HAPPINESS IS ALL ABOUT YOU!
Being happy seemingly comes easily to some fortunate people. No matter what happens within their life they constantly seem to have a smile planted firmly on their face and a pleasant demeanour most of the time. Naturally these individuals rarely lack friends and are wonderful to be around. Their happiness being entirely contagious!
Too many of us seek some outside force or material things to feel a sense of happiness yet it is never to be found anywhere but right there within each and every one of us.
A new material possession can temporarily excite us and equally temporarily make us feel like we are happy. That feeling never lasts though. What you or I crucially need instead is a way of remaining happy whatever!…
IT’S A CHOICE, THAT WORD CHOICE AGAIN
Our inner conversations with ourselves, the ones we talked about earlier. These are the key to living a quality life and remaining fundamentally happy. Those facts about the world we hold to be true, the ones we constantly re-affirm through our inner conversations. And yet, as we have already proven with the example of our sixteen-year-old self, these truths do evolve and change.
Maybe our poor inner conversations about happiness might go something like this:
1. Well, you know, I need to deal with everyday life don’t I, rather than all this theoretical stuff.
2. I’m always having to pay those bills, they never seem to grow smaller, am I supposed to be happy about this?
3. Don’t even mention those stressful trips to the busy grocery store I must endure every week or any of the other thousand and one hurdles that come along in life.
4. Life is hard sometimes and no amount of pretending it isn’t will make it any better.
Finding a happier life
Living happy is possible for any one of us to achieve as a definite decision to take. There is a clear path to getting there and we are all free to consciously choose to walk it.
No matter what comes along we will be able to deal with it while remaining calm. Eventually getting to the point where problems are instead viewed as challenges which are there to be happily overcome, rather than these horrendously unfair random happenings for losing sleep and to worry over. In fact, happiness is our natural state and it is now long overdue for us to collectively reclaim this birthright.
It only needs for us to take on an easily adoptable new mindset, as we shall see point of fact it’s remarkably simple yet will usually require leaving the comfort trap of a previously limiting mindset we may well have been falsely holding on to for far too long.
ACTIVE SMILING
Look at yourself in a mirror and pull a face that is comically glum. Next smile at your reflection, it is like an instant face lift!
Here is the start of an exciting different approach to life and one which is going to turn out to be seriously fun (how else?).
Each morning while you are looking in the mirror, getting ready to go out and experience your new day look yourself in the eyes and smile. Keep smiling for at least a minute and wish yourself a happy day.
If being serious and grumpy can unfortunately often become habit-forming for too many, equally so can smiling and being happy.
How about making smiling your new hobby? When you first waken up in the morning, when you first open your eyes and smile.
During the day, if you feel stress starting to make itself known and tension builds up. Step away. Take a few moments out and go to the washroom. In privacy smile and keep it up for at least a minute, tell yourself out loud or if you prefer in your mind, that you are happy and will easily cope.
Every time we practice active smiling not only are we re-programming ourselves to have a different outlook, we are also happily creating happy endorphins in our brains and these act on our nervous system making us feel even more happy.
Although at first, we may well feel like acting like we are happy, eventually and surely, it is going to arrive at the point where our both conscious and subconscious start to believe the messages of happiness they are being constantly subjected to and we can become our own wonderfully self-fulfilling prophecy.
Triggers anchoring us
Triggers anchoring us to stay happy are useful. Here are some of those triggers, use them, buy-into them and watch how your attitude to life changes:
1. Perhaps there are songs or a genre of music that inspires and lifts your moods? Play it often.
2. Are there certain colours you find uplifting? Wear them and surround yourself with them.
3. Walking officially lifts our moods, if you feel a little down or lethargic, go take a walk.
4. Conversation and interaction with fellow humans can be incredibly uplifting.
5. As is being in love and feeling loved.
6. Enjoy reading? Read inspiring books or stories, expanding our knowledge about something we are interested in must make us feel better.
7. Go smell a rose! Seriously, if you have a local park or perhaps a garden of your own, take the time to inhale the fragrance of a rose in full bloom, the heady scent can only lift anyones mood.
8. Crosswords or mind puzzles such as Sudoku are not only calming, they have the added benefit of brain-training as well!
It is easy to be enthusiastic when things all seem to be going well for us, how about in the more challenging times though? Those moments when there seems to be a chain reaction of all that bad stuff happening. This is the time to really come alive and shine!
Dean Fraser
www.deanfrasercentral.com
Editors note: Thanks to Dean who kindly submitted this article to us.
Protective crystals for being happy
