The last years I have been struggeling a lot to set up my homepage and working with wordpress. I really wanted to do it on my own, but I remember it was so hard sometimes and I didn´t know what I was doing. But after it felt like this for quite a while, I experience an amazing shift.

“It´s too easy”

Lately I caught myself a couple of times detecting a problem and solving it straight away. I am in that stage now, where it becomes truly easy. I don´t even know when that happend. But I can easily apply changes and everything is just workung the way I want it.

It seems like all the energy I put in there is now paying off. It seems like the energy that I invested is now eliciting ease. It is as if you had to push a cart up the hill and once you reach the peak it just gets rolling.

I just had an interesting idea: what if any energy you put somewhere is paying off? What if there is no waste of energy there? I like the idea of every single minute I invested, every article I read, every energy I put in the thought of improving the lives of others just amasses to this huge energy outbreak one day.

It often feels to me that I am very close to the peak. I can feel it is still harsh and going uphill. But then there will be a peak and a huge amount of energy will be released. I take this as an experiment and I will put much more energy in interesting stuff, stuff I want to learn and stuff I am passionate about. Putting energy in there is thrilling, too especially when I know, there will be the time where I just lean back and watch the avalanche.

It is happening again

The same situation is suddenly so different. It is happening to me again. I am getting more and more into a very sustaining, postive mode. Seems like I am back in the upward spiral. Everything is easier and I am highly motivated. The little disturbances don´t bother me.

For example, I have been visiting a friend to help me replace a broken bulb of a car headlight. For he was checking on a lot of stuff, we did this and that and he overlooked something that wasn´t in place. When I wanted to drive back home, the motor wasn´t running poperly and something else (a sensor) was broken.

My mood was still very good, and it was obvious that this won´t bother me. I was rather interpreting this positive, for it was clear, I am gong to visit my friends next week again to replace the sensor. This just made me smile, because they have a sauna and I love that.

Engage with thrilling things

In moments like this it is so obvious: you get into a postive mode and the uplifted feeling is just carrying you through whatever happens. I also found out, that once the mood is really great and I feed my mind with things I am really interested in in that moment, I tend to get completely thrilled. On my way there I was listening to an interview with a nutritional psychiatrist on the platform Impact theory . It is such a great interview and I just got more and more excited about those news and my motivation was over the top for doing some more research on nutrition and I was planning to change my diet and fantasizing about that.

I am aware, that in normal mood things like that are entertaining and interesting to listen. But when I am in that very postive state (A-mode) it is fun and thrilling and lifts my mood even more. I get so excited about stuff, I am feeding my mind constantly and learn very rapidly. And it is fun!

Get into good mood and then…

It is true: get in the good mood and then do other stuff. You´ll be in extraordinary positive mood and everything you look at will just give you more to appreciate. And this is nothing you can see from the outside. Of course you can see, this person is motivated and thriving. But that´s just the byproduct. The means to becoming motivated is finding positive feelings and being thrilled about something and you will find more and more thrils and satisfaction.

Happiness is a matter of focus

Happiness is all about focus. Last week a smart colleague of mine inervened when I talked about my happiness, stating: “You only think you are happy, because you don´t realize when you are not”. From her perspective my positive focus seems to be illogical.

I really had to laugh. I know that a very positive attitude is always meeting with criticism and I get what they mean, but still… I asked her: “you are accusing me of being happy, just because I don´t let all the hard facts in?” I get what she´s saying but I also don´t get it. The reproach directly adresses to the basic requirements of happiness: positive focus.

I think of the opposite view straight away. There were many times where I watched others and it seemed, they are happy but they don´t realize it. Imagine a person, getting up in the morning. It feels too early because the person has to go to work. Maybe it´s in the winter and it is still dark outside. The person might be thinking about problems of the world, might have issues with relatives and diseases. Maybe the person has a back ache. Now I see this person walking along with a colleague laughing at his jokes. I think instantly: Wow this is a happy moment. Somebody made you laugh. You are in this existence…capable of so many things. You got poeple who look after you. You got a job that pays you and you got a lot of free time you can do whatever you want. Isn´t that amazing? We are so free.

