Outline
Everything is Good
- The only reason something is better than something else is that it’s what you want.
- A happy person knows: there is what they want, and there is everything else.
- Feeling you have to be against what you don’t want, instead of merely for what you want, is unhappiness.
- The parable of spitting in a blueberry pie.
There are no emotional problems
- There are no emotional problems, there are only practical problems.
- Not deciding yet is sometimes the practical solution to a practical problem.
There’s nothing wrong with you
- We are exactly as we wish to be.
- You always approve of yourself.
- Unhappiness is believing that you do not approve of yourself.
Introduction
In this lecture, Bruce Di Marsico discusses that the only reason something is better than something else is, is that you want the something else more. For example, cancer is not bad. Rather, health is better than cancer, because health is what you want more.
A happy person knows there is what they want, and everything else. Unhappiness is feeling you have to be against what you don’t want, instead of merely for what you want. This is illustrated with the parable of spitting in a blueberry pie, even though you like blueberry pie, in order to feel allowed to ask for a slice of apple pie, which you like more.
He also discusses that here are no emotional problems, there are only practical problems. For example, someone either wants to divorce right now, doesn’t want to divorce right now, or wants to wait before deciding. There may be many emotions around this subject, but they are not problems—only the practical matters are. The emotions are simply you feeling the way you like to feel.
Finally, he discusses that there’s nothing wrong with us. We are exactly as we wish to be, and always approve of ourselves. Unhappiness is believing that we do not approve of ourselves, which is always mistaken.
Everything is Good
You don’t confer goodness on God’s world. It’s all good. Even those things you’ve learned to hate. They’re all good. And you like some things better than cancer, fine. But don’t tell me that cancer is bad. Where do you get off? Or perhaps you’re going to try to make it be okay. You can’t make it be okay. It already is. You can’t make things okay. If you think that’s your job; you’re in trouble.
You’ve gotten the idea that you cause your own emotions, confused with God. You can’t make things okay anymore than you can make them bad. You can’t do that either. But all you can do is delude yourself that they’re bad or enjoy that they’re good. So what’s the answer to having cancer? Not being unhappy about it and knowing that it’s good and desiring and knowing that health is something you like better. That’s something you want better. And something you call better and something that is better. Why is it better? Because it’s what you want. The only reason being healthy is better than having cancer is because it’s what you want. And what other way is health better than cancer?
I’m making the comparison between what you want and everything else that you don’t want. That’s everything else, right? You just only know what you want. You don’t go around un-wanting or dis-wanting. That’s unhappiness, feeling you have to dis-want things.
You can know you don’t prefer cancer. And there’s lots of reasons why you’re not welcoming it or wanting it in the sense of inviting it or wishing you had it. You don’t want if for the inconvenience. You don’t want it for the pain. You don’t want it for the cost. You don’t want it for the family issues. You don’t want it for the shortening of life. You can’t go to the movies. You don’t want it because you can’t drive your car anymore. Whatever reason you don’t want it.
But remember, I told you that nobody’s afraid of cancer. You’re only afraid of the unhappiness that comes with it. So if we’re talking about bliss and joy, there are all kinds of things to want. And you don’t have to hate anything to give yourself permission to want something. There’s a little metaphor, a little parable I tell called spitting in your blueberry pie.
You’re at a friend’s house and out of the oven comes a nice fresh baked blueberry pie. And you’re mouth is watering. And you love it. And she says, “Would you like a piece?” And you say, “I’d love it. I’d love a piece.” So she cuts you a piece of blueberry pie. She didn’t mention it, but she then goes back in the oven and takes out a second pie, which is an apple pie. Steaming hot apple pie. And that is your favorite pie of all times. It has the right amount of cinnamon.
You can smell the allspice. You know exactly that you would love this pie more than anything else in your whole life. Uh-oh. I’m eating the blueberry pie. So what you do, since you don’t feel free to ask for the apple pie; you say, “Oh, gee. Excuse me but there’s spit in my blueberry pie. Can I have a piece of apple pie?”
You make it be what you believe is disgusting to allow yourself to choose what you really do want. And you never had to do that. But the truth of the matter is it was only your spit in the first place. It never really makes it disgusting, you know. It’s really only your judgment in the first place. That really doesn’t count. The truth of the matter is you still like blueberry pie no matter what you say. But you’d rather have apple pie.
And you didn’t automatically start hating blueberry pie; no matter what you say. But you felt you needed to do that. You had to find something repulsive about the blueberry pie to be allowed to ask for the apple pie. And people live their lives that way.
There are no emotional problems
A lot of people know they want a divorce. But they’re not miserable enough yet. I mean it. People don’t think it’s fair or right to seek a divorce unless they’re terribly miserable. Not just simply because they no longer want to be married to this person.
