Why The Option Dialogue Works

Why is the Option Method Dialogue so effective for helping us feel good? It turns upside down what we’ve been taught about unhappiness that has disempowered us all. We’ve been taught that unhappiness “happens to us”, that other people can “make us” feel unhappy, and that unhappiness is simply a normal, inevitable part of life. We’ve accepted we aren’t in charge of how we feel, and therefore feeling good can be elusive or difficult at best.

The Option Dialogue views our emotional state from a whole new perspective. This empowering perspective teaches us that our feelings come from our beliefs, and we have the power to change our beliefs to feel happier. It’s not our lives, the people in it, or that stroke of bad luck that makes us unhappy, but rather how we decide to perceive what’s happening in our lives. Once we embrace the Option perspective, we actually have the power to help ourselves feel better.

Most of us are aware of our reasons for being unhappy: My boss didn’t give me the promotion; My children are demanding and unappreciative; My spending is out of control. We become unhappy when things in our lives don’t go the way we want. We actually believe we have no choice but to feel bad, or that we would be foolish to feel good. We can take charge of our emotions when we come from the perspective that our unhappiness comes from our beliefs, rather than those things outside of us. Viewing our problems from this perspective starts to reveal new reasons behind our unhappiness. These reasons are actually beliefs we hold about why it’s necessary and useful for us to be unhappy.

We have all been educated to believe that unhappiness is necessary and beneficial. We’ve been taught that unhappiness is often required to motive ourselves and others.  So, we feel bad to get ourselves to lose weight, or use anger to motivate our child to be more responsible. We’ve been taught that unhappiness is essential to help us know who we are, what we want, how much we want it, and to show others and ourselves how much we care. The more we fail to get what we want, the unhappier we become, all the while believing it is necessary. But is it really? Because these ideas have never been challenged, we remain victims to our belief in the necessity of unhappiness, and its pervasive impact.

Through an Option Dialogue we have an amazing opportunity to question our beliefs in the necessity of unhappiness. Challenging these beliefs reveals to us our unexamined reasons for believing we need to be, or have no choice but to be unhappy. By examining our deeper reasons for unhappiness, we are empowered to see for ourselves the truth and effectiveness of these beliefs. When we truly understand unhappiness doesn’t benefit us the way we thought it would, there is no longer any reason to hold on. Feeling good is now not only possible, but a spontaneous, natural outcome.