This article was originally published in the Winter 2016 issue of Choices Magazine. To view the published format, please click here.
Everyone talks about happiness. Happiness is the utopia of where we would all like to be. You can spend literally thousands of dollars on seminars, self-help and coaching to find the magic elixir to that inner space of bliss. While no one would choose pain intentionally, some still find happiness an elusive concept in a never-ending search to find its source.
I felt like that. I was what some would term a seminar junkie. I had this feeling if I could just understand what happiness was it would magically flow over me coating me in it’s potent mix. I wish. What I’ve found with all my searching is happiness is not as elusive or exclusive as I thought. It really is just a matter of perspective. The problem is we want to make it complicated.
If happiness is hard to obtain then we figure it wouldn’t be our fault that we weren’t ‘there’ yet. We could blame the world or circumstances on the lack of joy in our life. It is much easier to make the big bad wolf the fall guy then admit we missed the simple task of happiness. It is this belief that happiness is difficult to have and hold that is the main reason we are missing it.
Happiness, at it’s core, is very simple. It needs nothing nor demands anything; it is a state of being and not a destination. We can’t command happiness we have to submit. It is in the letting go that it comes, not in the battle. It was in a seminar process that I finally started to see this. They challenged us to do a gratitude month posting our gratitude thought for the day for thirty days. I took it on and because I am a Type A I decided to do mine on my Facebook page. At first, it was chunky and felt forced. I felt awkward and unsure but I kept at it. As the month progressed, I started to notice something… I became softer. As I ended my day in a gratitude, I noticed a peace started to fall over me and life started to work better. After thirty days I was hooked and decided to extend my goal to one year, I just finished this month with my year.
Gratefulness and happiness came into my life not by force but by allowing. It took the daily process of acknowledgment to shift my thoughts. As I searched daily for gratefulness my happiness began to emerge. Find a way to allow it into your life each day. It can be as simple as saying something nice to someone, or, a Facebook post each night, it doesn’t matter. It is the practice of allowing gratitude into your daily experience that starts the shift your happiness. As you do, you will start to change, your confidence will improve, your attitude gets better, and you feel more grounded. Don’t fight happiness, allow it! You’ll be glad you did.
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