So usually divorces are between somebody who’s tremendously unhappy and somebody else whom they’re hoping to make tremendously unhappy, so that they will then agree to the divorce. I don’t really mean these as jokes. These are the things that people up the ante for to feel allowed to do what they want to do. And happiness would question the fear that you have of doing what you really are attracted to. And ask you to examine why you’re afraid of that, if that’s something you want to look at. If you say to me, I’m really attracted to something but I’m afraid to move for it or towards it, I would understand immediately because you’ve added the pros and cons and this is the way they fall.
Now what, about the way the pros and cons add up, would you like to question? So which is it that you don’t like? So the person would say, “well I don’t like that I want a divorce or I don’t like it that I feel like I should stay.” So in either case we’ll help them look at why they feel there’s something they must do other than what they want to do. Sometimes really the truth in a lot of these things is that people just don’t have enough facts to make any decision. And they just really want more facts. And the situation is not bad enough to be sure I want to leave.
Given the current situation I may not leave – and rather than feel I have to become more unhappy, I could just see that I’m talking about practical matters and stop worrying and thinking that I’m not unhappy enough to leave. You don’t have to be unhappy to leave. And perhaps they could see that they could make the decision without being unhappy in either way. And that they want some facts, some more experiences to make decisions. And once they know that, that feels real good. Oh, it’s just a practical matter, which leads us to an axiom of the Option Method. There are no such things as emotional problems.
There are no emotional problems. There are only practical problems, which people are afraid they have emotional problems about. And people get emotional about them because they believe that they’re emotional problems. How many people think the idea of whether to stay married or not is an emotional problem? How many people think that whether to get a job or not is an emotional problem? Or whether to have children or not? There are lots of things people believe are emotional problems.
How many people believe that they don’t have enough money for their operation is something that really makes them unhappy and is an emotional problem? No, there’s a practical problem. How to get the money? And until you focus on that there is a practical problem, you’re going to be really stuck in a non-problem. People can take years trying to deal with an emotional problem before they ever get around to fixing a leak. You don’t need therapy to know your shoes don’t fit. And one doesn’t have to adjust to the shoes.
There’s nothing wrong with you
We are exactly as we wish to be and we choose to be. We’re exactly what we’re glad to be and we can’t do anything about it. You are the way you are, and that’s the way you want to be. And you can’t do anything about that. You wouldn’t want to, and we don’t need to. It’s meaningless. We simply won’t, can’t or want to be anything other than ourselves. And unhappiness is believing, nonetheless, that we ought to, that we should.
If you’re ever unhappy right now, it’s because you are believing you should be different in some way or another. And when you described yourself as an unhappy person who is seeking help, you weren’t an unhappy person. You were a person who described themselves that way. But you’re exactly fine. You just didn’t believe it.
There was nothing wrong with who you ever were, whoever that was. And you wouldn’t have been that way if you knew that. In other words, if you were very bitter and very angry and very sad, if you really realized that there was nothing wrong with you being that way, nothing whatsoever wrong with you being that way you wouldn’t have been very bitter, very angry and sad. If you knew that it was really okay for you. That you really did approve of yourself.
What you believed was that you didn’t approve of yourself. People who seek help from me believe that there are certain areas in their lives that they’re not approving of themselves. And through the Option Method, people can see that they really do approve. And then all the changes are automatic. You just are happier to know that you don’t have to be different. How many here knew if they never, ever have to work on their unhappiness again, would be happy? But what if you could find out that this is true: you don’t have to work on your unhappiness ever again, and you are perfectly alright the way you are. Whatever you feel, whatever you judge, whether you like, or you don’t like.
When you don’t like something you like that you don’t like it. That’s the way you identify yourself. You know, you’re glad that you don’t like liver or you don’t eat meat. You’re glad that you disapprove of this or that. Now if you really knew that that was really okay and you weren’t hurting yourself; how would you feel?
Questions for Reflection
Make a list of things you think are bad (for example, cancer, pain, violence . . .)
Now, for each item in the list, what do you want more than what you think is bad (for example, health, comfort, peace . . .?)
Pick an emotional situation that you feel bad about. Write yourself the best advice you can give yourself about what to do.
Are you motivated to follow your own advice?
Do you want to wait until you know more before giving yourself advice?
What does feeling bad about the situation add to knowing what you want to do?
Are there any ways in which you disapprove of yourself?
Can you disapprove of yourself without being in touch with how you want to be?
Which do you agree with more, the “self” you disapprove of, or the “self” that knows how you want to be?
Meditation for the Week
You always approve of yourself