What is happiness?
Happiness is a noun.
1. The quality or state of being happy.
2. Good fortune, pleasure, joy and contentment.
We all know when we are happy and when we aren’t. It is a strong feeling.
Many of us have been taught that happiness happens when we are with others, that it is something they bring to us. We are that when we achieve a goal or obtain something material then it makes us happy.
All of this puts the source of happiness outside of us, and out of our control.
Therefore, logic says we must become unhappy when we don’t have those things.
How often have you worked hard to achieve the next goal (be it the love of another, or a possession of some sort) only to find it didn’t deliver the happiness you had anticipated?
Then we often set a new bigger goal and work hard to get there too, to find it doesn’t make us happy, and so on.
Achieving is a good thing, of course; The mistake is to put our happiness on hold until we achieve whatever it is. Enjoy the process and be happy whether you achieve it or not.
What if we can be happy almost always, and it is OK?
What if our happiness is a choice we can make rather than something we have to earn or deserve?
What if our happiness comes from within?
Focus on staying present in each moment, knowing you are whole, perfect just as you are, and that nobody else can take your happiness away.
Drop expectations that anyone or anything ‘should’ be different from how they/it are also brings peace.
There is always much to be happy about when we look at little things that bring us joy and make us grateful.
Why is happiness important?
If we aren’t feeling happy then we are likely to be feeling another, more negative, emotion which could well be creating stress and aggravation within.
Creating a deep sense of happiness/joy at all times enlivens the mind. Removes stuckness and rigidity. It creates movement and space to loosen the complex fabric woven around identifying our minds with issues, beliefs, and diseases.
We humans can get attached to ‘stories’ in our lives. This might be how things ‘should’ be, the future we dream of, the career path we anticipate. These stories become another burden that can stop us from moving forward with lightness and joy, especially if life obliterates them as possibilities!
Joy can be a tool to help shed the burden of life’s challenges. It is a key factor in the transformation process, as it is the lubricant that assists us in becoming happily child-like and curious, in awe of the world around us.
Acknowledging the joy in everything is a sure way to stay connected to our chosen path, for it offers the energy of flexibility and flow.
We feel great when we free up the most authentic, joyful, happy version of ourselves, are in touch with our intuition, and notice wonderful opportunities when they appear. When we notice a good gut feeling about something and act upon it (when it feels completely choiceless to us to do so), these opportunities take us on a glorious adventure to even more happiness and fulfilment.
When we are busy, stressed, miserable, doing what others want, acting out of a sense of duty, and so on, we are in our minds and entirely out of touch with our heart’s desires.
In that state, we can have the most significant, most obvious opportunity jumping up and down in front of us and not see it. This low, stressed state takes us out of our power and into increasing misery.
You might have noticed this version of the little lady I often use. She illustrates this point: stepping above the emotions that drag us down takes us into a place of happiness, where we are aligned with life’s flow.
Happiness is an inside job
William Arthur Ward
What stops us from being happy?
Our minds like to rule the roost, and we lose touch with our heart (also called Intuition, gut feel, or higher self—use whatever feels right for you) and dip out of happiness.
We pick over things that have happened in the past and analyse them. Taking the lessons and moving on is good. If we pack up a load of criticism of ourselves and others into a “suitcase” to carry, using it to beat ourselves up or fuel conflict with others, this will always drag us down. The burden of this gets heavier and heavier with accompanying reasons why we aren’t good enough to beat ourselves up with, to boot!
Add to the suitcase other people’s or society’s expectations of us, and we also believe we are not good enough until…
Being happy at all times? Nobody would go into a funeral laughing; it would be most disrespectful. However, we do not need to absorb everyone else’s turmoil when we go; we can choose to appreciate the person’s life, the readings, the flowers, and so on. We can send love and compassion to those grieving without losing our inner balance, and that can support them energetically.
The mind also likes to contemplate the future. It is great to have things to look forward to, dreams we want to achieve and get excited about. However, the mind can create many anxious thoughts whenever we attempt anything new. It has a giant filing cabinet of events so far in this life that it refers to. It will pipe up and tell us why whatever it is won’t work and how it will endanger us, based on our past, because that is all it knows. This can push us into a miserable, even smaller box of ‘safety’.
It is important to do new things. Follow the gut feel, and your horizons can expand.
The current moment is the only time we have to make changes in life. We create a better life now as we appreciate what is around us, feel connected, and truly feel happy.
Gratitude can create happiness. What we focus on, we tend to see more of, so it generates more to be happy and grateful about. I remember someone saying years ago that if you’re in a dark place, spend a few minutes each evening noting down things you are thankful for (this can be done with children, too). It can turn your life around.
