“When you create a life that is meaningful for you, happiness is effortless.”
Authentic happiness is your natural state. A central theme of Buddhist and Hindu teachings, happiness is a reflection of dharma – living in accordance with your life’s purpose.
When your choices and behaviours reflect your truth, you feel authentic happiness.
With the potential to experience happiness effortlessly, how is it that happiness seems to elude us?
The bigger truth for many is that we work hard at making ourselves unhappy.
We look for complex solutions to simple problems and we create complex problems by overlooking simple solutions.
Unaware of our constant stream of irrational and critical self-talk, we impose unrealistic expectations on ourselves based on inaccurate and unhealthy comparisons ~ of our self to others.
We expend a vast amount of emotional and physical energy experiencing a plethora of unpleasant emotions (e.g. anxiety, fear, anger, guilt, shame) as the result of unconscious adherence to established rules and beliefs.
We then react to the diminished way in which we feel by searching outside of our self for the illusion of something that we believe will make us happy.
When you look to material goods, physical pleasures, and other people to make you feel happy, these external sources of pleasure and comfort only momentarily sustain you.
You need to continue acquiring more material goods, to have more physical pleasures, and more external rewards to recreate and sustain these fleeting pleasant feelings.
Without a clear sense of purpose, you continue to search outside of yourself for what you believe will make you happy.
Instead, what sustains you is to go within, to connect with your inner self, to be present to each moment as you engage with your inner wisdom ~ and to follow a course of what inspires you and is personally meaningful.
Essentially, we could learn a thing or two from the Tibetan monks who have consciously chosen to live a highly simplified and yet conscious existence.
Authentic happiness begins by looking inward.
Carefully examine your life as it is presently.
What do you feel grateful for?
What allows you to feel happiness most readily?
What Is Your Current State of Happiness?
Consider your answers to the following questions. Let your initial intuitive response be the answer you record.
I am naturally happy. Yes__ No __
I feel ease and contentment with how I live my life. Yes__ No __
I easily feel happiness by choice. Yes __ No __
I am happy with who I am. Yes __ No __
What activities and experiences contribute to my feeling authentic happiness?
(Make a list. Consider what simple and meaningful experiences of life make you smile ~ and that allow you to feel happiness easily.)
What would I need to change in order for me to experience happiness more easily?
(List what this would this be.)
What would I need to change in order to feel innate happiness = happiness easily and effortlessly?
How would my life be different today if I were to make these changes?
Authentic happiness is innate. You experience it from within.
Authentic happiness exists as the inner contentment and calm that you feel when you feel connected with your inner self.
This connection arises from knowing yourself well and being happy with the person that you are.
You may continue to work on self-improvement, yet you hold contentment and reverence (self-respect) for yourself in this moment.
Think of your inner self as your inner being ~ your soul consciousness. It is this life force energy that is your fundamental nature.
Authentic happiness doesn’t leave you simply because you had a fight with a loved one, your best friend moved across the country, or your car repair bill is several thousand dollars.
Each life circumstance may carry with it any number of specific thoughts and feelings, and yet these events do not eradicate your inner happiness ~ your ability to feel happy-content-peaceful ~ at your core (as the true essence of what you are).
Life situations will continue to happen all around you. It is also a choice to feel content, peaceful, and also happy in the midst of all that is occurring.
Your authentic happiness is the true essence of what you are.
Take a moment now with me and access your inner nature ~ your authentic happiness. First, begin to breathe with awareness ~ focusing inward, to sense and feel what is there.
It may be a humming of thoughts, or you may sit for a time longer allowing your mind to quiet ~ as you witness what is beyond your thoughts ~ to find the calm that is always a part of you ~ that never escapes you even if at times it seems elusive.
If you wish take a moment now and be with your breath ~ and your inner awareness.
To search for happiness outside of yourself becomes a never-ending quest. Material goods, a raise or promotion, even a new relationship all provide sources of happiness.
If you pay close attention, the feelings of excitement, power, confidence, and satisfaction that these events may bring, are all momentary.
While external events are valuable and you are deserving of them, they can offer only temporary feelings of happiness, joy, and fulfillment because they are not originating from the source of what you are.
Authentic happiness may best be defined as what joy exists as ~ and exudes from within you ~ and as you acknowledge the good of who you are and as you strive to live as this goodness in all aspects of your life.
When you learn how to access your inner state of happiness by going within, material possessions, love relationships, money, travel ~ these are all still a part of your life ~ yet the difference is that you no longer need or rely on them for your feelings of happiness, self-worth, success, and for feeling loved.
All of the good that shows up in your life and all of what you deliberately manifest, reminds you of all of the beauty that life offers.
Rely on the authentic happiness you feel inside ~ for a true measure of what you have the power to exist as.
~ Namaste!
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