About Steven Aitchison
Update: Please click on this link for more information about The new Mind Alchemy course. All the links to the downloads have now been removed. I would like to thank all 800+ readers who expressed an interest in this course and for everyone who completed the course the first time round, it is becasue of you I could make the course better.
Before we start
A few readers are now blogging about their experiences on the course, and it would be great to lend your support:
Stacy Claflin – Grow With Stacy
Marty BoneIdol – Living Life in Chapters
Stephen – New Life Starts Here
Check out the interview with Sandi Amorim for Deva Coaching Following an Alchemist
Read the interview I have done with Angela Artemis from Powered by Intuition
Watch an interview I made with Suzie Cheel on Mind Alchemy
Mind Alchemy Day 17
Is it possible for someone to feel happy all of the time, or even most of the time? Well, you probably guessed that I am going to say that long term happiness is a myth, it physically cannot be achieved.
The feeling of being happy happens all the time to us at some stage in our lives, and it’s a wonderful feeling to be happy. But, it is a short term feeling. Being happy is an emotion and just like all emotions we feel it is temporary. If we were to feel happy all day every day we would practically implode, I suppose at least we would die with a smile on our face 
This might sound a little negative and a little counter intuitive to the message I am trying to give to everyone at this blog, but bear with me.
The physiology of being happy
When we get that feeling of being happy, there’s a million different things going on in our body that we are unaware of. There’s hormones being released right left and center, heart begins pumping a little faster, veins dilate in order to pump more blood around the body, pupils dilate, and natural drugs are secreted to make us feel happier. I won’t bore you with everything that goes on, but sufficed to say the emotion of happiness gets the body working a little harder and it can only last for a short time. Just like the emotion of fear, our bodies can only take that emotion for so long before we either pass out, or take flight and run before taking time to calm down.
Chasing happiness
If you look at a lot of outcomes we have in our lives, the superficial ones, like a new sports car, a bigger house, lots of money. If we really break it down and ask someone why they want lots of money, they might say to buy nice things – why do you want to buy nice things? – so I feel wealthy – Why do you want to feel wealthy – Well i can give up work and help my family – why do you want to do that? – to feel happy.
That’s a bit simplistic, but most of the superficial things we are working toward, like buying a fancy car, a huge house, having lots of money is to make us feel happy, or to capture that emotion of happiness. But, we’ve just shown that physically we cannot sustain that feeling of happiness. This is why, when we eventually get that big house, we feel happy for a short period of time, but the feeling soon disappears and we are chasing something else to make us feel happy.
I’ve got great news and that is we can have something much better than the short term feeling of happiness.
What do we feel after the buzz of feeling happy? What we get immediately after the buzz of happiness is a warm glow of contentedness.
We have all been chasing happiness for most of our lives when we should have been chasing contentment.
Contentment is a much more controlled and mellow emotion and can be sustained for long periods of time.
Shifting our focus
If we shift our focus ever so slightly we can make a huge difference in our lives.
Think of the question:
What would make you feel really happy?
A lot of us might say: more money, a perfect partner, children, no children , a bigger car, better work conditions, less hours at work.
Whereas if we ask the question:
What would make you feel really content?
We might then say: Knowing my family is safe, more time with my kids, doing the things I love, having a job I’m passionate about, spending time on my hobby, having a loving relationship.
You see the difference here.
The very phrase ‘being content’ almost conjures up a mellow, laid back feeling, knowing that all is right with the world. Being content brings us closer to the things that really matter in our lives, like our loved ones, being passionate about a job, doing something for love and not money. If we can have the feeling of contentment we can change our thinking at the same time, we can change our emotions, and we can change our beliefs and perceptions of the world. If we can change all that, hell we can change the whole wide world if we want to. However we are looking at changing you and not the whole world
The path to contentment does not go through happiness and it does not pass the town of superficiality, meaning contentment is a feeling of peace and calmness, and the temporary emotion of happiness, and the superficial things in life such as cars, and lots of money will not bring contentment.
If we look for contentment in our lives rather than happiness, we can make a big shift in the way we see the world.
Today’s exercise
Download todays exercise here
In this exercise we are going to be looking at the things that would make us feel content in life. Once we’ve done that we will look at what we can do today to start working toward the outcome of contentment.
Tomorrow
Tomorrow we will looking at your reality. Until tomorrow my fellow Mind Alchemists……..
Action follows a thought…
This course is about taking action, and to become pro active in changing your life. Take time to do this exercise and really think about it throughout the day. You don’t need to wait until tomorrow to take steps to improve your ‘Wheel of Life’, but with the support and encouragement from all the members we can help each other and support each other, but ultimately ‘you have to bring something to the table!’
Your thoughts
As always it’s good to talk about your experiences and share it with the rest of the members of the course, so let us know how this exercise went for you and if you gained any insights or had any revelations about yourself or your life.
You can share your thoughts at Mind Alchemy Facebook Group
You can Tweet using the hashtag #MindAlchemy
Or of course you can leave a comment below
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Steven I like your style, and your warmth, and you gentle humour and your sense of reality. I think your program is very good and very well paced and comprehensive. You’re doing a wonderful service. Best wishes to you.
Thank you for you kind comments Ligia, I really appreciate it.
There are so many people who are always chasing things, instead of being in the moment of life, which comes down to one of my thoughts regarding this Steven, if we shift this thought “happiness” to “being content” it makes a big difference just like you are teaching us here, really, really, really good point!