Now you can see what side you are on. Can you feel into that? If not: you are not alone. I´ve got the impression that societys prevailing mood is gloom. We get trained into negative focus and are used to it. But you can easily replace that thinking once you know that. Of course you can enhance your thinking also with my method, by changinge the ratio positiv to negative thoughts as mentioned in the how it works section.

A fun experiment I´m doing is “seeing it through the eyes of former generations”. It helps you focus on positve achievements and your advantage compared to other generations. It is a fun thing to do and makes me laugh so many times.

Last week I´d imagine to take my forefathers to the ATM at lunchbreak to buy a salad, avocado and strawberries at the market. I was standing at the ATM pretending to have a conversation in my mind: “Now look, I just shove that card thing in there and then I push some of these little nubs and then money comes out”. My greatgreatgreat grandmother seems to say: “But how? Is that machine making money?”. Me: “No. It is actually my money. There´s other people keeping money for me so I don´t have to carry it around”. Granny: “But how do they know how much money you have? And is this really YOUR money”. “Too hard to explain now. You might think it´s magic, but it´s not. They know the exact amount I´ve earned and they fill these machines with money …they are all around and I can take this money out wherever I want.” Granny just can´t believe it. “And yes. It´s my money. I earn a lot of money.” “But why do people give you so much money…you work 20 hours a week and you almost always leave on time. You are just a mother with no husband and three kids”. “Yeah granny. Great society these days. I studied many years and society values my work…you can be very lucky these days if you were able to study or learn something you like. Lets get some of these perfectly red and sweet strawberries and some salad.” I move on explaining my greatgreatgreatgrandmother what an avocado is and where it comes from and she is filled with wonder.

It is a fun experiment and helps to mentally get away from these tiny little things that don´t work. To focus on the positive will make you happy. Of course it works better in better mood, but never forget: Mood and thoughts are interacting all the time. Thinking more positively wil make you have a better mood after a while. Just try it!

An orgnism full of miracles

When you are able to keep your thoughts positive, you develop one thing: a positive expectation for everybody and everything. What an amazing breed we human beings are! I am really looking forward to seeing us, humankind, explode once a lot of peple get that. Because when you foster your positive thoughts you will get so motivated to do things. And you will feel so good, knowing, that you are on your path.

Humankind is like an Organism

Humankind is like an organism. Myriads of cells, that are momentaryly confused, irritated, because there´s strange beliefs, how a cell ought to be. There are big groups of cells, always wanting the others to assimilate. And that is not working out. Even worse: when cells are assimilating, misfunctioning and disease results.

When everybody is allowed to be who he or she really is, we will get a level of functioning that will outshine anything human kind achieved before. We are so capable, we are so good! But it can only work if you find your true you within yourself. Compare it with a human organism: what would happen if the skin cells tell the liver cells how to behave. They might say: You are doing it wrong! You have to be like we are! The liver cells will either have to fight against a bigger group of cells or change their behavior. The whole ormanism gets unsteady. This is what is happening. Humankind now is the result of unsteadiness.

Why is that intertwined with positive thoughts?

Positive thinking, as taught here on tutorial to life is positive thinking in general. Once you establish that, you stop worrying about others being different. About you being different from a group, but also others being different from you. You will enjoy and love this diversity. It results in an attitude that is utterly free of judging, because you know everybody is fine. Everybody is different for a very good reason: we have different functions in this organism. You also might never worry about yourself again, why others act differently. You got your own position, you own place. Your only duty is to make youself accepted and loved- by you.

I really believe that we are at the beginning of something. Once we get more stable on our own path there will be so many things we can do. It will be so much fun. I can even feel the feeling of joy coming up now. We can proceed there and be as frisky as kids on summer holiday. Adventures behind every corner, connections to other creative people and excitement and fun wherever we look. Train your positive thoughts and you will have it all- now!

Don´t read this – if you are not eager to get really happy

Please pay attention now, because this is really important. Please, don´t read this if you are not eager to get real and stable happiness. Don´t read this post! Don´t read other posts on Tutorial to life, just don´t do it. And when I say “eager” I mean, if you are not really desperate to get better in enjoying and loving life, if you don´t want to develop a better and more appreciative constitution, leave it. Just don´t read this. This also means, if it is just every now and then you think being happier would be nice- don´t read it. You need to want happiness as much as a good cook loves food. Thinking about it, planning it and enjoying and looking for information about it.

