What does happiness look like?

It is funny how life sometimes seems to derail us when we think we finally have it all figured out. I guess it is the Universe’s way of making sure we don’t get too comfortable because once we do our lives get boring. I am extremely bored right now and I know it is time for something new. As I get older I am finding that I am seeking new ways to find happiness. I know this sounds like a normal way of thinking but the truth is in my past I focused on work, keeping goals & to-do’s up to date and making sure I always looked good in the eyes of others. Being happy was what happened on occasion when I was with the right group of people, the right person or happened to be in the right place at the right time. Now I focus on BEING happy first and all that other stuff is secondary. What I have found is that by thinking this way I am happier, I am not really sure why but it just seems to be the case.
So what exactly does happiness look like? Well I guess that is different for each and every individual but we all know that when we are happy we feel good. Dr. Wayne Dyer has coached me for years through his books on DVD about “wanting to feel good” and this seems to be his underlining focus of everything he speaks about. If we don’t feel good we need to understand why rather than just accepting it, if we just accept it in time we become numb to happiness. I believe so many of us are staying busier because when we slow down we start to feel uncomfortable and because that doesn’t feel good in the moment we go back to being busy. By not facing what ever is causing the un-comfort we end up living mediocre lives because we are on auto pilot. Happiness for most has become something that happens on occasion and we are going through the motions hoping it will happen again soon. When we allow ourselves to really dive deep into those uncomfortable feelings, to be quiet and to get in touch with spirit we start to become happier people because being aware becomes our reality. Being aware allows us to make changes, to be better people, to be healthier individuals on the inside and to be present. We live better, we feel better, we love better and we make those around us feel better in the process, in time this brings us happiness. I think that THIS is what true happiness is because it feels GOOD. Can you imagine how our world would look if we all started feeling good all the time?
Happiness for most of us really does come from what we think of ourselves and what we perceive others to think about us. It often comes from what we do (an experience) but it also comes when we are in a good state of mind. We can’t be happy if we are worried about something, if we are upset over what someone said to us or if we do not like who we are as individuals. Temporary happiness is nice and happens on occasion for all of us, personally I want to feel happy all the time, every day, knowing that when I am not I need to re-direct my thinking no matter what has stepped in my way and get back on track. I am speaking from a place of just being happy no matter what happens. Not allowing anything negative to throw me off kilter, to take the negative, immediately re-adjust and watch the happiness return by rising above. Life will always throw us punches but when we can change our thoughts immediately in those moments and redirect our thinking to what feels good we will find that happiness is right around the corner. We become happier on the inside and we start to see happiness all around us on the outside. Life becomes interesting, fun starts to show up everywhere, love appears out of no where and we exude a positive demeanor outwardly.
Since Dina passed I have wondered what Heaven might be like and I have felt that in order for it to be such a wonderful and happy place, judgement must not exist there. I have pondered this deeply over the past month. I’ve talked a lot about how our thinking portrays how our lives are lived. The way we deal with experiences and the meaning we give the words people say to us really does matter and we do have a choice on how we want to process those thoughts. The truth of words lies within our own minds and we have a choice to make them mean something good, something bad or something that really doesn’t matter. We need to realize that those who hurt us the most with their words or actions are usually coming from a place of unhappiness within themselves. A truly happy person doesn’t want to hurt someone else in an attempt to find a moment of happiness within themselves. Hurting others with words or physically in any way will not make the person acting out a happy person, it may create some kind of comfort in the moment but that is not happiness. People 45 and older often say that the way we think about life changes with age, that there is a time when you all of a sudden stop caring what others think about you. As I get older I will say I care less about what others think of me but I believe the most significant change in me is that I love who I am and accept what ever comes into my life-good or bad with the belief that it is as it should be. I think that with age I have come to realize that my life is exactly as it is because I made it that way. Every choice, every mistake, every move was my own and it has led me to where I am right here, right now.
The truth is that the more grateful I am for all that I have the happier I seem to be, the happier I seem to be the happier the people around me seem to be, the happier those people around me seem to be the happier I am and the more happiness comes into my life. I think I see a trend here, full circle once put into motion there is no way to fail at being happy! So as I search to find things to continue to be grateful for in my quest for happiness I have to ask, what makes you happy? What is it in your life that truly brings you happiness and what can you continue to do to make this happen more often? There is truth in Aristotle’s quote “Happiness depends upon ourselves” I plan keep digging deeper with in myself to keep this trend moving in a forward motion! Sending love out to all of you…pass it on!