You Can Choose To Be Happy: "Rise Above" Anxiety, Anger, and Depression [Paperback]

Tom G. Stevens (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0965337715 | ISBN-13: 978-0965337717 | Publication Date: February 10, 1998 | Edition: First Edition 1998 (out of print)

The timeless 1998 book (ISBN 0965337715-the First Edition) received such glowing feedback from readers, and was the basis for research leading to the 2010 REVISED EDITION (ISBN 9780965337724) which includes Research Results from 3400 people completing the Success and Happiness Attributes Questionnaire (SHAQ) and from other research strongly supporting the ideas in the book. It also has additional sections on Interpersonal Skills, updated research, and other revisions. Available on Amazon and Kindle--search Amazon.
* Do you want to discover the causes of happiness and unhappiness?
* Would you like to develop greater self-esteem?
* Do you want a more positive, but realistic, view of the world?
* Would you like to learn how to achieve more mental control over emotions such as anxiety, anger, guilt, and depression?
* Do you worry too much about pleasing others, rejection, or gaining approval?
* Are you too dependent on others for your happiness? * Would you like to get more internal control of your life or become more assertive? * Are you too codependent (take too much responsibility for others)?
* Do you want to improve your ability to motivate yourself, achieve your goals, and have a greater impact on the world?
* Would you like to feel less stress and make your time more productive?
* Would you like to advance in your journey to self-actualization (be more like self-actualizing people, who are extremely happy and productive)? 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

Editorial Reviews

Review

"I'm a self-help book junkie, and this is the best self-help book I've read."

"This book is a terrific combination of scholarship, superb information, and spirituality."

"It's packed with insightful knowledge and expertise. All the personal experiences, and all the skills that I learned will stay with me forever."

"I am a professional and find most self-help books too simplistic. I was happy to find one that was so interesting and that I could get so much from. I highly recommend it to people who are more advanced in their own self-development."

"This book is much more clear, understandable, and 100 times more useful [than other self-help books]." --Readers

A test group of 35 adults read a prepublication version of the book. 100% said that they would recommend the book to a friend--40% said they already had. When asked, overall, how useful the book was, readers gave it a average rating of 8.23 on a 1-9 rating scale. --Test Goup

A thorough presentation, rich in detail, yet very reader friendly. I enthusiastically endorse Tom Stevens' book and recommend it as a powerful tool for human development. --Dr. Wayne Dyer, author of Your Erroneous Zones, Pulling Your Own Strings, Your Sacred Self

From the Publisher

How much can you control your happiness? Could you overcome almost any circumstances and still be happy? Could you be happy even if you were flat on your back in a full-body cast for over a year (unable to watch TV or read)? Read how Genevieve did. She discovered how to create active, positive mental states. Later, she said, "That was the happiest year of my life--I learned to love myself and get control of my life. Before that year, she feared doing what she really wanted. Afterward, she had much higher self-esteem and assertiveness, changed careers, and eventually obtained her doctorate in counseling. You will read many other true stories of exactly how people overcame all kinds of difficult situations to find happiness. They key is how they got mental control of the situation.

Each day, we are harassed by negative inputs that get their sting from our underlying fears. We hate reading about gang killings because we fear for our own safety. We hate reading about a recession out of fear for our own financial security. Underneath small daily anxieties lay major, unresolved sources of anxiety--such as fears of poverty, loneliness, failure, sickness, or death.

One attempt to feel better is refusing to read the newspaper and block out all thoughts about the possibilities of poverty or death. However, that solution is only temporary. Dr. Stevens shows that the secret to overcoming fears is to dig down into our basic beliefs about ourselves, our world, and the meaning of life. These basic beliefs generate our positive or negative thoughts.

Readers learn to see life from new points-of-view that are hardier than their old ones. More constructive beliefs will triumph if they are believable and if they produce the most fruit (of happiness).

Chapter 3 teaches about your natural Higher Self the part that wants to be happy and naturally loves you unconditionally. Your Higher Self can be your inner "hero" in time of need, and it can help you become a more integrated, peaceful person. You can resolve motivational conflicts such as "work" versus "play" or "pleasing others" versus "pleasing self." You can learn how to accept your past mistakes and parts of yourself that you disown. You can improve your self-esteem and self-confidence by following the clear step-by-step instructions in chapters 3 and 5.

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. See Chapters 7 and 8.

What distinguishes You Can Choose To Be Happy from other self-help books on the market? As one reader said, "Overall, it's the best book I have seen about how to be happy." It integrates many ideas from religion, philosophy, and clinical and research psychology into simple models that readers can understand and use--such as the harmonious functioning model. It presents many real stories of how my clients and I have applied these ideas to create happier lives.

While almost anyone can understand and receive help from this book, it as an "advanced self-help book." First, like Wayne Dyer's Your Erroneous Zones or Maxwell Maltz's Psychocybernetics, it is general in scope it doesn't deal with one narrow type of problem as most books on the market do today. It deals with core ideas that transcend many problem areas. However, as Wayne Dyer's book went into greater depth and reflected the more advanced psychological thinking of its day, this book builds upon more recent advancements in psychology.

Another way it is advanced is that it goes beyond many self-help and recovery books toward helping the reader reach for higher levels of thinking and living. It is not just about overcoming problems. Many people began their quest for happiness focusing on their pain and problems, but are moving beyond problem-orientation to growth-orientation. You Can Choose To Be Happy helps make that transition. Readers can gain increased mental control over their emotions, self-esteem, and life from the comprehensive self-change program built into the structure of the book. This self-development program unfolds chapter-by-chapter.