Get really happy

To be one of those who leads a happy life, talking about happiness and appreciating emotional improvement you need a special realationship to happiness. Happiness is like a person, a possible friend you either invite into your life or you don´t. Do that! Envision happiness as a person. What are you saying about that person? Do you invite him or her? What do you think about this person? C´mon- this person just comes around if she likes  and when I need her she´s not there, or you never know when she comes and goes. Do you get annoyed by her? Do you curse her? I don´t want to have her around anyway! She´s not what people think she is. I don´t need her.

Or do you try to make her comfortable, that she likes to hang around? People tend to believe that happiness doesn´t want to stick with them, or they believe it is just the nature of happiness to move on all the time. But the truth is: happiness is making friends!

If you read until now and you think this might be true, decide! It is a decision. You can´t either make happiness your friend or not. It is your choice. Decide to befriend happiness. Figure out which situations she seems to stick with you. Be kind! To yourself and your friend. Don´t be annoyed because your friend is not hanging out with you all the time. Be easy if you did something that might have made her leave. She´s your friend and she´ll come back soon.

If you think this is crap, happiness is not for you, happiness is an asshole and opportunistic – don´t go on reading. Forget this site!!

Don´t read this!

If you truly believe things are coming to you by coincidence.

If you you believe happiness just sticks with people with money or good looks.

If you are not willing to do something for getting better.

If you love hating happy people.

If you like complaining.

If you´d rather nurture your negative expectations to get bad outcomes just that you can prove you were right again.

If you are not really eager to get really happy, forget about tutorial to life, don´t check on diary of a pure positive mind and never, ever read a single line here again.

Thank you!

Enjoying instability – or why Donald is a Dagobert

It was quite a hard time I went through, because I was having a very persistent flu and because of all the issues I am having with my  break-up. I still had my positive expectations and a very deep trust into myself and into humanity, but daily hassles and feeling physically bad made me weak. The beliefs that I changed, remain changed. No doubt. I am a positive thinker in many occasions, but I was confronted with strange and negative feelings in the morning or at night and diffuse fear overcame me.

The feelings were so unseizable, that I wasn´t able to use my strategies. I couldn´t name what was going wrong, so I couldn´t shift it. Because I am a psychologist and working with depressed clients and anxiety patients I could feel the positive side of it pretty fast. It is such a blessing, that I was ruminating about my fears and problems, because I could feel again, how uncontrollable that can be. ( I was depressed when I was a teenager, so I always had been able to relate to a certain extent, but now I am actually feeling it with every fibre of my body). If you a really into such an anxiety and ruminating circle, there is the point of no return. If you are not completely absorbed yet you can maybe distract yourself or talk yourself out of it. But when you are really in the suck of it, it seems that you can´t do anything. Once you are in a fear or depression mode, it is like a strong current in a torrential river. Swimming against it will help nothing. You get really exhausted! That is what is happening to any depressed person! People expect you to go on swimming, but you´ve got no power anymore. So just let go! Let the stream bring you on. You will be a very different place then and the water will be quiet again. Don´t hold onto anything.

I suddenly felt a lot of clarity about that topic. It feels to me, that I can get further insights and I might find true tools, to deal with depression symptoms. That made my positivity take over again completely. I now feel like I can be very happy experiencing negative feelings, too. I am truly accepting and celebrating my weakness and my instability. I know I can let go. I will laugh when I am happy and I will just cry when I am sad. (Crying seeems to be a part of letting go very often). Although I was a lot under pressure sometimes, because I thought: “I got these strategies! I should be happy ALL the time! (It worked for almost five years in a row!!) I want a good mood ALL the time!”, I now embrace the doubt and the missing “completeness” of the positivity state. Donald Trump came to my mind: he must have strategies too, to be positive about himself all the time, but what a horrible imbecile do you get when you never truly question yourself? Self-doubt, weakness and instability is important to connect with others and to show us, that we are all equal. I love it! I want to be the same as everybody. I don´t want to be above all. I want to be within. It is great. Donald Trump might be thinking very positively, too. But his aim is status and money. Not the advancement of others and the happiness of society. He is just egoistic. I believe we can get really and truly happy, successful and motivated if we feel very connected to others and if we enhance others, too. We are made for empathy and the greatest joy is improving together and helping others to get happy. Just trying to enhance your own wealth and status like Trump is so inferior and cheap and I guess we should rather call him Dagobert than Donald. We can have so much more- we can be so much more as humanity- and I am really enjoying working on it.

