The Happy Mind

Removing the inner obstacles to the very possibility of happiness

Choosing new core beliefs

(To read this series from the beginning, click here.)

My book, The Happy Mind, identifies those core beliefs in our culture that give rise to the kind of thinking that blocks our experience of our inner truth of happiness.

But you can’t just get rid of core beliefs without replacing them. As long as you think at all, you necessarily have some core beliefs. So The Happy Mind offers a simple set of alternative core beliefs—the seven principles—that give rise to allowing-kinds of thoughts, that can open your mind to an experience of inner self-awareness.

These beliefs aren’t the cause of your happiness—they don’t “make” you happy. The source of your happiness is your own inner truth. But these kinds of thoughts allow you to experience the happiness that is already and always your own natural state of being.

Nor do these beliefs pretend to be some kind of “ultimate truth.” These are simply possible belief choices. It’s important to realize that you always have some core beliefs. You have no choice about having core beliefs. But you do have a choice about which core beliefs.

You know what kinds of core beliefs you have by how you feel. If you are not perfectly happy all of the, then you have some core beliefs that are blocking your inner happiness, blocking your deeper self-awareness.

Necessary to change your core beliefs

If you do not change those core beliefs, then all the affirmations and visualizations in the world, all the accomplishments and possessions, and all of the fame and money and power won’t deliver lasting and consistent happiness. Because your mind will keep sabotaging your happiness behind your back, as long as you hold core beliefs that are inconsistent with the very possibility of happiness or peace or unconditional love. Changing your core beliefs does not guarantee that you will experience joy, but it does make it possible.

“The ﬁrst page of the book A Course in Miracles says, ‘The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance.’ Similarly, we could say that the way to happiness is the undoing of your blocks to your awareness of source, to your awareness of your own true nature. Being happy is a matter of choosing the thoughts and the beliefs and the focus of attention that most fully allow your mind to express the nature of source in and as your own life experience.” (The Happy Mind, chapter 3, p. 60)