Wondering how to just "be"? Read Richard Carlson's You Can Feel Good Again.

For years I was a major self-help junkie. During that time I built up quite an impressive library of all sorts of self-help books: feel-good books, touchy-feely books, mind-over-matter books, discover-yourself books, be-your-own-therapist books. I read, studied, analyzed, applied, practiced, visualized, and did pretty much everything else I could try to improve myself and my lot in life. In short, I kinda overdid it. *sheepish look*

If you’re anything like I used to be, here’s one book that will stop you in your tracks and flip you around completely: Richard Carlson’s You Can Feel Good Again. This book is simple, sincere, and surprisingly effective. The message goes against most self-help manuals out there, but the idea is as old as the hills. In a nutshell, it is this: stop thinking too much!!!

Well, that’s not exactly it. The point is that the way we feel is nothing more than a reaction to our thoughts, whatever those thoughts may be. So if you’re sad, that means it’s because you’re thinking sad thoughts. Therefore, if you want to stop being sad, you just have to stop thinking those sad thoughts. (Now isn’t that ridiculously simple?) He tells us how it is virtually impossible to think oneself out of depression, which explains why being a self-help junkie is a self-perpetuating condition.

In case you can't read it: "Excessive thinking about your past and your problems will only convince you that you do, in fact, have good reasons to be upset and unhappy." There goes therapy. :p

A central theme is that we’re all capable of being in a state of what he calls “healthy psychological functioning.” This is our natural state, a state of emotional buoyancy, contentment, and happiness, that we all would still have if we didn’t interfere with it by thinking too much and screwing things up (I paraphrase, of course). When we’re feeling depressed, we can tap back into this state by letting go of our thoughts.

Of course, he’s not saying that we should never think… just that we should be aware of our thoughts, so we can decide whether to follow our negative trains of thought to their logical feel-bad conclusion, or to nip things in the bud and choose to access our healthy psychological functioning instead. He makes the brilliantly simple suggestion that we should wait until our moods and feelings are positive before we try to solve any problems, since we’re most effective that way.

The way I see it, the book gives a no-nonsense, how-to approach (without any numbered steps or cutesy acronyms) to that classic piece of advice: “If you want to be happy, be.” It’s simple, it’s positive, and it’s really very empowering. If you’re ready to stop thinking yourself into a rut, it’s the perfect book to read.