Creators Circle #12: How to Increase Your Happiness

In this Creators Circle, we discuss exactly how happiness can be increased from day-to-day, the importance of gratitude, recognizing the progress you’ve made in the past, plus much more.

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Topics Discussed in This Call

• [03:09] Practice Gratitude
• [08:10] Feel Thankful for Small Things
• [16:38] Being Stuck Energetically
• [19:46] Don’t Whine
• [24:02] Energy Vampires
• [26:23] Is This Heaven?

Transcript

Brandon: Hey, everyone. Welcome to Creators Circle. This is call #12. Of course this is Brandon, and Christine’s here with me.

Christine: Hi. Sorry I’m not on video, guys. The camera doesn’t work well for me. It’s not that I don’t want to be. I just wanted to let you know.

Brandon: She’s making me sad. We’re doing this a little bit differently today, like I said in the email to the Creators Circle. We are live on Facebook on Co-Creation Coaching. If anyone’s watching there, feel free to say hi or to leave your questions there as well. We have some attendees on the webinar itself, so feel free. I’ll ask you in a second if you have questions. How we’re going to do this is if you have a question or something you want to discuss, hit the “raise hand” button. I’ll bring you on so you can discuss it. If you prefer to not talk out loud, then go to the Q&A section and ask a question. I prefer to talk to you verbally, but that’s your choice. If you prefer to ask anonymously or through text, that’s your choice. I will wait for questions right now. Meanwhile we will see what’s going on. Let me know if you hear anything, Christine.

Christine: It will just say it. I don’t have to go to some certain screen.

Brandon: It should just say it. No questions here.

Christine: Do you want me to check? Do you want me to go on there?

Brandon: No, I got it. Again, let me know. Hopefully everyone is doing well today. We just finished our last “Art of Reality Creation” class yesterday. That was a lot of fun.

Christine: Yes, it was awesome. If you do have questions, just interrupt us. You don’t have to wait for an opportune time.

Brandon: We just finished that yesterday. That was a lot of fun. I’m playing around with some new ways of doing these things. I guess until someone does have a question (like I said, feel free to interrupt because I do want this to be interaction) we can just talk about some stuff in the meantime. Also, there is a chat feature if you want to chat. Feel free to do that, too.

[03:09] Practice Gratitude

Basically, what was I talking about recently, Christine?

Christine: A lot of stuff.

Brandon: That’s true. We just finished that series last week about the four levels of the manifestation process. We were talking about the fourth level which was matter and action. I found the series really fun and enjoyable to write. For me, it opened a lot of stuff I hadn’t thought about as much before, especially with matter. We talked about inspired action last week. We were talking about receiving your goal. My focus has been going a lot more towards—I don’t want to say “passive” because it sounds too much like no action—the kind of effortless flowing way. 

I mentioned before, I’ve been trying to reconcile that with the more active inspired action and structural tension and things like that. I think it’s an interesting paradox. I see Justin. Hi, Justin. Justin, I think I just got an email from you, so I’m going to allow you to talk.

Christine: Who is this?

Brandon: Justin.

Christine: Sorry. I didn’t even hear anything.

Brandon: He probably doesn’t know how to—there he is. Hi, Justin. Oh, wait. I have to unmute you. How do I do that? There you are.

Christine: I don’t think so.

Brandon: Nope, I’m unmuting you right now. Justin says no audio connected, so I don’t know if you have to tell it you want to connect by computer audio. I cannot unmute you right now. Hopefully you can figure that out. Anyway, we’ve been talking about that balance between structural tension and persistence and the passive, effortless nature of wu wei, the Tao, flow, and things like that. That has been my main focus lately, I think. One of the major things I talked about in the class was about trying to not try so hard. [laughs] Not trying so hard, let’s put it that way. Not trying so hard to get these goals.

I was listening to a video today because I am part of Vishen Lakhiani’s course “Become Limitless.”

Christine: I forgot about that.

Brandon: I was listening to that. He was talking about how to increase your happiness. In his perspective of how things work, you need both happiness in the now and a vision for the future. I’ve talked about this before. He’s talking about the happiness in the now part. I found it really interesting. He was talking a lot about gratitude, appreciation, which with meditation I’ve been trying to do a bit more. But I haven’t done as much as I probably should have. He says you need both a vision for the future and that gratitude in the present moment. What am I happy for right now?