(Go to the the BOOK EXCERPTS section to see an outline of the Choose To Be Happy Self- Development plan.)

The many personal and client examples presented in the book can help the reader learn how to make these ideas work in their lives. Readers say that knowing these ideas were written by someone who has found them successful in his own life and in the lives of his clients gives them more hope. One reader wrote, "It gave me practical advice on how to implement the ideas. The step-by-step instructions were a rare and invaluable component."

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Wheeler-Sutton Publishing Company; First Edition 1998 (out of print) edition (February 10, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0965337715
• ISBN-13: 978-0965337717
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,375,141 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dr. Tom G. Stevens is a psychologist professor emeritus at California State University, Long Beach; where he worked in the Counseling and Psychological Services Center for 31 years. His four degrees include a PhD in Psychology from the University of Hawaii and a Master of Theology from the Claremont School of Theology. He was a United Methodist minister before getting his PhD. Integrating theology, philosophy, and science is a special interest of his.

His pursuit of understanding how people can learn to be happy and more productive began with a life-altering experience at age 16. Dr. Stevens' professional contributions include a number of publications and papers. He has completed research in the areas of self-management and emotional coping, interpersonal communication, career and life planning, assertion training, life skills training, habit change, and artificial intelligence. One of his research projects was a four-year study of factors contributing to the happiness and success of over 4,000 college students and persons in the community.

He also led a series of experimental studies developing self-instructional videotapes for interpersonal skills training. All ten experimental studies found positive effects. He and his wife Sherry developed a relationship questionnaire (the SRQ) which had high correlations with relationship happiness. The research supported many of their ideas about successful relationships. He has also developed "ANDY" a computer program utilizing artificial intelligence to assess and advise college students.

He has developed a number of college classes and community workshops to help people learn self-management, career, and interpersonal skills. Thousands of people have participated in these classes and workshops (which receive high ratings from participants).

Dr. Stevens has used the term Spiritual Cognitive Therapy to designate a psychotherapy approach that varies from traditional cognitive therapy by focusing more upon people's top values and beliefs, because they are the core of our personality and probably are the most important long-term factors affecting our emotions and life success.

After writing the first (1998) edition of his book, You Can Choose To Be Happy: Rise Above Anxiety, Anger, and Depression, Dr. Stevens wanted even more proof that this book was valid, so he developed the free, online questionnaire, SHAQ (The Success and Happiness Attributes Questionnaire), by going through each chapter, taking each main idea, and turning it into questions. He correlated these questions (and related scales) with over 3400 SHAQ users' emotional and life success measures. SHAQ scales correlated with Happiness, .87; with Low Depression, .73; with Low Anxiety, .68; with Low Anger-Aggression, .70; with Relationship Success, .70; and with good results for career success measures. Correlations this high are rarely found in this type of research. We're unaware of any self-help book that has ever tested its ideas so extensively. These dramatic results impelled Dr. Stevens to write the 2010 revision of his book and include his research and new sections.

Dr. Stevens lives what he writes about. His favorite hobby is tennis, which he plays often. He and his wife Sherry have the kind of intimate--yet independent--relationship he writes about. Their many happy activities together include dancing, biking, swimming, music, reading, walking, and travel. They spend part of each year in their Maui paradise. Between them they have three "children" who are now adults.

Dr. Stevens believes that his greatest success is living a happy life and helping others find happiness. He has spent his life learning the secrets of how to overcome negative emotions and how to be happy, and wants to share them with as many people as possible. He wants you to know how You Can Choose to Be Happy.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Marriage & Family Therapist from California, May 4, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: You Can Choose To Be Happy: "Rise Above" Anxiety, Anger, and Depression (Paperback)

Only read this book if you want to change your life. This book is for people who want to help themselves and believe that they have choices in their lives. As a therapist, I believe this concept is one of the most important awarenesses you can have. Once a person accepts this they know they can have more control over their reactions in every life situation. Dr. Stevens book is not to entertain but to give well thought out strategies for rising above difficult situations and moving towards "harmonious functioning", which he defines as having happiness and harmony in your life.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Love this book, December 21, 2007

By 

janis winters "janis winters" (Colorado) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: You Can Choose To Be Happy: "Rise Above" Anxiety, Anger, and Depression (Paperback)

This is a great book. Each sentence is relevant with a point and it's structured very well. Complex material is presented in a simple manner and there isn't any filler. It is clear the author is a great teacher. It reminds me of all the good professors I've had who were so comforting with sound advice from life experience and sincere wisdom. I found this book the day after I was given a diagnosis for bipolar disorder and it changed everything for me in a matter of hours. I am ordering a copy so I can highlight passages and come back to it again and again. I'm not a sucker for self-help books. I am skeptical of most books and bored very easily. My first impression of this book was that it may be too simple as I have been forced to read many dry, complicated texts as I earned a Masters of Science. However, I soon found that the material was very deep and presented so well that it was easy to understand and impossible to put down. Thanks to the author for helping me to rediscover the internal sources of contentment that I had lost in my post grad life and presenting the tools I needed to reject my life-long diagnosis and easily gain control of my moods and my own happiness.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best self help books, June 11, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: You Can Choose To Be Happy: "Rise Above" Anxiety, Anger, and Depression (Paperback)

said it all above plus it's free on author's website.