Over the years since Gary Laundre’s last book, “How to Expand Your Comfort Zone” a lot scientific progress has taken place in the field of brain-body research. It takes dedication and effort for a behavioral therapist to stay abreast of the constant changes in this field. Gary incorporates such knowledge into his investigation and resolution of his client’s problems. For even the most highly-touted regimens, it doesn’t take long for him to realize what really works and what doesn’t.
There are many approaches available. Virtually anyone can theorize solutions. Many others simply avoid new technologies and only provide the methods they’ve used for decades. Then there’s the professional who rolls up their sleeves and gets involved finding new, practical, even elegant solutions to today’s mental and emotional challenges.

Gary is such a person. Since I first met him over fifteen years ago, I’ve watched him take on some of the tough cases that some of his industry colleagues avoid. With determination and creative curiosity, he seeks out and finds the tools and the techniques that will solve those tough challenges.
Like others who ultimately make a difference in our society, Gary is one who has a lot of personal integrity. He has a lot of inner strength, and he is committed to helping people. That phrase may seem trite, but in Gary’s case, it is the real thing. He really does care.

That may be why his referred client list keeps growing. He doesn’t advertise his services. It all comes from people who enjoy a better, more comfortable emotional life because they once walked into his office, or in some other way received help from him. 

In this book, Dr. Laundre takes a quantum leap beyond the other practitioners in his field to disclose new findings and logical conclusions about why many of us do not achieve our full potential or happiness in this life. His discoveries have changed my life for the better, and I know many other people who’ve had similar experiences. So, if you’re the least bit curious about what he’s been up to recently, read this book and take the advice that he offers. You’ll be better for it.
Gary’s message is pretty simple. Several years ago, as part of his professional continuing education and research, he discovered a new and simple “exercise” that offers great promise in resolving the thousands of behavioral issues that we deal with everyday. He’s used it for years to deal with some of the toughest cases.

Recently, in the course of additional research he discovered something that profoundly affects the rest of us. There is a reason why we have difficulty controlling anger, urges, emotions, and the like. We are physical “collectors” of traumatic information. Our mind-body system stores our memories–facts, experiences, and emotions in a unique way, and virtually all with the original traumatic emotions intact, albeit out of context. Some we are aware of, but most are completely invisible to us. Now, every one of these fiery, reactive memories is vulnerable to being triggered by a common, everyday sight, sound, touch, taste, etc.

So what happens? We’re going along happy as can be, doing our own thing, and POW! A word, a sound, an image, will pass by our conscious mind and it will automatically set off an emotional landmine. Most of us think that our itinerant moments of sadness, fear, jealousy, grief, loneliness, inadequacy, and non-performance are just everyday shifts in our state of being–they are normal. We just tolerate them. We simply act out alternative behaviors until the real us is back.

Well, Gary discovered something extremely valuable to our happiness and well being. He’s discovered a simple bio-neural switch that is part of our very makeup, that can easily be used to totally eliminate reactive behavior, even if we don’t know where that reactivity is coming from.
In my business life as well as in my social, religious, and family life, I deal with people constantly. In the past I would often find myself resistant to certain people, conversations, transactions, and situations because I was simply “uncomfortable” with them. I’m not talking about reactive feelings that throw my life into turmoil. These are those “boundaries” we all set so that we stay in our comfort zone.

So, with the Happiness Code sequence in my toolkit, I began to systematically eliminate one uncomfortable feeling after another. Gary explains why and how it works here in this book. Soon, it became easier to make pro-active rather than reactive choices. I am calmer now, and less frustrated with change, disappointment, or error – my own or others.
I have a friend who learned that I was using this, and he insisted that I help him overcome a lifelong fear. Now, this guy isn’t someone you’re likely to meet at the therapist’s office. He’s a respected educator with years of success in his field. But during all those years, he’s carried an emotional time bomb deep inside, and he’s “dealt” with it – just like we all do. Anyway, I agreed to teach him this technique.

