Happiness

I write this post on “International Day of Happiness” with so much love bursting forth from my heart that I don’t know what to do with it. 

Until I get a better idea, I’m using it to fuel this article!

What’s international day of happiness got to do with how I feel?  Well, nothing. Do I feel like this because I live in Leigh on Sea, voted the happiest place to live in the UK?  Nope.  Do I always feel this happy?  Now you’re just being silly.

Why do I feel so happy?

Well in short it’s because I’m lucky enough that the course of my life has taken me into a journey of learning something, that when understood deeply means that (more often than before) I am not looking in the wrong place for happiness…  While any of us are looking externally for things to do/have/be in order to experience happiness we experience NOT being happy.  How can anyone be happy when they are looking for happiness?  That just cannot be possible.  It wouldn’t make any sense.  Yet this is how we, in the Western World, have been conditioned to live our lives.

Most people believe that they will be happy/happier when/after:

• They find true love
• They have ‘enough’ money
• They live in a better house
• A problem is resolved
• They have children
• Their children have children
• Their business becomes ‘successful’

This is by no means an exhaustive list.  And you aren’t to blame for looking for happiness in these places.  It’s a part of our societal conditioning.  All the while seeking these things, believing them to be what will make us happy, (when it’s actually the seeking that creates the absense of happiness) we deploy further strategies to help us manage how we feel in the meantime. In fact a friend showed me a leaflet she’d picked up with “10 things to do to make yourself happy”…

This is all backwards. It doesn’t work that way. These approaches and strategies are keeping us further away from the natural happiness that is innate for all humans. I feel truly grateful that my life went in a way that allowed me to find this out, and it’s my desire and passion to share this understanding with you if you’re game.  Happiness and love can be bursting out of your heart for absolutely no reason whatsoever too.  Just like it is out of mine as I type*.

Before you ask, yes I have a list of things that I would like to be better/different.  The difference is that I now understand that my wellbeing/security/happiness has nothing to do with whether I achieve those things or not.  This understanding, when I feel it deeply, as I am right now, frees me up to be joyfully happy.

* It is important to note that I am not in a state of perpetual happiness and I’m not meant to be.  I move between different emotions as does everybody else. This is the normal human experience. The difference is that I don’t try to fix it when I’m unhappy now, so my natural happiness is not held away by my seeking to change.  Our natural flows of emotion is a topic for another article.