Straight Flush – the latest findings in research tell us: be positive!

The latest findings in neuropsychological reasearch are like a straight flush in poker and I will explain why.

Although these words might be read calm and quiet and there are no fanfares or fireworks in the background, I am not calm at all. The last findings I read about made me feel like a poker pro, who just went all in on the final table and got the straight flush on the river. (For the non-poker-players: That´s the last card- the last possibility to turn the coin and win- a big risk, for your probability to win is quite low).

The last week I read stuff that literally made me jump of my seat and throwing my fists in the air. The thing is: everybody gets so confused about positive thinking and whether it is good to foster that. It makes me defensive sometimes, because it seems I have to explain what I am doing here and what I am doing it for. I will just explain my major aims in terms of two relatively new findings in neurological research: One is Heart Coherence and the other Empathy and Oxytocin. I will make it really easy and just give you the essence of all that.

Heart Coherence: Whenever we are feeling joy, love or appreciation our heart rate changes in to a very specific pattern. Whereas heart-rate can be very orderless when feeling fear or anger, it is getting very wave-like smooth and ordered when we experience positive feelings. Research showed, that this is very benefical of the whole organism. Not even do you learn better and show better performance whatever (!) you do. (Doesn´t matter whether it is mental or physical activity) it also improves all (!) of our functions in our body including recovering from disease or impairment; A. McCraty and R.A. Rees, 2009). However, it should be a main aim for humanity to get better to produce these feelings. My strategies are one path to that. Children should learn to improve their feelings in school, we should terach people to do what makes them feel good. We could be so much better.

Empathy and Oxytocin: When we feel compassion, a hormone called oxytocin is realeased. It doesn´t matter whether you stroke a cat, or are with a friend or getting close to a person you don´t know very well, whenever you are empathic or getting involved in some sort of bonding you are releasing oxytocin. And Oxytocin is said to induce a state of mild sedation and relaxation, reduce anxiety, decreases stress and fosters positive emotions. In my theory I am stressing the point, that it is not enough to think positive about yourself, it is also important to think positive about others. Train yourself in that. It will make you healthy and happy for the rest of your life (Check my chapter about beliefs about others to get better in that).

I really do believe that these findings are the most important findings of our times. Finding means to think positive about yourself and others is as important as learning to read. You can get used to thinking positive as to brushing your teeth. And last but not least, positive thinking will be substantial to your ever growing happiness and success as moving is substantial for getting from A to B.

Looking forward to the future

I am really looking forward to the future. Sometimes I can hardly beleive how happy I am. It feels like there are so many doors opening for me at the moment. It feels like the space within me is getting bigger and bigger and all what I´m getting is fun and adventure and joy.

I am never judging. I think it is an effect of being entirely positive. I´m not accepting negative thoughts, about nobody. Whenever somebody else is doing or living something I don´t understand or dislike I´m rather curious, sometimes thrilled (“whoa- that exists???”) or maybe sad (“What has happened to this poor guy to do that creepy stuff”) but I am never judging. It is as if everything needs to exist. Everything has its eligibility. It is so much fun to me to get to know people. I can feel that this very openness is a gift nobody can take from me. I´ll be enjoying my time for the rest of my life! And it feels like I am getting better and better at it. I got the feeling of joy pouring through me so many times per day.

Sometimes because of the awareness I am living, sometimes because of the people around me- their ideas, their dreams. Many times because of  nature.

I remember once being on the bus to berlin and on the left hand side there were the trees, the sky was bright blue with white clouds. But on the right side was a very grey cloud…the light was like in a science fiction armaggeddon scenario, there was a little hail making quite a noise…but just on the right side- on the left it was nice and light. You just needed to turn your head, so you could easily switch from: bright happy world to horror scenario. So beautiful! And then your heart skips again, because you realize: “You are realizing and definitely enjoying that kind of stuff”.