In less than five minutes, he turned to me and said, “Lloyd, you have saved my life!” Now, you must understand that this guy is like the Rock of Gibraltar to all of us in his peer group. He doesn’t seem to have any emotional problems. But he knew that he was unhappy and suffering because of one.  Anyway, I was stunned when he said that to me, and I asked him to explain himself. He described the experience as an emotional wall that had simply dissolved and faded away like a mist in the sunlight. This was dramatic for me, because he literally changed – his face, posture, and expression – right before my eyes.

That experience is just one of hundreds that I’ve had with other people over the years since I’ve learned the Happiness Code from Gary. Some changes are seemingly small, some significant, some dramatic. Virtually all of them occur within a very short time frame.
I had a couple invite me to their house to explain it shortly after Gary’s first book was published. Now, I’m not an expert – certainly no substitute for Dr. Laundre. But I agreed to share what I knew. After explaining it some, the wife disclosed that she was a Neuro-Linguistic Programmer. That’s one of those people who are well trained in the use of language – many times in the form of an affirmation – to slowly change behavior patterns in people.

As a child, her husband (I’ll call him Tom) suffered a very traumatic experience. He lived in Idaho on a farm with his parents. They had limited means, so when Tom got deathly sick one day and the local doctor insisted that his dad drive him to the University of Utah medical center for treatment, the concern over cost was pretty high on his father’s worry list.

They arrived at the hospital and the specialists examined Tom. Then, with Tom lying alone in the examining room, they went to the next room and the doctor explained to his dad that Tom was very, very sick. The remedy was surgery. Naturally Tom’s dad inquired about the cost of treatment, and when he learned it was astronomical, he reacted with an outburst that would change Tom’s life, “Well, I guess we might have to let him die.” Now, of course, Tom’s dad didn’t really mean that. In the next room, however, with the door propped open, the young Tom heard every word. And, he became “permanently” traumatized by it.

Although the medical treatment took place, and Tom returned to his home, be began to suffer from an eating disorder. He ballooned up from a skinny, healthy young boy, to an obese, troubled kid. No one could figure out the problem. Even Tom couldn’t believe that it was really tied to that earlier event. After all, he knew his parents loved him. They arranged for treatment and everything! During his entire career, he was grossly overweight.

Well, after 45 years of suffering, and after years and years of NLP sessions, he was still in constant emotional distress. He surmised that this was simply because of his obesity and the social ramifications that went with it. His wife had valiantly tried to help him, using the only drug-free solution she had.

So she turned to him and said, “Tom, why don’t you try this.” Now, my limited confidence was showing, and I hedged a bit, because even though I had experienced success with others, this seemed like an extreme case to me. But, they insisted. So, I went step-by-step through the exercise, and like Gary trained me to do, I asked him to measure the result. His discomfort had only dropped a notch. Then I remembered Gary’s instruction. This is a very thought-specific technique. If it doesn’t work with one thought, try another. So that’s what I asked him to do.

After changing that one item, we went through the exercise again. When we finished, I looked over at him in anticipation, maybe some doubt. Then, this big guy stood up, walked over to me, threw his arms around me and started crying! (Now, that was a little uncomfortable.) I discovered a few minutes later that Tom had the same amazing emotional release. His hopelessness, tied to a traumatic event that had happened years before, simply dissolved away. Without my prompting, he described it as a wall that had deflated and disappeared.

Again, this is a pretty dramatic demonstration of the efficacy of this technology. If I had enough room, I could give dozens of additional stories, including some of my own, testifying to the value that the Happiness Code offers.

So, if you’re skeptical, that’s fine. I began with the same skepticism. I’ve even had people become angry at me for even suggesting that my experiences were real. These days, however, I realize that any reactive emotion sent towards me isn’t an attack on me. It’s a plea for help. Since I am less reactive, I handle it better, without guilt. Instead, I can respond with hope. I have a book that I can give my new-found friends and business associates to help them enjoy the same benefits that I know about.