Hi babes! It’s been busy on my end, but my family and I are excited about coming together for the Thanksgiving holidays. That love is an excellent motivator to keep on pushin’. Last week, we chatted about attempting to find happiness in a world full of distractions, noise, chaos, division, and confusing directions. Especially given the excessive chatter out there on how to be happy. I also mentioned that there are thousands (millions…billions? or what feels like trillions) of books, magazines, articles and organizations that can ‘teach’ you how to be happy. Hmm…we ended on the point that there’s no one size fits all for happiness. The only person that can define that state of existence, is you. Let’s dive a little deeper, shall we?
Old Tirades Makes for Tired Brains, Not Joy and Happiness
By now we are well familiar with the various pitches:
- If you just do X you will be happy.
- If you don’t do Y you will be happy.
- If you buy Z you will be happy.
And on and on the pitches come dictating personal happiness. Ha. Seriously though, some of it will bring you temporary happiness. We’re humans and we love the little dopamine rushes we get when we invite something new into our lives.
But then the stuff INSIDE us will start to speak up again. And we may not actually HEAR it because quieting the barrage of external noise can feel really scary. Despite our efforts, we still feel the emptiness.
However, from the disquiet, we’re left feeling malcontent and filled with unease. There seems to be this constant yearning for something else, anything else; we’re grasping for something different. So, after what can only be described as a temporary high, we find ourselves back to where we were started. We’re unhappy, unfulfilled, and justifiably more frustrated. Whelp.
Don’t Look Too Far, Joy and Happiness Starts Inward
Last week I did admit, I too have thoughts on on this happiness mode, so I wrote my own book, Surrender, to help (you know one more to add to the trillions available). But as you read on, you’ll see my take is a little different. My take:
The one and only true way we will find what we seek is to look inside. But we need to be quiet and still enough to hear it. Trusting our body to direct our needs is vital. It’s an amazing tuning fork for what we desire.
I’ve outlined a few approaches to find that inner voice and elevate it to the point that it’s the only positive voice you hear.
Approaches to Have a Conversation with the Only Voice that Matters- Yours
Surrender
Release your expectations without sacrificing your true desires and needs. How the hell does this all work, you ask? Well, this is my current research project, figuring out how to detach from oneself enough to observe, rather than absorb. I am not 100% there, but here are some tips I have found that help.
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Accept everyone as they are, for good or bad.
Oh yes, I do truly mean everyone. Even those pain in the ass neighbors. And your asshole boss. Or the political hellion that blasts everyone that thinks differently from them. Accept them fully; bless them even. Send them love and blessings and wish them happiness.
Now this does NOT mean you INVITE them into your space. You simply accept their difficult personality and accept it’s beyond your control. Don’t waste your valuable time wishing for it to be different and don’t try to coax them to be different; it won’t work. I encourage you to stop complaining about the unfixable and acknowledge them for who they’ve chosen to become. Why?
This releases you and allows space for love and joy in, instead of frustration and sadness regarding this person and THIER choices.
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Hold yourself accountable about who you want to be in your life.
What does this mean? Well, you start by incorporating what YOU need to be and who YOU want to become. It starts with little steps, like implementing and consistently practicing positive, self-affirming daily habits. We can’t be lazy bones about it though. Discipline is the name of the game here.
Remember, holding yourself accountable has nothing to do with other people. We can’t say, “I will be happy when my significant other does XYZ”. Instead,
We need focus on what is within OUR control and ONLY that.
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Choose love, always.
Remember what I said about accepting everyone, even the assholes? This is part of choosing love. As Ghandi said, “Where there is love, there is life”. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself caught up in the same pits of darkness as those people. You can and do deserve love, joy, and happiness. So, train yourself to respond with love; sometimes that may mean not responding at all.
Let’s use social media as an example, there are a litany of assholes on those platforms that try our peace daily. Your response should be something in the realm of avoiding negative posts that you know will rile people up (including you). Also, accept that we’re all a work in progress, so don’t be a know it all. That’s stroking your ego and will only cause strife. Walk away my friend.
I recommend you live by the old but true adage, “If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all”. There’s a great book, A Complaint Free World, that discusses the science and research behind finding happiness. Check it out, just a little spoiler though, their research shows that when we DON’T COMPLAIN, JUDGE, COMPARE or GOSSIP– we’re on a better path to find that end of the rainbow. Before you respond, post, or talk, can you pause and ask yourself if you are choosing love?
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Last but not least, you’ve got to make time to find stillness.
The quietness is the only way you will hear yourself. This isn’t an easy feat, we do everything we can to distract ourselves from ourselves. We scroll, watch Netflix, eat, shop, workout, drink…and on and on…so that we don’t HEAR what we need. How can you find stillness in this mood?
Try giving up your phone/computer/watch/TV for a day. If that’s too much, how about an hour? I lovingly suggest just trying to sit still each morning and count your breaths for just five minutes. From there, you can slowly work up to 15 or 20 minutes. Do it for you because you’ve got to take care of you. Do it because no one else can do that for you.
Just A Few Final Thoughts on Joy, Happiness, and Finding the End of the Rainbow
These are just a few suggestions that invite you to look inward. We’re the only vessel we can control, we’re trapped in our body for a reason. It’s on us to maintain all the working parts- mind and body complete. Oh, and let me be very, very clear,
Happiness is not a permanent state of existence.
If it were, we wouldn’t even recognize it as happiness. Existence would be dull and boring, and we would still be unfulfilled. Life as we know it is structured to have contrasts so we can appreciate happiness. Seasons changes, life changes and so will our needs. So be ready to adapt to that, for good or bad. And remember, we should always take time to be still, so we can be guided intrinsically on how to fulfill our needs.
