NOTE: The following is an adapted excerpt from best selling author Karen Salmansohn's newest book Prince Harming Syndrome -- which gives a modern twist to Aristotle's happiness philosophies by merging them with cognitive psychology, brain science, and energy theories from quantum physics - all delivered with feisty humor. (Hence why Jon Stewart of the Daily Show said: "Salmansohn has the soul of a stand up comic. The battle of the sexes has a brave new gladiator." ) Salmansohn is presently writing a separate 30 Days To Happier Love Workshop Blog at her site - www.notsalmon.com - to further jumpstart you to go skiddadling towards happier love. For the ultimate full throttle jumpstart, check out the full book Prince Harming Syndrome.
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I'm a big believer that mornings are your trajectory for your day. You must use your a.m. to aim you rightly.
FOR EXAMPLE: If a rocketship is off a few degrees before it launches itself towards the moon, it might wind up in Uranus. Ditto on your day. If you start off aimed in a thought direction towards what you don't want, you will find yourself feeling as if you're stuck in Uranus. Hence, you must make sure your day starts off aimed consciously at what you want -- so you increase your likelihood of being over the moon about your life!
Aristotle was famous for believing that the best way to start any project -- including the project called "Your Life" -- is to begin with your final purpose in mind -- or what Aristotle calls your "teleology."
"Shall we not, like archers who have a mark to aim at, be more likely to hit upon what is right?" Aristotle asked.
Right now I will take up Aristotle's advice -- and clearly state my teleology for you: I want to give you techniques to break bad relationship patterns for good, so you can snag a happily ever after love future.
Now it's your turn. How do you envision your teleology of a happily ever after love future? I want you to write an email to yourself -- filled in great detail with a description of what healthful, happy love looks like, sounds like, feels like, smells like, tastes like, quacks like.
I did this every morning for the last year -- and this truly helped me stay focused and energized to find the happily after love I've finally found.
Sure along the way I found lots of disappointing love -- but this email visualization practice helped me to keep my eye on the prize of what I wanted in love -- and thereby I found it.
Here's what I did - and still do.
Every morning when I wake up I go to the gym, and I look at my Love, Work, Happiness Goals -- which I have typed into an email -- which I've been sending (and re-sending) to myself every morning for the last year. Every morning I edit it a wee bit -- tweak it ever so slightly -- so these goals stay fresh for me. As I edit, I really get myself excited about the kind of life I want to create for myself. I then send it to myself -- so I can re-read it again later (and even re-re-read it throughout my day). Post-tweaking, I work out at my gym - while I'm still in this highly enthusiastic positive frame of mind about the kind of life I want to create for myself. I put on my favorite upbeat music -- to get myself into an even more excited state.
I've found that when I merge this "thought exercise" with "physical exercise I get even more positive results even more quickly. I got this technique from Tony Robbins -- and I gotta say, I've personally found that exercising while I'm thinking positive thoughts has truly helped me in speeding up getting what I want in the long-term. And in the short term, I simply feel more confident and at peace throughout my day!
This merging of "thought exercise" with "physical exercise" technique works for many reasons -- for neural scientific as well as metaphysical reasons. Suffice to say -- I recommend it strongly.
Basically, what you have in your life always begins with your thoughts. Your thoughts create your habits/actions -- which create your life. If you can master your thoughts, you will master your life. Thoughts with strong emotion will create the most change. The more you can increase your feeling for what you want -- the more you increase the reeling in of what you want!
Hence why when you're highly angry -- and thinking too much about all your past love disappointments -- you attract more "love disappointments" in your present.
Again - this is true for multiple reasons (psychological, neural scientific and metaphysical) - which I discuss further in Prince Harming Syndrome
Know this now: If you want to find happier love in your life, you must start with thinking positively about finding positive love in your life.
It's like this: If you want to change the picture on a TV screen because you don't like what you're seeing, you can't do it by wiping the screen with a cloth. You must change the programming to start seeing a new picture. Ditto with your life. If you don't like what you're seeing on your movie-for-one-called-Your-Life -- if you want to start watching different/happier love scenes -- you must change your inner programming.
Guess what? Even if you don't fully understand or believe in this theory -- you are doing this theory -- and hence you are getting what you are presently getting in your life. It's as if right now you're playing a game in which you don't know the rules -- and so you don't fully know why you're getting what you're getting. But -- this theory is the raison d'etre behind what you're getting. And the sooner you accept this raison d'etre, the sooner you can let go of your grapes of wrath!
Your Assignment:
For the next 30 days I want you to quiet your busy brain and meditate on your "living happily ever after love future" for five minutes -- three times a day - by sending and re-send - then reading - and re-reading this email throughout your day. Do not envision a specific person you know in your love future. Leave room to meet someone even better than who you now know. Also, get your full body into the feeling of calm and safety when you read (and re-read) this email. Envision being with someone who makes you feel emotionally safe and loved.
This "visualization assignment" is the first of many assignments I give in Prince Harming Syndrome -- as well as the easiest and most important. There's a famous Japanese principle -- called "Kaizen" -- that celebrates the joy of doing small tasks that over time add up to the joy of experiencing large life changes.
These small "Kaizen" visualization assignments will only take up a total of fifteen tiny minutes in your day. But if you do them, you will change your entire life for years to come. Actually, Kaizen assignments remind me of something funny Woody Allen once said.
A funny but wise Woody Allen quip: Woody says he believes there's life on other planets-- and they're far ahead of us technologically. Not because they're light-years ahead--but because they're fifteen minutes ahead. If we all just had those extra fifteen minutes we could accomplish so much more!
The good news: You do have those extra fifteen minutes -- and so there's absolutely zilcho excuses for you not doing these "living happily ever after" self-email visualizations for five minutes, three times a day -- and keep on doing them for the next 30 days!
Psychologists believe to really drill in a neural pathway shift it helps to do a new habit for 30 days in a row. I agree. And so it seems does Aristotle -- who said it well when he said:
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. (...) Thus, it is not enough to perform one act of generosity in order to be generous; it is necessary to act constantly according to the dictates of reason."
Ditto on performing visualizations of your happily ever after future. You must make this your new 30 days in a row habit.
Know this now: Even if you don't see results immediately, change will be starting to happen once you start this new 30 day visualization program.
Seeing is not always believing.
However, seeding is believing.
What you seed is what you get.
If you are seeding positive thoughts and positive actions, you can feel certain that overtime success will eventually blossom!
Journalists have described bestselling author Karen Salmansohn (www.notsalmon.com) as "Deepak Chopra meets Carrie Bradshaw." Her books have sold over 1 million copies worldwide -- creating a new breed of self-help for people who would not be caught dead reading self-help! Her books have been read/loved by Jon Stewart, Madonna, Tony Robbins, Deepak Chopra, Marisa Tomei, Arianna Huffington -and more! She's been on THE TODAY SHOW, THE VIEW, Jeanne Moos' CNN segments, Bill Maher's show (etc) - plus in the NYTimes, Business Week, Entertainment Weekly, InStyle, Cosmo, Marie Claire, Glamour, Self (etc). Her latest book, PRINCE HARMING SYNDROME (www.princeharming.com) puts a modern twist on the ancient Greek happiness philosophies of Aristotle -- merging it with modern cognitive therapy and a touch of quantum physics -- offering women empowering insights and techniques to break limiting beliefs and (b)lame excuses so they can finally live and love happily ever after!