I’ve been trying that today a bit because I had some anxiety lately about some of my goals. I really found that it made a difference in how I felt about my goals. I’ll talk about this in the webinar on Saturday, but one of the major things you need to do when you are trying to make a manifestation not so—or when you try to achieve a big manifestation is make it not so big a deal to you. For that, you need to detach your happiness and sense of “I need this to be happy” from that manifestation.

[08:10] Feel Thankful for Small Things

Brandon: One of the best ways to do that, according to him, which I’ve been testing out, is through gratitude and appreciation.

Christine: That’s awesome.

Brandon: And it could be for anything. He recommends doing 3-5 things in your personal life that you’re grateful for, 3-5 things in your career that you’re grateful for, and things like that. I found that really useful. It can really increase the flow and your ability to not be hanging onto these goals for dear life, so to speak, so you’re not needing them. I think that was really interesting: the importance of being grateful. I know it’s well known in the law of attraction but it’s not always practiced all the time. I’m not one, necessarily, to make gratitude journals and things like that. I feel like it can be too much an exercise you do.

When I was practicing it, the more I found to be grateful for, the easier it was to find something else. At first I was like, “What am I going to be grateful for? What am I going to find?” Then I found the first thing. He recommends spending 20 seconds on each thing. Then I found a second thing. By the time I was done with that, there was one after another after another. I don’t know how many I got in the end. It was a really interesting exercise.

But you really have to focus on feeling that gratitude after each item. What did you feel in the moment of having that thing? Even really small things. It doesn’t have to be big, life-changing things you’re grateful for. That is just a really quick way of increasing your happiness. I think people are afraid to do that sometimes because they feel like if they’re happy now, they won’t get their goal. I know I’ve had that kind of fear before. For me, it’s just not been true. Your attaching your happiness to your goal is not going to accomplish anything.

It’s just not. It’s going to hold your goal away from you. You have to detach the two. You have to be happy now, and you have to have that vision for the future. Have both of those. That’s what I’ve been working on a lot lately. What do you think of that, Christine? You’re making me do all the talking.

Christine: Because you’re on a roll. I didn’t want to interrupt. There was a Chicken Soup for the Soul book—I don’t remember what the name was, but it was about how someone was going through really hard things. I don’t know if she read it in a book or whatever, but she wrote every day. Her exercise was to write what you’re grateful for every day. Write it on a board on the fridge. She’d look at it and say, “You know, things aren’t as bad as I thought.” Really, they started getting better. People don’t realize what they do have. They try to find stuff—everything that’s wrong. We’re not good at saying, “This is what I appreciate.” We always want more and more and more.

Brandon: It’s actually funny because I remember reading John Kehoe’s Mind Power in the 21st Century. I remember reading that book. He mentioned a lady who had manifested this really big thing. He helped her with that. He hadn’t heard from her for 9 months or a year. It was some kind of time. Then he met her one day randomly in an airport, I think it was. She was saying, “You’ve got to help me. I’m trying to manifest this thing and I can’t figure it out.” He said, “What happened to all the other stuff you manifested?” “Oh, yeah, I got that. But now it’s this.” She just passed over it like it was nothing, and before, she was freaking out about it. We have the tendency to forget about the old stuff that we’ve manifested. That’s just not useful.

We have to keep in mind how far we’ve come. For me, I know in my business (I forget sometimes) it’s amazing to me how far I have come and how much has happened.

Christine: It’s funny you said that because I was bored today, so I was going back through our history of our Facebook messages. This is March of 2013 when we’re living in PA. Apparently I was telling you to go get a job somewhere. I don’t remember why. You were really depressed. I don’t know if it was web hosting. I have no idea what the heck was going on. I’m reading this stuff. We mostly argued on Facebook messenger, I think. I don’t know.

Brandon: I don’t know why you were looking at that, but whatever.

Christine: I don’t know. I just wanted to see our history and stuff. I don’t know. Anyway, I’m like, “Oh, my God.” I don’t know if I was trying to tell you to get some money. I think I said you should get some money. I have no idea. Now look where we are, off of SSI. I was like, “What kind of a world was this?” I barely remember living in PA anymore. I was such a be-atch back then. I’m a little bit different. I’d like to say I’ve matured. My God, I’ve put you through a lot.

