I assume you want to be happier. Searching for greater happiness is a wonderful thing whatever level of happiness you are currently at. It could be that you are already enjoying life and just searching for a new idea, or it could be that you have felt negative towards life or the experiences life has dealt you. If you feel in anyway negative about life I would like to share something with you.

It is human nature to take a look at the darker side of life. I have often dwelt on this side. I've found that in this negative place I often feel a greater sense of hopelessness and loss. I believe when we have had a traumatic experience it is right that we should feel this way for a time. Perhaps it has been right for you to feel this way. Perhaps it was part of the healing process for whatever you have been through up until now. Perhaps looking at the negative side of life has served you well up until now ? as a form of protection ? but I think that in the long run that it would be wrong and harmful to your health, and life, for you continue with these thoughts once you have acknowledged that they exist. Let me expand on why I believe this.

Whatever life has dealt you, however bad things were or are; there has been a lesson for you to learn from that experience. If you are still in a situation that makes you unhappy it would be wise to review it and see what you can do to leave it or alleviate the pain and frustration from it. In the ending of an unhappy experience you are released and presented with something that can be used to make everyday from here onwards happier? and that something can be summed up in one word?

Out of your hardship, out of your hopelessness and feeling of being lost you will find 'opportunity', opportunity to be free of all the hardship of the past, an opportunity to rediscover yourself, an opportunity to do all the things you might like to have done but could not or did not do before. Let me give you an example of the day a thought about an opportunity came.

The thought came as a shock, so out of place with the rest of my thoughts that day that I stopped what I was doing instantly. A few seconds passed and then I began to laugh like I hadn't laughed in years.

I had been upset. I had been dwelling on the down side of my relationship break-up. In particular I had been regretting so many wasted years. I was feeling just awful when the thought I am telling you about travelled through my brain like an express train. The thought was this:

"I am a lucky man, in an enviable position and I'm a free to create the most incredible relationship with the most incredible woman I've ever met."

Until that moment I had no idea that the break-up of my relationship had a positive side, but that realisation made me laugh. That realisation reshaped my day. In fact it did a lot more than that?

Over the next few days I still had plenty of moments when I thought about all the things that hurt me. The good thing was though that the "I'm a lucky man?' thoughts kept returning. I realise now that what I had begun to do was let go of my attachment to my past relationship. I begun to spend time sitting down with my eyes shut and repeating the thoughts that I was now free to create the most incredible relationship. As I did this it was like cords breaking. The heartache and pain subsided gradually over the following days and I began to feel somehow lighter, like a little of my pain had been lifted off.

Within four months that incredible relationship began to unfold. First I met this wonderful woman. We became close friends and from there the magic has just continued to unfold.

Try this:

For a moment close your eyes. Think about one thing that is causing you heart-ache. Now, be playful and imagine that this pain is in fact a great opportunity. Smile as you think about the opportunity that is now available to you right now. It may be a relationship. It may be a change of job. Whatever it is, just remember that as one door closes another opens?

This article is an extract from Neil Millar's 'Greater Steps to Happiness'. Visit http://www.neilmillar.net and find out how to join Neil's fast-growing readership and obtain a free copy of this e-book.