The Cure for Happiness: Timeless Secrets to a Stress Free Life

By Andrew Alexander

If you want to live a happy and stress-free life; this book is definitely for you.

From shots fired in a speeding police car, facing death in the middle of the wilderness, to watching his company suddenly collapse in front of his eyes, leaving him homeless in the middle of a foreign country with no money; Andrew learned a thing or two about dealing with stress.

Not because he wanted to, but because he desperately needed to.

Through this journey of battling depression, stress, and social anxiety; Andrew accidentally discovered the cure for happiness. And now it's time to share what he has learned with you.

If you've been searching for a happy and stress-free life; it's aleady here...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andrew Alexander
• Release date: Feb 16, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370962181

Book preview

The Cure for Happiness

Timeless Secrets to a Stress Free Life

ANDREW ALEXANDER

Copyright © 2017 Andrew Alexander

All rights reserved.

Independently published

I wrote this book for you.

Have you ever loved someone so much that you’d go to any length to make sure they are happy? You are that person and that’s why I wrote this book for you, because life is short and you deserve to be happy.

I love you and I wish nothing more than for you to be able to experience life the way you want to experience it.

Preface

Inner Calm in a Chaotic Life

Shots fired! dispatch shouted through the radio.

Flipping on the lights and sirens, we hi-tail our police cruiser through the city streets at 95 miles per hour towards the active shooter. Less than twenty seconds away from the scene, we hear another officer scream through the radio in a panic, I need help. Right now! Step it up guys!

The screams for help were muffled by the chaos and fighting in the background.

As our tires peel around the sharp corner at 50 miles per hour, we see his patrol car surrounded by a crowd of violent teens dressed in gang colors. My partner slams on the brakes, the tires burn to a halt, and the car door flies open.

I draw my gun from the holster, size up the scene around me, and run towards the chaos that is unfolding all around.

A gunshot rings off and the crowd screams in terror…

Six Months Earlier

We are lined up for roll call during the first week of the police academy. It’s been three days and 25% of the recruit class has already dropped out because they couldn’t handle the pressure.

The remaining 30 of us are lined up in formation and we’re instructed to stand with our arms down to the sides with a blank stare on our faces. We aren’t allowed to move a muscle, regardless of what happens.

They do this to instill discipline in us.

Twenty minutes pass by and we are still waiting for the academy instructors to come out from the building to our front.

Maybe they forgot about us?

The explosion of words came out of nowhere, right behind my ear, like the shockwaves of an atomic bomb rippling through every cell in my body. Myself and the rest of the class jump in shock and terror, reacting to the chaos around us.

CLASS! Sergeant Moore screamed at the top of his lungs, with the power of his voice alone causing one recruit to fall over onto the pavement. I gave you an order NOT to move! Get on the floor and start doing pushups!

The whole class reacted in terror and fear. All of us panicked while trying to follow his orders as quickly as possible. The more we panicked, the more stress we felt, and the more we lost control of our actions.

All of us, except for one of the recruits.

Jim was a former Army Lieutenant who spent two tours of duty in Iraq. While the rest of the recruit class physically and emotionally collapsed under the instructor’s words alone, Jim had a cool, calm, and collected demeanor.

Regardless of how intense things were on the outside, he held his cool on the inside.

Maintaining full control of his emotions.

How does he do it?

Hey Jim, how do you manage to stay calm when all this stuff is happing around you? I asked him during one of our 15-minute breaks.

"What you need to know is that your emotional state is always created and maintained from within", he said, continuing with his lesson.

Most people think that the things happening to them on the outside are the cause of how they feel:

The things you say annoy me.

The customers at work make me feel stressed.

My boss pisses me off.

Having to stand in front of the class makes me nervous.

What most people don’t realize is that it’s not actually the things outside of us that cause these emotions. Instead, it’s actually something within ourselves.

When you learn how to tap into and harness this power, you will realize that no matter how chaotic your life is, you are always in control of how you feel.