Brandon: I plead the 5th. [laughs]

Christine: It’s fascinating to me. We barely had money. I’m telling you to get a job, whether it’s online or not, I didn’t care. Now, you’re getting clients and you have this amazing business for 2 or 3 years.

Brandon: 2 in 3 months.

Christine: Just fascinating. Did this really happen, or am I imagining it?

Brandon: Yes, it’s a totally different energy. I know thinking back to the days when we could barely afford things is really difficult.

Christine: You ordered a soundbox last week when you already had one because the cat decided to steal it.

Brandon: The cat stole it, in my defense. The cat stole it.

Christine: But you got a better one. But you couldn’t do that before. You can’t just drop money. Or you couldn’t just drop money.

Brandon: All people watching, when the cat steals one of your things so you just buy another one, that’s how you know the cat’s spoiled. [laughs] I wish you guys followed me on Facebook because I had a picture on there. He’s sleeping inside that box as happy as can be, all curled up.

Christine: I don’t know if he goes in there now.

Brandon: I don’t know. He’s going to get sick of it, and then it’s going to be for nothing. Better, anyway. I like this new one better, anyway. I just can’t believe he stole it. Most expensive cat toy ever, or cat bed, I guess.

Christine: I hope nobody is trying to talk because I don’t hear anything.

Brandon: No hands are up. Again, if people want to talk, feel free to.

Christine: We don’t bite, please.

Brandon: If you don’t know how, just enter a question and say you want to talk or chat. But it should be right there.

[16:38] Being Stuck Energetically

Brandon: Yes, it’s hard to think back to those old times when the energy was so different.

Christine: That was only 4 years ago, but 4 years is a long time. 

Brandon: It is a long time, energetically. The sad thing, we know people who are in the same energetic place as they were 4 years ago. You remember the person we were talking about just recently who is in the same place. Justin, I got your “just testing” chat. I can try to enable you again, but I don’t know if you don’t have your microphone set up. You have to hit that you want to use computer audio. Let me try one more time.

Christine: Why is it different from the other one? Is it because it’s a webinar? 

Brandon: You’re using an older version of Zoom apparently, so you should update that sometime. Let me try this. Promote to panelist. Maybe this will work. We’ll see. Hang on, don’t try to do anything yet. Oh, I have a mute button. Can you hear us? Yes, I got you.

Justin: I heard you the entire time, but what happened was when I tried to log in, I had to put in name and email. I didn’t realize it was different. It didn’t say email on the box.

Brandon: You’re in.

Justin: Did not expect you to have to do that.

Brandon: No, we just changed the format a little bit. Now we got you, so that’s awesome. Do you have anything to say about what we’ve been talking about? [laughs]

Justin: That is a cool cat. Smart, Brandon, pleading the 5th. For me, I have tried the happiness thing. I just can’t do it. I’ve tried to fake it. I can raise my vibration and my energy. I can remember fondly those things that I’ve manifested, and that’s what I use. What I use afterwards is just focus and energy work and try to overcome it like that. I thank my body. I thank for my health. I do the gratitude thing. As far as thanking the cells of my body, saying thank you is one of the greatest things you can say. They say it might be the best prayer to say, is thank you. That’s what I’ve read. I don’t know if that’s true.

Brandon: I’m sure it is.

Justin: I wouldn’t doubt it if it is. It’s just hard for me to do it and keep it all happy-fuzzy. I’ve never been like that.

[19:46] Don’t Whine

Brandon: I always think there has to be a balance.

Christine: Brandon is not happy-fuzzy all the time, trust me. He is a very, very serious man.

Brandon: I am. Thanks. [laughs]

Christine: Except for when you get things in the mail. Then you do the happy dance.

Justin: For me, they say I’m serious. I tell a lot of jokes.

Christine: Very serious.

Justin: Other than that, it’s yeah.

Brandon: It doesn’t have to be. You shouldn’t fake it, but you should find something to be grateful for.

Justin: You can be better at it than me, by the way.

Brandon: Anyone in the civilized Western first-world country. Start by having a roof over your head. This is not guilt.

Justin: It is what it is. Everybody’s looking for equity, so that’s what you’re going for, is equity.

