Are you waiting to be happy?
I have noticed that I have a tendency to think that happiness comes from things outside of myself, and I believe this is in our culture too. When I have that job, that house, that money, that person, that cake, that holiday then I will be happy. Or once I've got rid of this or that then I will be happy. And yet when we get the thing we wanted we find that after an initial period of happiness the mind turns to the next thing it needs to be happy. Are you placing your happiness in the future, dependent on something? Are you delaying your happiness? What if you could be happy right now?
Happiness is dependent on the mind - on what you pay attention to, and how you relate to it - on the view/ the glasses you wear. Have you ever felt happy just remembering a happy time? Or happiness appearing out of nowhere for no reason? Or just from something small and "unimportant" like a piece of music, a beautiful scene, a smile or laugh with someone or just the feeling of being alive.
Photo thanks to Mi-Pham and Unsplash
It can be a lovely practice to see if you can play with this in meditation and in day to day life. To notice and acknowledge, without any judgement, what the current view is, what you are paying attention to and how the body and mind feel with this view. And to play with changing this (and playing means there's no right or wrong outcome). What happens if I pay attention to something completely different, something pleasant, perhaps the sky or a tree, or perhaps the sounds? Or what happens if I widen the perspective, or shift it completely? What happens if you play with breathing in happiness and breathe it gently into areas that feel tight? Or perhaps it's peace you need to breathe in right now? Imagining it filling you...
Find a place inside where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.
— Joseph Campbell
The human mind will take whatever story it tells and run with it and give you the emotions most appropriate to it, so why not try a different story today? And maybe you think but that story isn't true, is your current story true? Is it really completely true?
When there's a lot of resistance it probably isn't the right time to be happy - this isn't about forcing ourselves. All emotions make up our human makeup and our emotions need to be respected and listened to and hopefully, a helpful response found. But sometimes and perhaps more often than you think, maybe you will find you have a choice... And this practice helps to challenge underlying beliefs about the nature of happiness and what it is dependent on. As well as using the creative power of the mind to support and resource us when things are tough.
Would you like more? Check out these quotes on happiness.