If you want inner peace, you must pursue it internally, not externally. Our society has become good at labeling and medicating tormenting thoughts and emotions, but not so good at overcoming them. Unhealthy thoughts frequently cause healthy brains to dysfunction.

For more happiness try less analysis and more wonder-filled pondering. People frequently install antivirus aps to protect their devices, but seldom install anti-negativity and anti-dishonesty aps to protect their mind. If we’d stop the lies that we tell self and others, we’d soon discover the truth that sets us free.

A healthy brain, continually filled with unhealthy thinking, won’t function well because of the faulty programming. Often our problem isn’t that our brain needs fixing, but that we need the wisdom and humility to redirect our thinking. The more we accept dysfunctional thoughts and feelings, the more they will hold us captive.

Our perceptions produce our feelings, and our perceptions are often wrong. When lying emotions aren’t resisted and rejected, they can quickly make us think and act irrationally. We can begin to admit, expose, and unravel, whatever we’re thinking and doing that’s causing dysfunction in our life.

All humans are broken. We all need help, even when we’re too proud to admit it. Joy seems elite (instead of normal) when we neglect to delete negative thoughts.

Trying to put together a product that requires assembly, without following directions, often leads to a mess. That’s a life lesson.

Want to feel better? Daily feed your mind on uplifting books and give it a work-out by therapeutic writing (journaling or essaying).

An orchard won’t grow good fruit unless it’s actively and continually cared for, cultivated, and pruned. The same with your mind and heart.

To try to avoid the pain of guilt many people use denial, but it’s much more effective to ask for and receive forgiveness. A thousand pictures (or academic lectures) can’t equal the healing power of a few sincere, compassionate, heart-connecting words.

Much pain
Comes from
Misusing our brain,
But we can train
To think better thoughts.

Without gratitude
It’s easy to have
A bad attitude.

When people have
Hate in their eyes
They’ve been listening
To accusing lies.

Bonus thought: Self-defense, without compassion, can quickly turn lethal.