Last week I really had to shout out a loud “Oh my good I can´t believe how beautiful nature is” (in german of course). It thrills me so much. I don´t know how that sounds for somebody who can´t find joy in nature, but believe me, it is such a great feeling. Why are people distracted so often, just because of their thoughts? Can´t they see??? People get so captivated by strange thoughts that they are literally missing out the “good stuff”. I wouldn´t say it is a disease, but it´s definitely a disability or a kind of handicap.

Just start looking around for things to appreciate. There are so many!

Feeling good makes you better!

There are many rumors (and studies) about negative outcomes of positive affect. Even when I studied psychology in Würzburg, they were telling us, positive affect leads to a heuristic and less systematic thinking. As if negative affect makes you a more analytical thinker. Now I read, that the complete opposite is true (well lucky me… the former ideas would have made my theory a bit less enticing). So the truth is: positive feelings make us better thinkers. Studies showed, that positive affect enhances flexibility and problem solving abilities. We are better in opening up for many opportunities and getting a broader view. That involves the ability to switch perspectives of focus, see connections among relatable concepts or hold multiple considerations in mind at once, as needed to solve a problem or to take multiple goals (Isen, 2011).

What we perceived as “less systematic thinking” in former days suddenly turned out to be very smart: Isen (and colleagues) found out that people with positive affect tend to skip tasks or showed decreased performance , only when the task was “dull or unpleasant and unimportant”. The former studies just show, that positive affect makes you divide very good between important and unimportant.

Where did that misconception come from. I also find myself somehow believing, that a person in a very good mood tends to be less concentrated or might not be very analytical. I think that might be due to the many goals we hold at the same time. It might be that other goals are getting more important. Isen also postulates an improvement in social interaction. The positive affect and broadening of focus leads to an improvement in seeing another´s perpective. The self-focus is reduced and leads to more generousity and helpfulness. Our aim to make others comfortabel might interfere with outbidding others in cognitive performance.

To me this is really good news. I´d also say, I can concentrate better, have more fun and learn more with postive feelings. I can only recommend that now!

Isen, A.M. (2011), A Role for Neuropsychology in Understanding the Facilitating Influence of Positive Affect
on Social Behavior and Cognitive Processes, The Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology, 503-526

Why we gonna make it – making it short

I´m telling you now, why we gonna make it.

Life is not what we thought it was. It is not a collection of items, a building made out of little discret parts, a materialistic puzzle. Matter is not the source of all this, it´s entangled with all but not the beginning point. The cause is (at least partly) our expectation. When physicists nowadays talk about quantum mechanics, or the holographic universe, most of us are not even at the brink of understanding what this means for our experiences in this world. Our beliefs and expectations have much more impact than humanity knows. With changed beliefs we don´t only get the best path to march through the environment, we actually change the map!

In a holographic system, one part that acquires a new information, replicates that very change in all entangled parts of the system. Means if you solve an awareness problem in central Europe it will be changed instantly in all connected situations all over this planet. That is actually what is already happening! It is no coincidence! Did you ever wonder why concepts like self-fulfilling prophecy or rosenthal effect where discovered at the same time on different places on this planet from people who seemed quite unrelated. If we take a closer look, we discover that things like that are happening many, many times all over this place. And again: the more we look at these miraculous things the more events like that pop up. Because we raise our expectations. For instance, the placebo effect: an effect that can be measured and is very reliable. When people think something has a good impact on them in terms of a medicament it works, even if it´s not a medicament at all but only a sugar pill. The amazing thing is: this effect is increasing over the years! Though people might even guess, that the study they are in might be a placebo study- their expectation that they are improving (no matter what group they are in) increases the effect! How amazing!

When we train now (what I am already doing) to raise our expections, we will change things we don´t have the fantasy to dream of yet. For instance, when I improved a belief about myself (with the strategies I introduced here), I give it a try to expand that belief on others, too. For instance, if you believe now, you are a good learner, tell youself “human beings tend to be better learners every day!”). And when you appreciate something, try to expand that, too. For instance when I am stroking our beautiful and incredibly intelligent cat I try to appreciate animals in general.  You can use your cat as a symbol for animals and appreciate them. (I do that with water,too. Washing my face, appreciating the water that comes clean and cool out of the tap, I sometimes appreciate the water in my cells and in rivers and in streams). Just give it a try. Appreciation and compassion is a source for positive feelings and will, when they are right about the holographic nature of our world, shift this world into an amazing place full of fun and joy.