The barriers we create
When we feel isolated and separate from our true selves, it is a sign that we have created barriers. The barriers between us and the true self create a boundary that keeps us from freedom and happiness. The barrier is also the key to unlocking the pain; it is built using the mind and can be dissolved similarly. It can be dismantled; all it takes is a moment of awareness.
Some speak of unravelling the knotted energy threads that hold us in attachment to everything. To me, that sounds a bit daunting and overly complicated. We need to drop anything that is dragging us down.
This allows us to gain clarity about our path in life and regain balance as the wonderful people we genuinely are.
We create barriers because we think they will protect us. The opposite is true; they prolong the agony of separation. A barrier that becomes hardened with time requires more effort to dissolve, but it can still be done.
One way to describe this happiness is a feeling of inner peace while living in the modern world—a sense of contentment and gentleness with the self rather than an internal battle. Knowing we are enough, we are worthy of being here, and we can create our desired life.
Dropping our identity
Dropping the identity with each issue or piece of conditioning held within our life story enables us to take responsibility (even if our human believes something has been done to us and it is not our fault).
This means that everything we identify with can be freed and self-realised. Once we become free, we also become limitless; all that stuckness starts to dissolve, setting the ‘Self’ free to flow with universal creation.
The very things we become attached to bind us so that they limit us by the degree we identify with them. Notice any issue you have identified with and visualise detaching, letting go and dissolving it.
There are many examples of our attachments, from material things: cars, houses, status symbols, golf course membership, peer status, personal goals, qualifications, even being sick or having a type of illness can create an attachment; the list is endless.
Although desires to achieve our goals or own something are essential in life, there can be a point where an attachment is formed with achieving the goal or object. At this point, it becomes an identity with ‘something’ and then starts to limit us; it forms a container in which we gain security and comfort justly deserved through the effort it has taken to get there. This container both protects and limits us.
The container can become rigid depending on the intensity of our identification with it. Eventually, the container defines who we are to others and becomes the identity by which we define ourselves. For others around us, this is comforting because they know who we are – until one day you change it!
Once you have seen the containers, dismantling them is straightforward. It is liberating and creates freedom.
People around you suddenly lose that connection with the container and feel they cannot track or read you as they did before. You will observe that they respond differently to you.
Once the touch paper for dissolving these containers is lit, a rapid process can ensue. We then want to find as many containers as possible and dissolve them so that our lives are full of happiness and peace.
Using our Intuition or Inner Guidance
We, of course, share the human experience with others and have learned how to operate our “human” pretty effectively throughout our lives. Yet there is something else observing all of that. Something gentle, calm, loving and wise. Some say we are spiritual beings having a human experience.
This wiser voice can work alongside our minds to create a different life for us, with greater happiness.
Our intuition, inner guidance, or gut feeling knows what we must do to feel great and happy. It knows we are perfect as we are, that we are love, so we never need to seek it from anyone else. When we can access this more, life is gentler and truly happy.
When we realise happiness is a choice in each moment and is vital to us flowing with life, we can catch our thoughts and look for a better perspective that can bring appreciation, peace and happiness if we are vigilant in controlling our thoughts.
Wise men and women, even way back in time, spoke of the importance of universal love in the world. Calling on this as the strength underneath our choice to be happy gives it depth and power, and we become unwavering in seeking it.
Please get in touch if you would like some support to find your balance in life again and true happiness. I truly believe each of us can.
Rumi said: “Your task is not to seek for love but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
How Refreshing Horizons’ services support happiness
We can achieve pretty much anything we want and are already perfect.
I am not on a pedestal focused on ‘fixing’ or ‘healing’ anything ‘wrong’ with my clients. I support each individual in growing, enjoying life more, and returning to balance, liberating the happiness that each of us has within.
The e-Lybra9 bio-resonance session’s focus can be stripped back to “this person achieving happiness” and achieving significant changes. I do this because I remember Mike Dooley saying it is at the core of anything we wish to manifest. It is simple.
One piece of consistent feedback I get from the bio-resonance is that people feel more vital, like themselves more, and cope better with life’s more challenging times.
The e-Lybra programmes developed most recently have been specifically designed to help ‘dissolve the containers, the boundaries that limit us so that the recipient can become more of who he/she truly is, not bound by disease or conditioning simply to stand as him/herself in the full connectedness of creation’.
I always include one of them in my longer remote sessions for people because we all benefit from that.
The shamanic healing work is similarly very much about getting the recipient’s life on track by removing specific blockages and interferences that are in the way. I work with spirit guides, channelling guidance and healing work uniquely for each person. It is fantastic what a big team most of us have ‘on the other side’ absolutely raring to get our lives zinging along!
Homeopathy and essences also are holistic and geared towards balance and happiness.
I love what I do and would be honoured to serve you in your life.
