Welcome to Part 1 of my Step-by-Step Series on how to find authentic happiness.
In this part, I will give you a glimpse of my history and my credentials. These two will both show you my motivation for wanting to share this to everybody for free. It is my hope that this series will help everyone who is depressed or even just unhappy, to realize that there is great hope in finally overcoming their challenges and finally make lasting change towards mastering their emotions.
What motivated me to search for authentic happiness? i.e. my background and credentials
There were principally three reasons that motivated me to do all the research.
1) The first one was the fact that I was going in and out of depression since about 30 years ago. And at that time, in the later part of the 70's, there were not too many medications nor well-developed therapies that were specific for depression.
Anybody who has gone through depression knows how awful it is. Victims feel so bad that many of them even try to kill themselves. Thank God He spared me of such kinds of thoughts. If you know someone who has depression, NEVER take it lightly.
Since they feel so down and not interested in doing anything -- NOT even the activities that they used to enjoy before -- then getting them to seek professional help will be a big challenge to you. But you have to be creative in finding ways to convince them to see a psychotherapist. The earlier it is treated, the better the chances of eliminating the depression.
Another thing, never say "IT'S ONLY IN YOUR MIND". And never CRITICIZE them for their behavior. You will just make them feel more depressed.
2) Secondly, I was not really particularly excited about the medications that were available then, since the side effects were such that I would rather have the depression and deal with it, than deal with the side-effects of the medications.
3) Finally, I felt that the psychotherapists whom my parents sent me to, were almost as "CLUELESS" as I was as to how to treat my depression attacks. They seem to content themselves with experimenting with different medications and therapies.
One in particular, was more like PSYCHO-THE-RAPIST, than a PSYCHOTHERAPIST. It was obvious that he was just after the money than anything else. HE PROBABLY WAS THE MOST CLUELESS OF THEM ALL.
Think about it. All the psychotherapists whom I was seeing then, were using me as their guinea pig for depression medication. And I had to PAY THEM FOR IT? How fair is that? I had to buy the medicines, and then I had to suffer from the side effects. Shouldn't they have been paying me, instead of me paying them?
Victims in the 90's and beyond are "more fortunate" than the ones who experienced depression earlier. For there have been many significant breakthroughs in the research and the development of many classes of medications to fight depression. There are also several therapies now available to fight this disorder. There are even herbal as well as homeopathic alternatives that have been found to be effective in fighting depressions.
But by then, I did not have any use for any of them anymore. For I was well in the way of getting much better, by applying all the knowledge that I have been learning.
But before I got to that stage of recovery from depression, it was one EXTREMELY TOUGH battle. It even got so bad that I even had to quit school twice, thereby losing my full academic scholarships from very prestigious schools. And I even got into drugs and alcohol, thinking they will help. Which they didn't.
So, I decided that, since our kind God has gifted me with well above average intelligence, and a passion for reading anything and everything, it was best to do the research myself. That started my long journey of searching for the way to help myself overcome depression and also to find a way to stay authentically happy.
I read every self-help book that I could get my hands on. And while reading them, I chose only to take notes of what made sense to me.
In a way, my being a victim of depression was a BLESSING IN DISGUISE. For it gave me an ADVANTAGE over the psychiatrists, psychologists, and self-help book authors.
I knew from ACTUAL EXPERIENCE what materials made me feel good, REGARDLESS OF HOW SMALL the positive effect was. The psychiatrists, psychologists. and authors did not have that advantage. They were ALL looking at it ONLY from a clinical and theoretical and point of view.
And don't disregard the monetary motivations, i.e., the longer they have you as a patient, the more money they can make from you. But, to be fair, not all psychotherapists are like that.
Anyway, I strongly believed, even at that time, that each self-help book author has discovered certain truths that the others didn't, and vice versa. My advantage was that my own disorder served as a FILTER.
And so, I would like to believe that my method, which I will FREELY SHARE with you, is an effective compilation of the BEST discoveries of all the materials concerning this topic.
What about my credentials?
But you may ask, "Are you saying that your experiences and your years of self-directed research, constitute your CREDENTIALS?" The answer to that is obviously YES!
I know what you may be thinking. But hey, consider Tony Robbins. He also did not have any formal academic training in helping people find happiness. What he did was read hundreds and hundreds of books, and then combined all the knowledge he learned. His methods seem to work on a lot of people. NOT ALL, but still a lot. Hasn't his work make him a media star?
Let me put it in another way.Just supposing there is another Civil War (God forbid) in the U.S. And as an ordinary soldier, you are getting conflicting orders from:
1) Lt. Sylvester "Rambo" Stallone,
2) from Lt. Mel "Lethal Weapon" Gibson,
3) from a Lieutenant who, after graduating Summa Cum Laude from Westpoint, works as an aide of a General,
4) and from another Lieutenant, who did not graduate with honors, but has gone through several wars, and has several medals to show for it.
Whose orders will you follow, if you are to carry them out yourself, and engage the enemy?
If you value your safety, then the answer is obvious.
My writing about my approach to free myself from depression and to experience authentic happiness, is my way of thanking God for showing me the way.
I also would like to help, as much as I can, all who have depression, which number in the hundreds of millions worldwide, and even the normal, but not authentically people, which means almost everybody (?).
Now that you know my background and credentials, let's get on to the steps in finding authentic happiness in Part 2.
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