I truly believe this could help many people to decrease their level of stress and anxiety, once again wonderful exercise and I must agree with Ligia on this one, you are doing a wonderful service plus you are a very good man
Steven, personally I have done all the exercises, achievement that is for me
and I am always getting deeper understanding with each step we move more forward in your course plus I personally will go back to these exercises and I will keep them with me, modify and change things to improve myself more 
Thank you so much for a wonderful course!
Hi Engilbert, it’s great to see you progressing through the course and even better to see you sticking with it. I think the community involvement plays a big role in courses like this. The facebook group is very active and very supportive for everyone which is great to see. Thank you as always for your comments, i really appreciate them.
Steven Aitchison recently posted..Mind Alchemy Day 17 – The Myth of Happiness
Steven, this is a great day, I LOVE THE FEELING OF CONTENTMENT!!!!!!!!! I have so much progress in my life in the last week. My relationships at work are better, my relationship with my daughter is better and I am not anxious to have my outcomes, I feel content with my life, there is a switch that has been switched on in my head and I am feeling content. I feel very supported by you and the team in this. Thank you so much and have a great weekend …..
Hi Koula. It’s great to hear that you have made a difference in your life, it soudns as if there’s been a big change. Thank you so much for your comments.
Steven Aitchison recently posted..Mind Alchemy Day 17 – The Myth of Happiness
I just SO concur with what you have written here. I tend to say that there is no such thing as happiness. The way you have described it really does make sense Steven. Happiness is indeed temporary. For quite a while now I’ve aspired to contentment and I remind myself that for a lot of the time I do have contentment. A loving wife and family, a home, a job that I enjoy for the majority of the time, some really nice friends, the band, my faith…. the list is likely longer if I choose to look at it. The things I’m not happy in my life with at the moment are actually minor intrusions that falsely appear my bigger than they really are. I’m going to do todays exercise a little later. Thank you.
Marty recently posted..Letting go your Outcomes – The pinball effect
Hi Marty. It’s useful to use the life wheel again and assess your life by how content you feel, then you will see which areas to work on.
I know what you mean about the minor intrusions seeming bigger
Steven Aitchison recently posted..Mind Alchemy Day 17 – The Myth of Happiness
I guess what I am feeling so much of the time is contentment……….and here I thought I was happy…….Several years ago I came up with the phrase Smile and Prosper. Itshowed up on my to do list first. I would write down Smile and Prosper……then smile. It was so great to get something done so quickly and easily. It helped me start my day with a smile and a calm expection of having a good day.
The one thing that helped most with the money end was thinking…..I have enough money ………enough money for today……..That thought really takes the pressure off. It helps me enjoy my y my life. I found when I stopped chasing money money started slipping away from me.
I chose to smile and prosper…….write it ……say it………smile……you’re half away there.
Hi Wayne, I like your philosphy in life, about having enough money for the day. Smile and prosper …:)
Steven Aitchison recently posted..Mind Alchemy Day 17 – The Myth of Happiness
Great distinction Steven. Happiness is quite temporal whereas contentment is a higher plane of existence. Clearly money is not the answer… money can buy things and things never bring happiness. Often the things we strive for to make us happy are precisely the source of our unhappiness.
rob white recently posted..Reality of Accountability
Hi Rob, I think we’ve all had the feeling of getting something we wanted and feeling a slight disappointment when we got it, it’s the build up we like not the actual prize at the end of it.
Steven Aitchison recently posted..Mind Alchemy Day 17 – The Myth of Happiness
Steven, I agree with you that contentment is better sought after than happiness. I wrote a post last October on happiness that turned into four posts. I compared chasing happiness to trying to hold water in your hand. I focused on gratitude and living in the moment, basically being content with what we have and where we are. Happiness is a great feeling but like you said we can’t live there.
Stacy recently posted..Emotional Homeostasis
Hi Stacy, I think you have provided a perfect analogy of holding water. Thanks for that.
Actually there are very different feelings of what people label happiness and contentment. Also there are different degrees of the above. This is because there are different states of consciousness. For example Wikipedia says, under Yoga Philosophy, “In all branches of yoga, the ultimate goal is the attainment of an eternal state of perfect consciousness.” You could call this perfect peace or infinite happiness but it is an experience.
Chuck Bluestein recently posted..Transsexual Model- Lea T- on Oprah Show
Hi Chuck I hear what you are saying here, and it is our interpretation of what happiness is. what I am talking about is the attainment of happiness from external sources. Yoga philosophy is the attainment of inner happiness, which is a different type of happiness.
Happiness is a choice, an expression of joy and love that can be had at anytime. To maintain the feeling of happiness all of the time you must simply recall the feelings of gratitude and love, being ever thankful for the wonderful gifts you have received in life! I think Confucius put it best, “As soon as I long for goodness, goodness is at hand.” Simply put, If you ‘want’ to be happy, then be.
Hi Jesse, happiness is an emotion which cannot be sustained all the time, we’d literally burn out if we were in a perpetual state of happiness. I think there are different interpretations of happiness here.
You are correct Steven, every person is going to have their own definition of happiness. We also each make different choices and I know that my emotions are a choice, that is, I can choose to feel upset or I can choose to feel happy. I know what it feels like to be unhappy, and knowing that; I have made the choice to be eternally grateful for all that I have, even if I am all that I have left.
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