hour podcast and play. Oh, man, I got this man where I knock it out tomorrow, maybe Abby tomorrow. Right. And I’m going to reiterate what I said earlier.
As these things take time, you know, it takes discipline. One of my favorite people to listen to them on other podcasts is Jocko Willink.
And he’s you know, his motto is “Discipline equals freedom”. And so these things take time. It takes time to change your thinking in time to to be grateful and to define contentment within. It didn’t happen overnight that we became unhappy.
I’ll be honest with you, meditation is a good example of that with what you’re saying. I have a very hard time with it. Yeah, I’ll I’ll try to just settle down and think my thoughts and I mean, they’ll be drifting. Yeah. You know, my wife can say at this point if she was in the room because he has ADD, I don’t know.
I think doing you’re not the right topic for another show. It is. But it’s hard is my point. It is hard and hard.
Take discipline and one of the one of the people or so I guess a lot of the people that I’ve that I’ve listened to on meditation say the goal is not necessarily to stop thinking, but just to observe what you’re thinking, you know, observe your thoughts.
It’s a skill. Get to a point where you observe your thoughts and you can say, hey, that’s a negative thought.
And we change that to something else. So newsflash, folks, happiness comes from within. So if you’re looking for that new relationship or that new sports car or that new whatever it is to make you happy, then it ain’t going to happen. Happiness comes from within. Now, there’s a lot in that episode in that short little seven or eight minute bit there. I’m not going to try to summarize all of it, but I will say that it does take time to change negative thought patterns into positive.
And to find contentment within yourself. But it’s possible. You can do it. I mean, we talked about being service oriented and helping other people. You know, I’ve got a friend who tells me that whenever he feels down, he just goes out and find somebody to help. And then that just turns his whole his whole mindset around. We also did a show, number five, episode five on on Mindfulness. So if you’re interested in hearing more about meditation and or mindfulness than that would be a good episode to listen to.
And we’ve also done an episode where I shared a process on how to change negative thought patterns into positive thought patterns. There’s a whole episode on that on Martin Divines book, Unbeatable Mind. And we also pulled out that specific process and put it into one of our short episodes. So you can find that out there, too.
OK. Love to hear your feedback on this one, as well as all our all of our shows. You can go to our Web site http://www.throughatherapistseyes.com click on the Contact US link.
There is a way there to send messages to Chris anonymously, or you can send them directly to him and he will respond at contact@throughatherapistseyes.com.
OK, guys. That’s it for this week’s Short. Appreciate you guys listen in. And Chris and I will be talking to you very, very soon.
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