Dark Chocolate & OJ
Cuddling with my dog
Playing in rain
Hugs
Considerate ppl
Music - the louder, the better
Creativity
Cheering ppl up
Laughing
Long deep conversations
Doing things I’m not supposed to
Looking at old photos
Being different
Being appreciated
Taking pictures of things/other ppl
Reading thought provoking books
Apple-cranberry-grape juice
Dreaming
Sleeping - at least 9 hrs
Snow
Marshmallows
Wearing baggy jeans - being comfortable
Writing/receiving poetry
Dying my hair
Road trips
When my daddy orders my food for me (he’s tha only 1 that knows what i like)
Heart-felt compliments
Being helpful
Watching good movies
To have someone brush my hair
Tetherball
Listening to my parents tell stories about their lives
Petting my birds and letting them climb on my shoulder
Purple
Long walks
Singing at the top of my lungs
Skipping and frolicing
Play-fighting
Watergun/water balloon fights in the summer
Ghetto baseball
Talking shit…..

(Q: I always feel very inhibited when it comes to making
requests and demands for myself.)
Parents are often too effective in teaching their children not to
fuss. The problem is that everyone has his or her own deep needs that
must be honored or health will suffer. The rational decision to not make
a fuss is made by the new, verbal part of your brain. The problem is that
this overpowers and stifles the deeper, more ancient parts of your brain
that interact so strongly with your immune system, heart, etc. Too much
rational control can leave this ancient part of you raging or feeling
hopeless. The ultimate result is poor health.
Make an oath to stand up for your deep needs—not obnoxiously but
firmly and fairly. Yes you should be considerate of others, but why not
be at least equally considerate of yourself? Your immune system will
thank you!

(Q: I try for one or more aims which are very important to me.)
Having a purpose and meaning in your life is very important for the
emotional buzz that accompanies peak immune system function. The aims can
be simple, but they must be satisfying to you. Look at a beehive or
anthill sometime and you will see individuals with a purpose. Each bee or
ant is scurrying around doing its bit of what is needed for the whole
hive to thrive. We have that same instinct and we only have to find the
gap that we can fill. It probably won’t involve being rich or famous.
Give some serious THOUGHT to what you could do to change your life so
that it has meaning for you.

(Q: Amount of Joy from your love life)
The drive to mate and bond with a member of the opposite sex is an
urge with a long evolutionary history. Your immune system interacts
strongly when such needs are not met. If you have been avoiding
relationships because they are “too much trouble” you should consider the
importance of meeting such a basic need. This means being open but not
desperate for a relationship. If you are being made miserable by a former
relationship that doesn’t work, breaking away and opening yourself up to
other opportunities may be in order. The important thing is not to stay
permanently stuck in a relationship that is making you miserable. THINK
about what you should do, rehearse it in your mind, and then TRY it.

(Q: How intense are your feelings of hopelessness?)
The best antidote to hopelessness is an escape plan. Finding this
plan can be a lifetime career, but as long as you are working on it, life
has meaning. Circumstances that seem to be beyond your control usually
have a hidden key where changes in your own behavior can change the
situation. Next time you are feeling hopeless put all of your energy into
creatively THINKing of some kind of experimental change you can make
which might improve the situation. Visualize the change in your mind and,
if it has some chance of working, give it a TRY. If it fails, try to
LEARN from the failure so that the next experiment may work. This method
is extremely powerful and is behind all of the major scientific
discoveries of our age. Apply it to your life and you can beat
hopelessness.

(Q: How often do you get feelings of hopelessness?)
The meaning of life is in the living of it. When you satisfy your
basic instincts and needs you are rewarded with feelings of pleasure and
well being because that is evolution’s way of rewarding and encouraging
that behavior. Often feelings of hopelessness are a result of “thinking
too much”. If your logical mind tries to find a meaning in life, it will
probably be disappointed. By staying in the present, you can enjoy the
instinctive pleasures of just being alive. Fear, dread and regret are all
meaningless concepts in the present. Try to practice living in the
present as much as possible and use your ability to plan for the future
only to act decisively to make changes that will improve your future.

Q: After you have experienced pleasure do you often have
negative feelings such as guilt, bad conscience, depression or bodily
symptoms?)
Parental and school training often succeeds too well in teaching us
to be “good” boys and girls. Guilt is a useful way to teach people to
work hard and not do really bad things that could hurt others.
Unfortunately, some of us learn these lessons too well, so that even
innocent joys and pleasures are ruined by feelings of guilt. You deserve
and need pleasure in your life and should begin to consciously practice
enjoying pleasures without guilt. Think of an innocent pleasure that has
given you guilt in the past. Try to set up experiences for yourself where
you practice doing this thing without guilt. This time delight in your
naughtiness and enjoy the pleasure. Start with something easy and work up
to more difficult challenges. Try to break the guilt habit by
conditioning yourself with guilt-free pleasurable experiences. Remember
that pleasure is not just a luxury, but a necessity for good health.