FINDING HAPPINESS
Happiness does not depend on what you have or who you are.
It solely relies on what you think. BUDDHA
In June’s Salon Group I spoke a little about how to find happiness but based on the reaction and a few peoples comments to me afterwards, I decided to blog about it.
Happiness is a feeling that seems to be difficult for people to experience. Many people seem to believe that in order to be happy one must have an external experience or condition that makes you happy. Nothing external can ever make you internally happy. Events, people or conditions can only bring you temporary happiness. As long as those conditions remain the same you can be happy but if something changes, you will go right back to being unhappy. Needing someone or something to make you joyous will always be a need. You will never be truly happy until you NEED no one or nothing.
I put together a few steps that might help you to get to the level of happiness that you desire. These are the steps I took to personally achieve happiness. I hope in some way it helps.
# 1 – Pay attention
Humans incarnate for one reason only… Emotional knowledge. In order to gain that emotional knowledge you must pay attention to what is triggering your emotions. Anytime anyone or anything makes you feel sad, angry, frustrated, or upset you must stop in that moment and pay attention to exactly what is stirring your emotional pot.
Once you have discovered that your passive aggressive neighbor (for example) is always making you upset because they won’t stop insulting you, then you must discover the reason they are pushing your buttons. You are looking for your own internal reason. Do they remind you of the insulting tongue of your father? Was your mother passive/aggressive? Look for the source of the emotional response, and take the neighbor out of the equation. Knowing the source will help release the wound.
#2 Be grateful
Being grateful for everything and everyone in your life is easy when they are peaceful, loving and caring. But when they are nasty, obnoxious and vicious to you, it’s extremely difficult to be grateful for their existence. One way to be able to be grateful is in the moment someone insults you and it triggers an emotional reaction, stop and think, “Thank you for showing me my unresolved emotions”. Be grateful to them for revealing a hidden wound that allows you to be insulted by someone whose opinion you shouldn’t value in the first place. They strike out at you because they are wounded and you strike back because you are. A tit for tat dialogue will never take away the nastiness. You shouldn’t lower your vibration to match theirs you should instead try to raise their vibration to match yours. As Michelle Obama stated in her DNC speech, “Whey they go low…we go HIGH!”
#3 Listen
Once you thank them (using your INNER voice) then take the time to listen to what they have to say. They are just angry because someone (usually a parent) didn’t allow them to speak their mind, so they don’t want to allow anyone else to speak theirs. In heated exchanges, what is really happening is their wounded inner child is battling your wounded inner child. Somebody has to stop it if there is going to be resolution. Listening to them won’t necessarily make them listen to you but it doesn’t matter. After you listened to the neighbors story and diffused the situation walk away and take a few moments to yourself to tell the wounded part of you that you are sorry they have been in pain, and thank them for showing it to you. Tell yourself what you need to hear and don’t need someone else to do it. You have the power to make yourself happier than anyone else ever could. By doing this you are cutting out the middleman and the NEED for someone else to apologize or bring closure.
After you have listened to their story, without negatively reacting to it, then take a few moments to be grateful for the beautiful life you have. Look at the sweet, loving relationships you do have around you. And then be grateful to be alive and have the opportunity to grow emotionally! Thank the Universe for sending someone to you to show you areas of your spirit that needs help. IF you want to become enlightened then you need raise the vibration of every single emotional experience no matter how ostensibly negative! That negative, nasty neighbor is your opportunity to do just that!
I’m not saying you shouldn’t speak to them about it, but do so with LOVE and COMPASSION in your heart for their pain. By doing so, you can then have LOVE and COMPASSION for your own pain.
#4 Proper Perspective
This one is simple. Have the perspective in life that the Universe is conspiring FOR you and not conspiring AGAINST you! BOOM. Perspective changed.
Also, have the perspective that you are releasing your pain not continually experiencing it! Every time you cry and release the sadness, jump up and do a happy dance that the old wound is coming to the surface so you can get rid of it! Thank your inner child for showing you that you need to let go of the old wound and love them.
#5 Choose happiness
Most of the people I talk to simply do not believe that happiness is a choice. If you take two people that have virtually the same adverse life experiences there is a good chance that one of them will be happy and the other one won’t. The only difference between them is the happy one chooses to NOT be a victim. They have difficult life experiences but they don’t let those experiences define them. They have a positive perspective about life. The VICTIM chooses instead to feel sorry for themselves and blames everyone else for their lousy life. They refuse to believe they have a choice and that they are in charge of creating the negative events.
So, how do you choose to be happy when life is in chaos? One moment at a time is how. I call it “Single thought therapy”. Anytime you have a negative, worrisome, fearful thought stop in that moment and choose to think of something that makes you happy. For me, all I have to do is think of my cats rolling over and showing me their bellies and the sadness goes away. When you realize that you are thinking about some negative person or event in your past, or worried about the possibility of something awful happening in your future, you need to stop in that moment and realize that in this particular moment nothing is wrong. To choose happiness you must be able to choose to live in the moment. When you can focus on the peaceful, individual moments you stop focusing on those that aren’t.
Happiness may not happen suddenly but with the right perspective and choosing the right thoughts, it will happen!
HAPPY, HAPPY, JOY, JOY! DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY!
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