Of course we all notice patterns in our lives (when X happens, I feel Y) but there is a way to handle that, which I’ll teach you very shortly.

In those situations, 99% of people give up control, but when you tap into this power, you’ll have a level of control of your life that most people can’t even imagine.

Most people react to the things that happen outside of them.

Most people think other things have control over how they feel.

Most people are emotionally unstable.

A strong label, but he was right.

If you want to deal with stress and anxiety in your life, You’ll have to learn how to maintain control over and harness the power of your emotions.

As future police officers, we have the duty and obligation to maintain our emotions regardless of what happens to us.

When we are face to face with a man pointing a gun or knife at us, we have to operate with calmness and clarity.

When we are in the middle of a riot or fight that is turning violent, we have to maintain our collective calm.

When we get called to a man who abused a girl, we have to put our emotions aside and act professionally.

Is it hard to do at first? Hell yeah. But when you learn to regain control, you can still do the things you need to do in life, to get you to where you want to go. The only difference is that you can do so without the struggle it takes most people to get there.

Don’t you think you have an advantage? You’ve been in the military, led troops through a war zone, and you are already trained for this. I asked, thinking he had some type of ability that I didn’t.

What is the difference between my ability to control my emotions and yours? he asked.

Absolutely nothing.

I reacted the same way you guys did when I went through my basic training in the Army. But the moment you learn this lesson, it is like a flip of a switch.

You will no longer get stressed over the small things.

Whatever life throws your way; you’re equipped to handle it.

You can choose to be happy.

Regaining this ability is freeing.

But how do you do it?

Just by understanding this one lesson alone, the transformation you’re already making in your life not only applies to your chosen profession, but also carries over to all areas of your life.

Where most people get upset and stressed about the little things in life, the lessons you are learning here today will provide you a sense of inner calm.

No matter what happens in your life, you can handle anything.

After all, life is an emotional experience. We do our best to have the experiences we enjoy having. Don’t we?

Going forward, embrace the chaos. Embrace the uncertainty. Embrace the pain. We’ll have to push through a lot of things that happen to us in life. You can’t control the things that happen to you, but you can control how you respond to them.

By the time you finish your training, I’m confident that you’ll be able to handle the stress and pressure just as well, if not better than I can.

Our 15-minute break just ended and the moment Sgt. Moore came in the room and ordered us to do more pushups, I forgot everything Jim told me on that day.

The stress kicked in, and I dropped to the floor.

Shots Fired

The gunshot rang out, the crowd screamed, and the scene is left in chaos.

While innocent bystanders are running away in fear and panic, my partner and I run forward with a sense of calmness, clarity, and confidence on the inside like Jim taught me how to do six months earlier.

We call for more backup and slowly regain control of the situation. In this moment, there are no fears or worries getting in the way. We are doing a job and we are doing it with clear focus.

We link up with the third officer on the scene who called for our help. From there, we fight through an aggressive crowd, take down the suspect, secure the weapon, and place the shooter in handcuffs.

Fortunately, nobody was severely injured in the chaos, the gunshot went off into the air, and everybody is going home tonight.

While many of the people in the area were filled with fear and were hiding, my partners and I looked at each other with the following words left unspoken, Just another day at the office.

What changed since that first day at the police academy?

How is it that I once couldn’t handle myself when a training instructor yelled at us to do pushups and now I can face a scene like this without a thought in the world?

With the transition all of us made since that first day of training to being completely calm and at peace in one of the most chaotic situations one could imagine being in, I learned one thing:

You already have this same power to harness and maintain full control of your emotions, but how do you unleash it?

That’s what this book will teach you.

The point of this story is not to say that we can control the things that happen to us. It’s simply to allow you to realize a clear distinction:

There are things that happen outside of us.

There is the way we feel on the inside.

In this book, I will teach you how to create a positive emotional experience in this life regardless of what happens on the outside.

Life is