Brandon: You had enough money to buy food, or you have food in stock, that kind of thing. It doesn’t have to be that. Find the smallest thing you can be grateful for. Once you hit that smallest thing, it will be easier to find something else. It’s just a matter of what we choose to focus on enough to complain about or be grateful for. I think that’s the major thing.

Justin: That, and another thing is I hate whining. I hate it. 

Brandon: I despise it.

Justin: For me, it’s all about execution. There’s nothing to complain about. Why are you whining? You should be better than me at the happiness thing. You’re probably not as good as me at not complaining. I don’t know.

Brandon: I hate whining. I hate it.

Christine: Yes, and I’m good at it.

Justin: State the facts.

Christine: Probably because I’m a woman.

Justin: I plead the 5th. We are not going to talk about the fact that you’re a woman and you whine. We’re done. [laughs] Not going down that way.

Christine: Brandon, when he gets headaches, oh, he whines.

Brandon: Yes, sometimes, but not…

Christine: You don’t really whine whine.

Justin: I had to be almost dead to get help from Christine that time. You know I don’t whine for anything.

Brandon: Going back to what we were talking about before. Christine, do you remember that person I said who is in the same energetic place as four years ago? You know who I’m talking about, right?

Christine: I don’t know.

Brandon: The one your friend was complaining about recently. Really? The one whose name starts with a “k”?

Justin: What’s the second letter?

Brandon: “I.” [laughs]

Justin: What’s the third letter?

Brandon: I’m not telling. [laughs]

Justin: I just wanted to see how far you’d go with that.

Christine: I just can’t think.

Brandon: Christine, this person used to be suicidal and stuff. You’re going to kick yourself when I tell you. I’m going to chat this to you because I can’t believe you’re not getting this. Hang on, let’s see. I can’t believe you’re not getting this. This person—let’s see. Chat to Christine. Hang on. You’ll get this. You’re going to kick yourself. Got it? How did you not think of that?

Christine: Oh, she is something else. Okay.

Brandon: Right. Anyway. [laughs] I can’t believe you didn’t think of that.

Christine: I thought you said her name is spelled that way. It’s not, really. It’s just her nickname.

Brandon: That’s just how I know of her.

Christine: Yes, I know. Go ahead. She has only gone backwards, I feel like.

Brandon: Or is in the exact same place.

[24:02] Energy Vampires

Christine: Oh, no. I don’t think so.

Brandon: Four years is a long time, thankfully, for us. We’ve come a long way.

Christine: They like to stay in one place.

Brandon: They get stagnant, and it’s sad that way. It happens.

Christine: There’s nothing you can do for them, either.

Brandon: No, there’s not, unfortunately.

Christine: Because you try, and all they do is take and take from you. They’re energy vampires. All they want is your sympathy and your attention.

Brandon: Some people, it takes them years if not decades to get out of that. Maybe lifetimes sometimes, I guess, probably. It’s just something that’s really ingrained in some people. It’s important to look back at where you’ve been, how far you’ve come, and how grateful for that progress. We’ll talk about this in the webinar. If you haven’t signed up for the webinar, everyone here has, I think. Actually, maybe not. I don’t know. Anyway, if you haven’t, go to darkascent.org/bigmanifestations and we’ll be talking about exactly this, how to manifest those big desires. This is basically the first part of that: simply learning to be grateful for what’s already here and not needing that goal to be so here right this instant. That’s really important.

I was listening to this thing today. I don’t remember the guy’s name right now. I was listening to this thing. It was about loving yourself. Usually I roll my eyes at that, if I could roll my eyes.

Christine: You do, perpetually.

Brandon: I do, perpetually. [laughs] Shut up, Justin. [laughs] I was listening to this thing today from this guy who was talking about learning to love himself.

[26:23] Is This Heaven?

Brandon: He was talking about—Christine, you’ll like this one. I know you’re muting yourself because you’re trying to put your show on and pausing it. Anyway. [laughs] Her show starts at [9:00]. He told the story.

Christine: What were you saying? Sorry.

Brandon: That you were putting your show on. He told the story of this woman in her early 30s. When she was 24 years old, she had a heart attack and died for 7 minutes. He was talking to her. She said ever since that experience she had everything she wanted come to her really easily. He said, “Why is that?” I just listened to this today, so hopefully I can paraphrase what she said. She said something to the effect of what if this is heaven. She can’t prove that when she died for those 7 minutes that this isn’t heaven right now. If it’s heaven, then she should get everything she wants. So she does. That simple. I love that.

