HAPPINESS: CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK

By Aliker David Martin

November 16th, 2011

Fear makes the Wolf bigger

Are your fears making you unhappy? Do you worry so much and get depressed? Fear is in the mind. Our fears reflect our perspectives because we try to guard against our fears. A German proverb goes, “fear makes the wolf bigger than he is”. Some times in life, the fear of losing a loved one, or losing a job makes us depressed and unhappy even when we are far from being in danger. But these fears lead us to danger by clouding our sense of judgment. So how do we overcome our fears and avoid getting in to trouble?

While negative thoughts are like poison, positive thoughts are like medicine to the brain. Researchers at the National Institute of Health believe negative thoughts stimulate the areas of the brain involved in depression and anxiety. Our mind is made up of thoughts, beliefs and self-talk. According to scientists, we have about 60,000 thoughts a day. Approximately, 95 percent are thoughts you have had previously. What is startling is that 80 percent of these habitual thoughts are negative. Dr. Daniel Amen, a world-renowned psychiatrist calls them automatic negative thoughts. These means negative thoughts are responsible for our unhappiness.

The secret to your happiness is not trying to get rid of this negative thoughts but accepting that your thoughts are not always true. If we don’t believe everything we hear and we don’t believe everything we read; then we should not believe everything we think. Therefore, if fear is the wolf in us, then when we change our thinking to support our happiness, the wolf gets smaller.