Happiness - Is There a Difference Between Thoughts and Beliefs?

Your happiness and emotional wellness mainly depend on the fact that you know, understand, and accept the true cause of your emotions -- whether positive or negative, good or bad.

As a matter of fact, I insist heavily on this point because it is the cornerstone of the entire system by which you can learn to modify your own emotions and thus raise your level of happiness and improve the quality of your life.

In continuation of my article titled, "Happiness - Kill Stubborn Weeds While Leaving the Carrots Intact!," let's continue to explore how your thoughts and beliefs cause your emotions. This time, however, our discussion will be specifically focused on your beliefs.

You and I believe many things. To believe is to hold true something for which we don't have any proof. If there is any evidence of the truth of something, we won't say that we believe, but that we know. For example:

• You know that Planet Earth is round, but you believe that the coffee you drank this morning will not cause you any harm. - You know that you've eaten a tuna fish sandwich for lunch, but you believe that your favorite sport team will win the game tonight. - You know that it rained heavily today, but you believe that tomorrow will be a bright sunshiny day.

Our beliefs are thus forms of unproven ideas that may have a presence in our minds without us being really aware of it. Moreover, many of these beliefs can cause powerful emotions resulting in acts or omissions potentially harmful to us.

In other words, not only can some of our beliefs have devastating emotional effects, but they can either lead us to perform acts that are diametrically opposite to our true interests, or conversely, cause us to omit other actions in an equally harmful way.

In consequence, it is of paramount importance for us to pay attention to the beliefs we choose for ourselves and to be careful not to let ourselves be overwhelmed by a whole heap of unproven thoughts and ideas which, if they are often harmless, can unfortunately be, in other cases, considerably hurtful.

To sum up what I have stressed so far: Our thoughts, ideas, and beliefs about the various events, people, and things that life brings to us are the true cause of our emotions -- positive or negative, good or bad. It also goes without saying that events, people, and things never cause us the shadow of an emotion. Therefore, we can also conclude that the change of our cognitive content -- thoughts, ideas, beliefs -- will cause the change of our emotions.