Earlier in our manual, I wrote about how we are as deserving as anyone else of having happiness, and that we need to condition ourselves daily to really believe that fact.
In chapters soon to follow, I'll be talking about how we can develop quick and effective ways to do this conditioning. Before I do, however, I would like to tell you about a precept that you and I must grasp from the outset: Precept 4: This world is all mine.
Yes, it's all mine, and all yours, too. I have a reasonably healthy self esteem, but sometimes I still catch myself behaving as though I should apologise for breathing. I grew up a very shy person, and in my younger days, when I walked into a room of people, especially if they were quiet and I felt I was being observed entering, I would make my way to my seat in a kind of silent panic.
I won't kid you, I was in such a situation this very evening, and I had to enter a room full of 50 people who were listening to a speaker. I was late, and to make matters worse, needed to use the toilet right then and there if I was to sit through the lecture. The men's room was on the opposite side of the room, so I had to walk right through this concentrating crowd, and the reason I had to do it was obvious to all.
Many people would rather sit in physical distress than promenade though such a situation, but fortunately I've grown out of my former fear, and I managed to do what had to be done. I was not in a silent panic, but I was caught off guard because I didn't know I was late, so I wasn't as calm, clear and centred as I might otherwise be.
Does this situation ring a bell with you? Perhaps you even find yourself being uncomfortable in a supermarket, or even places where there are no people. Do you find that if you really tune into what you are feeling, that much of your life is wasted feeling uncomfortable, perhaps even like you don't have a right to exist? Do you find yourself tip-toeing around people or places as though you were a lesser being?
I've got news for you: you are not a lesser being, you are a higher being, a greater being. You know as well as I do that your very existence is a profoundly miraculous occurrence. Wouldn't it be nice not only to know it, but to feel it? Most of the time? Well, with practice, we can.
It's not enough to have in your head an understanding and a belief that you have a right to exist and to go anywhere on this planet feeling great. You have to get this belief to travel about twelve inches from your head, to your heart and your guts. Because that's where beliefs really become powerful, when we know them viscerally (viscera is a ten-dollar Latin word for the guts, or intestines).
Think like a mountain
Here's how to do it. Like all the skills I've learned and am passing on through this manual, the more we practise it, the more it will work. So I ask that you get this precept into your viscera (see, I do have some class: I didn't use the 'g' word in two adjoining paragraphs) and don't keep it stuck on your computer or just in your head.
As I said before, being happier is not as complicated as some people want you to believe. In this manual, I don't intend to complicate it, nor to write more than I think necessary. This precept, and the exercise that goes with it, is simple as can be. You have the right to live and walk on this planet with enormous self-confidence. You are fundamentally as valuable as anyone alive.
There might be national borders we can't cross, and there might be private property we must not enter. This is not a call for trespass, it is a call for pride!
What saved me from crippling embarrassment when I had to walk to the john in front of all those strangers tonight, was a couple of years of practising walking in a manner that feels good. Whenever I am in any place, it may even be at my own desk, I try as often as possible to tune into my body's feelings, and note them. If, as often happens, my inventory of my feelings tells me that I am cringing (no matter how slightly) instead of feeling my absolute human birthright to be free, powerful, joyous and fully alive, then I quickly alter my physical attitude. I bring to mind this important fourth precept: This world is all mine.
I may be in a butcher's shop, or at a car wash, or in a class or in my own bedroom -- it doesn't make any difference. I have made a commitment not to feel as though I am less than anyone else, or that I have to live a life of cringe. I accept my responsibility not to want to have power over anyone, nor to be arrogant at all. However, I know that if I am to feel really good, I must commit and constantly recommit to feeling as good as any man or woman on earth.
Why did I put 'think like a mountain' on this page? Because mountains are strong, big and mighty. Do we want to be scared little mice? Hell no! I will think like a mountain, not like a mouse. I will put my bodily attitude, and my mental attitude, into thinking -- and feeling -- like a mountain. At the mall, on the street, at my parents' house, at work, on the bus. I will practise this many times a day, until I master it.
Does this mean we have to act tough? No, not tough like gangster tough or politician tough. Tough, as in, "I won't have my spirit broken, by him, her, you, nor even by me. I'm tough but gentle. I'm like a beautiful mountain."
