You Can Choose To Be Happy: "Rise Above" Anxiety, Anger, and Depression: With Research Results - Softcover

Stevens PhD, Tom G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0965337723 ISBN 13: 9780965337724

Publisher: Wheeler-Sutton Publishing Company, 2010

Synopsis

You've probably seen many claims about how a book can improve your life. Thousands of people have provided supportive evidence for this book. It gives both clear how to information and evidence for its ideas. Even if you have a history of unhappiness or depression or are facing difficult circumstances, you can learn to be happier. For those who doubt they can affect their emotions, the book provides strong contrary evidence. The factors Dr. Stevens' research identified are specific learnable beliefs and skills--not general, heritable traits. Each chapter teaches some of these factors about how to be happy and successful. The book is for people who value growth and self-development to become happier and healthier. Perhaps you want to improve self-esteem, positive thinking, assertiveness, autonomy, motivation, emotional control, relationships, self-control, or achievement. Chapters deal with these issues, but also deal with core issues underlying these problems. This book is for people who are serious about being happy. No matter how difficult your past history or current circumstances, striking insights into the causes of emotions can empower you to rise above negative emotions, and you can choose to be happy. Dr. Stevens combines expertise of 31 years as a psychologist with a philosophical-spiritual approach and his personal experience to make this an important book about achieving happiness. His research provides crucial, detailed support for these ideas not found in most self-help books. Yet, his clinical and personal experience helps him provide practical, detailed self-help advice. For more help, take his extensive, free online, Success and Happiness Attributes Questionnaire (SHAQ), based upon the book. The well-known author and PBS speaker, Dr. Wayne Dyer wrote that this book is, "A thorough presentation, rich in detail, yet very reader friendly. I enthusiastically endorse Tom Stevens' book and recommend it as a powerful tool for human development."

About this title

From the Publisher:

How much can you control your happiness? Could you overcome almost any circumstances and still be happy? Could you be happy even if you were flat on your back in a full-body cast for over a year (unable to watch TV or read)? Read how Genevieve did. She discovered how to create active, positive mental states. Later, she said, "That was the happiest year of my life--I learned to love myself and get control of my life. Before that year, she feared doing what she really wanted. Afterward, she had much higher self-esteem and assertiveness, changed careers, and eventually obtained her doctorate in counseling. You will read many other true stories of exactly how people overcame all kinds of difficult situations to find happiness. They key is how they got mental control of the situation.

Each day, we are harassed by negative inputs that get their sting from our underlying fears. We hate reading about gang killings because we fear for our own safety. We hate reading about a recession out of fear for our own financial security. Underneath small daily anxieties lay major, unresolved sources of anxiety--such as fears of poverty, loneliness, failure, sickness, or death.

One attempt to feel better is refusing to read the newspaper and block out all thoughts about the possibilities of poverty or death. However, that solution is only temporary. Dr. Stevens shows that the secret to overcoming fears is to dig down into our basic beliefs about ourselves, our world, and the meaning of life. These basic beliefs generate our positive or negative thoughts.

Readers learn to see life from new points-of-view that are hardier than their old ones. More constructive beliefs will triumph if they are believable and if they produce the most fruit (of happiness).

Chapter 3 teaches about your natural Higher Self the part that wants to be happy and naturally loves you unconditionally. Your Higher Self can be your inner "hero" in time of need, and it can help you become a more integrated, peaceful person. You can resolve motivational conflicts such as "work" versus "play" or "pleasing others" versus "pleasing self." You can learn how to accept your past mistakes and parts of yourself that you disown. You can improve your self-esteem and self-confidence by following the clear step-by-step instructions in chapters 3 and 5.

The big secret of how You Can Choose To Be Happy helps you become happier (in even difficult circumstances ) comes from striking new insights about the causes of emotions. The "Harmonious Functioning Model" of emotions will teach you how to adjust your emotions almost like adjusting a thermostat to turn up the emotional heat or to turn it down. Learn how to "rise above" anxiety, anger, and depression. See Chapters 7 and 8.

What distinguishes You Can Choose To Be Happy from other self-help books on the market? As one reader said, "Overall, it's the best book I have seen about how to be happy." It integrates many ideas from religion, philosophy, and clinical and research psychology into simple models that readers can understand and use--such as the harmonious functioning model. It presents many real stories of how my clients and I have applied these ideas to create happier lives.

