Have you ever considered what really determines happiness? It's tempting to believe our sense of well-being depends on external circumstances - health, relationships, finances - going according to plan.
But what's really happening is far more fundamental. Within us is an internal judgment system, a complex catalog against which we measure every experience. This invisible metric silently classifies each moment as good, bad, neutral, whatever ... dictating whether we feel joy or distress.
"How’s your day?" someone asks. The judgment system immediately activates, tallying which expectations were met and those that fell short. The final calculation produces our response: "Great," "Terrible," or perhaps the often meaningless default, "Good."
If we pause to examine this process honestly, we might ask whether this system serves us well. Does our internal assessment mechanism deliver the blissful peace we seek? Or does it leave us perpetually at the mercy of an unpredictable world?
The truth is that our thoughts, not circumstances, determine our emotional state. As A Course in Miracles clarifies, "It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain." Our entire experience arises not from what happens, but from how we think about what happens. And thus a pivotal question we can ask is whether our thoughts serve us well.
Recognizing that the ego thought system holds us captive within a severely limiting framework, we can then begin to question its authority. Is there another way to perceive? Must we remain locked in a judgment pattern that guarantees suffering?
By recognizing our thoughts as the determinant of both pain and peace, we open to the possibility of choosing differently. We need not remain hostage to a thought system that fails to deliver what we truly desire, the "tremendous release and deep peace" of true freedom.
Join me in Thursday's class where we'll explore practices for transcending our judgment systems and discover how shifting our thoughts can transform our experiences. I look forward to seeing you then.