Finding HAPPINESS

What is happiness? How do we find it?

We all find ourselves unhappy a lot of the times in life. It could be any aspect of your life that you are unhappy in, the question is how do we find happiness?

There is no “finding” happiness. Happiness is achieved by staying in the now, being ok with what you have now. Most are always striving to have more of everything which they think will make them happy. Greed is one thing that the ego strives on and what we don’t see is feeding our egos is what makes us unhappy. I always hear people say, " if I just had more money I would be happy." It breaks my heart when I hear people say that, because it isn’t about the money and or material things in life that brings happiness. Is it nice to have nice things in life, absolutely, but we don’t NEED them. If you can find yourself saying, I am happy with what is in my life TODAY you have succeed at happiness. Yes, we will all have the days where we are not happy and our other emotions take over. Those emotions are our ego challenging our happiness… don’t let it. If you find yourself angry about something, walk away from the situation acknowledge and let it go, because if you don’t you will feed your ego and it will take over your whole self. To be happy you have to stay in the present. Most people live in the past and the future and don’t even notice where they are now. You can’t change the past and you can’t predict the future. You have to focus on today, which then will open up the future journey that you want for yourself. If you are constantly looking at the end point you are missing out on life and pure happiness. When you are on a journey, it is certainly helpful to know where you are going or at least the general direction in which you are moving, but don’t forget: The only thing that is ultimately real about your journey is the step that you are taking at this moment. That is all there ever is. **

"The Buddha says that pain or suffering arises through desire or craving and that to be free of pain we need to cut the bond of desire."

Wherever you are, be there totally. Are you resisting the now? If you find your here and now totally intolerable and it makes you unhappy you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or totally accept it. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose now. Then accept the consequences. No excuses. No negativity. No psychic pollution. Keep your inner space clear. Any action is better than no action, especially if you have been stuck in an unhappy situation for a long time. If you find there is truly nothing you can do about changing your situation then you will need to accept that it is your here and now and you will need to drop all inner resistance. The false, unhappy self that loves feeling miserable, resentful, or sorry for itself can then no longer survive. This is called surrender. Surrender is not weakness. There is great strength in it. Only a surrendered person has spiritual power. Through the surrender, you will be free internally of the situation and you will then find the situation changes because you are free of it. You surrender to it, you aren’t feeding your ego anymore and the ego therefore can’t survive so you are free and much happier than you were. Wherever you are, be there totally. Are you stressed? Are you so busy getting into the future that the present is reduced to a means of getting there? Stress is caused by being “here” but wanting to be “there” or being present and wanting to be in the future. It’s a split that tears you apart inside and to create and live with such split is insane. Enjoy the flow of energy, the high energy of the moment, stop splitting yourself in two. We as humans can hold on to so much, and sadly it is mostly negative things. We are programmed to identify with the negative, we will hold on to something negative that has happened to us for years replay it over and over, but have you ever noticed we don’t hold on to positive things for that long. We achieve a goal and pat ourselves on the back and move on to something else. We do this because like I said previously we are constantly looking for MORE. Why don’t we ever keep the positive JOURNEY that got us to the end point in our minds? We do need to make goals and better ourselves, but we have to stop looking only at the end point. If something positive happens to you, it can be as small as you getting the last roll of toilet paper at the market. Notice that feeling of happiness, stay with that emotion for 1-2 minutes let your mind store it. Keep doing that, so then your mind will be more in the present and happy as it is not storing negative thoughts. We have to train our minds, and yes is it hard as an adult, but it can be done. If you want happiness you will not find it in a lottery ticket or an expensive handbag. You have to work hard at it; you have to understand how your mind works and your feelings. What makes you sad? What do you enjoy? Who makes your heart skip a beat? Everyone deserves happiness and can have it, just be totally where you are in the now.

MUCH LOVE, XOXO

** The Power of Now- Ekhart Tolle