While almost anyone can understand and receive help from this book, it as an "advanced self-help book." First, like Wayne Dyer's Your Erroneous Zones or Maxwell Maltz's Psychocybernetics, it is general in scope it doesn't deal with one narrow type of problem as most books on the market do today. It deals with core ideas that transcend many problem areas. However, as Wayne Dyer's book went into greater depth and reflected the more advanced psychological thinking of its day, this book builds upon more recent advancements in psychology.

Another way it is advanced is that it goes beyond many self-help and recovery books toward helping the reader reach for higher levels of thinking and living. It is not just about overcoming problems. Many people began their quest for happiness focusing on their pain and problems, but are moving beyond problem-orientation to growth-orientation. You Can Choose To Be Happy helps make that transition. Readers can gain increased mental control over their emotions, self-esteem, and life from the comprehensive self-change program built into the structure of the book. This self-development program unfolds chapter-by-chapter.

(Go to the the BOOK EXCERPTS section to see an outline of the Choose To Be Happy Self- Development plan.)

The many personal and client examples presented in the book can help the reader learn how to make these ideas work in their lives. Readers say that knowing these ideas were written by someone who has found them successful in his own life and in the lives of his clients gives them more hope. One reader wrote, "It gave me practical advice on how to implement the ideas. The step-by-step instructions were a rare and invaluable component."

From the Author:

What if you could be a little happier the rest of your life as a result of reading one book? Would you read it? I can't guarentee that result, but I expect that reading You Can Choose To Be Happy and living by its ideas can make a significant and lasting difference in your happiness. Even if you have a long history of unhappiness or depression or if you are facing difficult circumstances, it is possible for you to become a happy person. Many of my growth-oriented clients have been people who were previously abused by parents or peers, were former substance abusers, or were people who have had to take care of themselves--with little emotional support--for many years. They have learned how to achieve even greater levels of productivity and happiness. Many other clients have had relationship problems or have suffered from relationships that have ended. They learned how to be happier alone, become more assertive, and become more attractive to people who want an independent, happy person. Some clients are basically happy people who learn how to become happier. The secrets to all of these clients' improvements and to my own happy life are contained in this book.

You also learn how to become more self-actualized. Dr. Abraham Maslow's concept of self-actualization is still the best description of the healthy personality. Self-actualizing people are both extremely happy and productive. No matter what your background and personal history is, you can learn the basic beliefs and life skills it takes to be happy and more self-actualized.

You can learn to adjust your emotions like adjusting a thermostat. Learn the six CHUG-OF Harmonious Thinking strategies to get mental control over your emotions. When you are emotionally "too hot"--in overarousal states like anger and anxiety, you can turn down the thermostat to gain peace and calmness. When you are emotionally "too cold"--in underarousal states like boredom and depression, you can turn up the heat to get more energy and enthusiasm. Learn to spend more of your life "in the zone" of harmonious functioning.

Improve relationships--overcome dependency, nonassertiveness, and external dontrol. Another important ingredient of happiness is our personal relationships--especially intimate ones. Are you dominating or being dominated? How often do you do something for another person out of "duty," "obligation," because you "should," or out of guilt? How much freedom do you feel? How much closeness and intimacy? Have you achieved "independent intimacy?"

My wife Sherry and I rarely do anything for each other out of obligation. We almost always do whatever we do because we genuinely want to. You can eliminate most of the obligation from your relationships, but you may need a new way of thinking. You may also need to learn better communication methods. Try the methods in this book that have worked for us and our clients. The result is a mutual feeling of freedom, love, and intimacy.

This Is a Comprehensive, Advanced Self-help Book. It can be read, understood, and used successfully by almost anyone. I designed it for the type of people that I see most often in my classes, workshops, and psychotherapy. My primary goal is that by reading this book you will be a happier person. If you are happier, you will radiate that happiness to others and make the world a happier place for others as well. I wish you a happy life!

About this edition

• Publisher: Wheeler-Sutton Publishing Company
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0965337723
• ISBN 13: 9780965337724
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 324