If we were to do a survey and ask people around the world ‘What do you long for?’, I think it’s safe to say a lot of people would respond with, ‘I just want to be happy’.
The quest for happiness is a big one, isn’t it?
And yet our world is filled with so many people who are so unhappy.
Why?
Perhaps we are looking for happiness in the wrong place and in the wrong way.
One of the biggest misconceptions about happiness is it comes from the outside.
The ego is always looking on the outside to be happy. For the ego it is never enough.
The ego sounds like…
“When I get this, fix that, look like that, have that, have this, travel again, have that relationship …I will be happy.”
But this excessive search for the next shiny object that will fill our void and fix everything puts us in a very precarious situation. It leaves us at the mercy of our outer circumstances. If one thing changes, and it will, we are back at square one – unhappy.
So, what can we do?
How can we find true happiness?
Last week I wrote about ‘Finding ourselves by losing ourselves’.
I shared what happened when I had the willingness to be with my feelings in a gentle compassionate way. This approach shifted something within me.
I felt content, my heart was happy.
I wasn’t trying to feel different.
I wasn’t trying to feel content or have a happy heart.
Not at all.
I was choosing to be with my feelings as they were.
Choosing to be with my vulnerability and tenderness brought forth happiness.
"True happiness is freedom from relying on anything to be any particular way,
which allows everything to be exactly how it is meant to be."
~ Matt Kahn
Perhaps we have a plan of how we want things to look in our life in order to be happy.
THEN the Universe throws us a curve ball and we think, ‘This isn’t part of my plan!’
At that point what do we do…give up? Think it’s impossible to be happy?
What if, this curveball IS part of the plan, and it is getting us closer to the happiness we desire.
It’s not our plan, it’s the Universe’s plan.
What if we stopped focusing on wanting to be happy and started to really tune in, get to know ourselves intimately, feel our feelings, be with ourselves rather than running away.
The truth…
When we resist this moment, we are prolonging our happiness.
When we choose to be in the moment, we are taking our power back, no longer victim to circumstance – to people, places or things.
We aren’t searching for happiness; we are making the choice to compassionately be with all parts of ourselves no matter what.
When we stop searching for happiness and practice being in the moment, we are choosing to observe our thoughts, to hold space for whatever feelings come up, and to show compassion and kindness for what is, rather than for what we think should be.
With loving kindness,
Diane