What (not how) would you feel if you were a grand mountain? Give your new skill a test run round the block: What do you feel in your legs as you walk? Go on, get up out of that chair and try it. Do you feel that increased energy flowing up and down your spine? What do you feel in your face muscles when you are a mountain?
What about your belly, and your groin? Ooh yeah, baby, do the groin thing! If you are a woman, make with the mountain-bazoobies already. Guys, has life robbed you of balls? Try mountain balls! Don't let the world grind you down
– become the mountain. Walk your mountain self around the room. Go on, nobody's watching except that nosy old lady with the binoculars in number 17. Take your mountain down the street. Not tomorrow, now guys! This is a program of action, and you don't want to get left behind for the next chapter.
If you are serious about the possibilities of
the FeelGood Manual in your life, I want you to do as I do with this one. I want you to practise, every day. Lots of times a day. Every time you have a lousy thought, it's because your feelings are out of whack. If not, they soon will be because the lousy thought will out-of-whack them. When that happens, take the mountain out of your toolkit.
There are other things we can draw on to completely and permanently dispel those feelings of weakness, of 'less than', of inferiority and insecurity. They work more quickly than years of talking to a therapist about our childhood (though there might be a place in your life for that as well). As I pointed out in the last chapter, if we mould our bodies and actions into the shapes of our choice, our feelings will follow, and then the magic really happens: our thinking changes to alignment with our original precept. Body ––> feelings ––> thoughts. That's how it works.
So, choose for yourself what you will think like, walk like and be like. Make them your totem, or totems. One of my totems is the Australian platypus: I chose it because it is funny, it's cute, weird and harmless. But it has a poison spur that it will use to defend itself or its family when attacked. I also love to be a mountain.
Here are some other things we can tune into, and they are all things that loudly proclaim to our brains and bodies that we are valuable, powerful and have every right to walk this earth
– because we own it as much as Bill Gates or the Queen of England do.
Try them sometime, and develop your own totems, you don't need only one:
king, president, prime minister;
Sequoia tree, oak tree;
lion, tiger, eagle;
movie star, rock star;
pyramid, Sphinx,
Colossus of Rhodes;
giant, wizard, sorceress;
sun, moon, tides, wind.
We need more gods and goddesses!
This simple precept is the basis of all shamanism and much of religion. It is what has given many people throughout history power over others. However, we aren't doing this to vampirize the spirits of others, because we no longer need to have such base thoughts. Why not? Why don't we need to manipulate or covet what other people have? Because we are daily becoming like mountains, and eagles, and the forces of Nature. What could anyone possibly have that we could crave? It is they who will be asking us how they may have some of our strength and good feelings.
You can be a deity, too. What good, strong and gentle god or goddess do you want to feel like? Who will you be in the supermarket today? Take your pick! The Internet has plenty of them. Try here http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&querytime=4KuE&q=gods+and+goddesses+world.
Just two points of caution: firstly, we are going in a goodly direction. We would be stupid to think like destructive volcanoes or evil beings. What the world needs is you, and it needs you thinking like Merlin, Minerva or Hercules, not Satan nor the Wicked Witch of the West.
Secondly, you and I are not gods. To think and walk in the attitude of a deity is not the same thing as thinking you are God, or any deity. If I hear that any Manual readers are going around deluded, putting wicked spells on people, hurling thunderbolts or thinking they're better than anyone else
– watch out! Don't forget my poison spur, and don't forget ... no one likes a shmendrick.
Before reading the next chapter, I would like you to practise thinking like a mountain and feeling like a god or goddess. I also want you, if you are serious about this, to continue doing so right through this program, and for as long as it takes to become an automatic part of your life. Like me, you'll probably want to do it for a lifetime, and maybe longer.
There are not enough gods and goddesses in this world. The Greeks, Romans, Indians and the rest didn't create enough. Plus, they guarded their deities with priesthoods and complex devotional rites. I don't want to feel tiny and weak, so I am in a Cult of One. Try it sometime! The guy that invented Hercules wasn't any better than you. This world is all yours, and you have within you the good character to tread upon it wisely. Go for it, and trust yourself! And please go forward to the next chapter, when we will explore why it is we feel bad, and how we can quickly change those feelings.
Abundance and gratitude,
Pip
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