Overcome stress, low motivation, unhappiness, loneliness, codependency, shyness, emptiness, and negative thinking. Develop self-esteem, assertiveness, emotional control, time-management, confidence, spiritual harmony, success, and self-actualization.

If you want to maximize your happiness, this book is for you!

Many books may help you with some of these issues. How is this book different? Readers of prepublication copies say that it really works. Dr. Tom Stevens is not the type of author who just writes about what others have done. Dr. Stevens' knowledge about how to be happy--despite difficult circumstances--comes from helping hundreds of clients as a licensed psychologist, from his years of study and research, and from his own life. He lives the ideas he writes about. He views emotional problems from philosophical-spiritual, psychological, and personal perspectives. He considers his greatest accomplishments to be a happy life, a wonderful marriage, and his contributions to the happiness of others. He believes we can learn to do what we enjoy or enjoy what we do. His unusual background and experience has helped him assemble one of the most complete and up-to-date books about HOW TO BE HAPPY.

This book is for people who are serious about being happy. You can develop your inner power to "rise above" negative emotions, and You Can Choose To Be Happy. Each chapter is packed with valuable information about how to be happy even in the most difficult circumstances--even if you have a history of unhappiness or depression. The book is especially for people who value self-growth and development to become happier healthier people. It teaches how to explore deep causes of stress and unhappiness and how to find alternative routes to happiness no matter what the situation is. It explores underlying beliefs that lead to pessimism versus realistic optimism.

People often look for a book about how to overcome past low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, procrastination, shyness, lack of assertiveness, or other specific problems. However, these problems are often just symptoms of deeper beliefs that cause the person to think or act dysfunctionally. What is "broken" usually isn't just a habit, but one's basic beliefs. In contrast to the specific, problem-oriented approaches of many books on the market today, a primary goal of this book is to empower the growth-oriented core of our personality--something Dr. Stevens calls the "Higher Self." Inner harmony and growth are keys to happiness. Each of us has a Higher Self that can remain a weak voice within; or it can become a strong leader--the executive of our personality. Providing change in the top-level of our personality is a necessary part of transcending our history and progressing toward self-actualization. To become strong, the Higher Self must develop a positive, functional philosophy of life and must learn the knowledge and skills required to bring all of our subparts into harmony--like a maestro conducting a great symphony.

Happiness is not just a good feeling; it comes from a feedback mechanism built into the brain that measures how our lives are doing overall. The big secret of how You Can Choose To Be Happy helps you become happier (in even difficult circumstances ) comes from striking new insights about the causes of emotions. The "Harmonious Functioning Model" of emotions will teach you how to adjust your emotions almost like adjusting a thermostat to turn up the emotional heat or to turn it down. Learn how to "rise above" anxiety, anger, and depression. The Harmonious Functioning Model of the relationship between thoughts and emotions provides a simple state-of-the-art model that readers can use to better understand and control their emotions.

The harmonious functioning model assumes that the brain is an information processor and assumes that the main functions of the cerebral cortex are (1) to learn at an optimal rate and (2) to carry out the executive functions of running our lives. Therefore, it should be no great surprise that learning and mental control are among our strongest [higher] human motives.

The primary function of the sensations--like pleasure and pain--is to provide feedback about the innate, lower need states [hunger, thirst, sex, etc.]. The primary function of the emotions--like anger, anxiety, depression, and happiness--is to provide feedback about the learned, higher need states information and managing our lives. For example, sex normally produces powerful, innate sensations of pleasure. However, the thought that one might get AIDS can overshadow any biologically-based pleasure and create emotions like fear.

Think of a time when you had a "peak experience." What was happening? What caused it? When the brain is learning at an optimal rate (when its inputs or tasks are optimally challenging at all levels), then it hums along in a state of harmonious functioning. Our mind is functioning in the way "it was designed" to optimally function. If we are overstimulated or overchallenged with too much input for our abilities, then we feel the overarousal emotions such as anxiety and confusion. If we are understimulated or underchallenged, then we feel bored or depressed.

Being "in the zone" of harmonious functioning creates the "Big 3" outcomes of peak learning, peak performance, and peak happiness. This model explains why people who seem to have all life's advantages are often less happy than people who have much less. It is mental control of events--not external control--that is the key to happiness.

Our happiness level tells us how healthily our body, mind, and "spirit" are functioning. Our emotions tell us if our lives are in proper balance and harmony. We cannot be maximally happy if we only live for today or only live for ourselves. An innate brain mechanism controlling our emotions scans our personal world and will not let us completely ignore important issues.

Knowing that in any situation we can choose one of many internal or external routes to happiness gives us optimism and confidence--mental control of the situation. However, all these routes eventually end in thoughts; thoughts measured by this harmonious functioning-emotions brain mechanism. Therefore, harmonious thinking--not just getting what we want--is the key to happiness. It is the match between inputs and our expectations, abilities, and other thinking processes that determine our emotional reactions. When the match is harmonious, the result is happiness.

Understanding and planning increase mental control of emotions. Chapter 8 summarizes six powerful mental control strategies for raising or lowering our emotional temperatures. It provides the reader with specific tools for "rising above" anxiety, anger, and depression.

Relationships and loneliness are key sources of happiness or unhappiness. Readers can learn how to overcome fears of rejection and criticism or unhealthy needs for acceptance or codependence. They can become more internally controlled and assertive. Chapter 6 tells how.

Finally, O-PATSM is a time and life management system that Dr. Stevens has taught to thousands of people through his workshops and has proven to help people reach their goals, get more control of their lives, be more productive, and have more fun!