Christine: Where did she go? Or does she not know?

Brandon: She doesn’t remember. She didn’t have an NDE. She doesn’t remember. She was in a coma after she came back, so she doesn’t have any memory of it. So her thing is, what if this is heaven? She should be able to get anything she wants. 

Christine: That is so cool.

Brandon: We should psyche ourselves out that this is heaven. [laughs] I’m sure that puts things in perspective, too. How important is this thing? How much do I really need this thing when I was dead one time and life is short? She didn’t say that.

Justin: I was dead one time.

Brandon: I was dead one time. [laughs] I love that logic.

Justin: That is good.

Brandon: I love that.

Christine: That is so cool.

Brandon: That really struck me. That was really fascinating. That was how she started getting everything. Before we end here, this guy doing the video was doing a speech somewhere. He was on stage. He said something like when he started—how did he say it? He had success, and he got too attached to it. He just wanted the money. He got too attached to it, and it all fell apart. He got really sick and was bedridden for a long time. He realized he just had to love himself and know that he was enough. He started saying that to himself. From that, everything started to work out for him. He was able to do that. He was able to love himself first. Like I said, I usually roll my eyes at that, but in this case it was really powerful because that’s how he really started to have success by not allowing himself to get so attached to the actual goals.

He realized that there comes a point where the money and abundance comes when you’re not caring or attached. It just comes. It just happens. That’s been my experience. It just starts coming. The less you feel like you need it, the more it just comes.

Justin: But you definitely want to make sure you keep focusing on it and stuff like that. You just don’t want to obsess about it.

Brandon: To a certain extent, but when you reach a new set point, then you don’t need to anymore because that’s just where you are. It’s like this. 

Justin: I guess I mean a new goal. When the highways are open, the highways are open.

Brandon: Let’s say you’re homeless, so having a roof over your head is a next level goal for you. You have to keep focusing on that. Once it’s done and you have the house, that’s a new set point. You don’t have to keep focusing on having a house to keep the house.

Justin: Not that anymore, you’re right.

Brandon: None of us here have to focus on having a house or it’s going to go. I’d love to talk about this one day. I have some things coming up that I’m going to be doing in private groups that I’d love to discuss this with. There comes a point where there has to be a new set point.

Justin: You have to open the highways. Once you open that highway, you’re good. You’re just rolling down the highway at that point.

Brandon: I talked about this in the class yesterday. The balance is between having the vision and yet not needing it. We’ll talk about this Saturday and I’ll expand that a ton more.

Christine: It’s a little tidbit, guys. You can sign up.

Brandon: For those who aren’t registered, I recommend going over and registering. Again, it’s darkascent.org/bigmanifestations so that’s where you can register for that.

Justin: Another thing I’ll say really quick. Everything is pure energy. I’ll take the energy of the thing I want and make it crystallize in my hand. That’s a different way, a strange thought process. If that’s all, you just grab it and mess with it in the astral field.

Brandon: Whatever makes you feel like you have it is basically what works. It’s a little different for everyone. It’s perfectly fine. I appreciate everyone who was watching today. Thanks for joining us. This recording will probably be up Thursday. We won’t have the transcript for this for a while because my transcriber is out of town. I’m sad. But the transcript will probably be up this weekend or so. I will post the video on Thursday as always or thereabouts. Thanks again for all those who joined us today. We hope to see you next week. Bye, everyone. Anything is possible.

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Topics Discussed in This Call

• [03:09] Practice Gratitude
• [08:10] Feel Thankful for Small Things
• [16:38] Being Stuck Energetically
• [19:46] Don’t Whine
• [24:02] Energy Vampires
• [26:23] Is This Heaven?

Transcript

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Topics Discussed in This Call

• [03:09] Practice Gratitude
• [08:10] Feel Thankful for Small Things
• [16:38] Being Stuck Energetically
• [19:46] Don’t Whine
• [24:02] Energy Vampires
• [26:23] Is This Heaven?

Transcript

The transcript is for members only. If you’d like to get the transcript, please sign up for the Creators Circle for free below.

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