“Happiness is not a thing – it is a feeling; a way of joyful living and being. It comes from inner fulfilment and appreciating the world you live in.” – Rasheed Ogunlaru
I read this quote the other day and it reminded me that happiness come from within. It is not the external or physical things that we have that drives or fuels happiness, it is how we feel, think and believe about ourselves and our lives that do. We suffer not because of events or people in our lives. Rather, we suffer because of the thoughts and the beliefs we hold about these experiences and people.
This rang true on so many levels for me. When I started my journey toward wellness, it was deep work, my friends. Deeper than I ever imagined. I never realized how unhappy I was until I began take a critical look at my life, myself and my outlook on life. I didn’t trust anyone. Honestly, I didn’t trust myself. I adopted unhealthy coping mechanism to deal with my hurt and emotional pain and shoved it so far down and ignored it for a very long time. This translated in my behavior and the types of relationships I allowed in my life. I didn’t see my own worth so, I behaved like I didn’t matter.
My journey to wellness was not something that just sprung up on me… it was an experience that slowly integrated itself into my life. When I began noticing how negative my life was and how this was affecting my relationships, I knew I had to change. And to be honest, it didn’t start with mindfulness, but it was a version of it. My journey began when I realized I needed to practice self-awareness. I started acknowledging and working through my hurt eventually leading me to transform into who I am today!
Mindfulness is not just always about feeling good; it is about developing a capacity to experience our humanness – the good, the bad and the ugly. We can have the life we want, but it probably won’t be found by changing the world outside of ourselves. It comes from changing the world within because it is on the inside that we experience life. While mindfulness helps us to experience more positivity in life, in truth, it is meant to help us to see and more fully experience the difficult parts of life as well.
The quality of our lives will always be defined by our inner happiness. Our inner happiness will always impact our relationships and the quality of our happiness will always influence the quality of our lives.
Mindfulness is not just about “feeling good”. Think of it this way; if we are able to see more clearly, we can choose more clearly. Being mindful means we can see and experience a situation with less reaction, regardless of the emotion we are feeling – hurt, anger, frustration or sadness. When we can see more clearly, we are in a better position to, for example, reframe the issue, ask for help and support, or carefully choose our words. With mindfulness, we don’t allow ourselves to run away from what feels bad. We see with greater clarity and we connect with a deeper source of calmness and react in a way that is better aligned with our values. Feeling better is temporary; being better is permanent. The way we feel in our inner world manifests itself in how we experience our outside world.
'Our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world as being able to remake ourselves' - Mahatma Gandhi.
To stay present and positive we must pay attention to the meanings we are assigning. Sometimes our emotions can be overwhelming and when we are not aware of this, it can impact how we perceive and experience life. When we are not happy within, we often resort to external changes in hope that this will satisfy the need for internal happiness. For example, a person may change jobs, move to a different city or country, change relationships which are all great things to do, so long as these changes are not to satisfy an internal void or in search for internal happiness. The truth is, material goods are not the source of true fulfilment in life.
There is no outside source that will completely satisfy us. These material goods may provide us with some short-term happiness but truthfully, to find true happiness, we must make a conscious decision to appreciate life, practice self-compassion and become more grateful for who we are, what we do have and for the things we are able to do. Grateful people are fulfilled people.
Hurt People Hurt People
Do you know any difficult people in your life? Individuals who are easily offended by words? You feel you have to watch everything you say around them through fear that you'll set off a trigger in them that leads them to lash out in anger? Or perhaps this person, is you?
Hurt people hurt people. If we don’t deal with our own hurts, we end up hurting others, and most often, ones we love the most. When we don’t forgive others (remember, forgiving is about letting go), we hurt. When we don’t forgive ourselves, we hurt. When we hold on to hurt, in whatever shape or form they take in our life, this hurt translates in the way we interact with others, the choices we make, or don’t make and how we react during difficult times. When we harbour hurt, it influences how we treat others.
Let go of the hurt you have, first by acknowledging it, accepting it and then putting it in the past. We can’t change what’s been done, but we can let go of the hurt to no longer allow it to influence us today and into the future.
Practice self-compassion; allow yourself to unleash a more fulfilling way of life. No one is perfect so don’t allow yourself to be stuck in the tides of hurt you are holding onto and, let go.
And sometimes, we must let go of the people who are hurting us...
Everything we choose to lend our focus to in life has an emotional consequence. We tend to spend so much time and energy focusing on things that no longer serve us when we should be using that energy to focus on our inner world.
As the Buddha said, 'what we think, we become'.
When we pay closer attention to and try to better understand how our thoughts are influencing us, we begin to change who we are being and how we experience the world. If we can let go of the worries that stand in our way, we can become more “present” in the moment and focus on what truly matters.
I have consciously decided to focus my thoughts on my inner happiness, and as a result, I have been self-reflecting for years – it has been a long, integral, journey for me toward self-improvement. Where I am going is still uncertain but I know that it will reach far more positive outcomes.
Doing Will Not Alter Being
'I am a human being, not a human doing. Don’t equate your self-worth with how well you do things in life. You aren’t what you do. If you are what you do, then when you don’t…you aren’t'. Dr Wayne Dyer.
Many of us spend most of our time being busy. We are working, shopping, helping pour kids or others, being a spouse, parent, etc. And when we do find ourselves with a few extra moments, we manage to occupy those as well with other activities like, watching tv, exercising or socializing with friends. "Being" involves reflection and connection.
Being is very different from doing. It involves scrapping our 'to-do' list every now and again so that we can make time to reflect. When we reflect, we consider new things like our purpose in life, our values, our priorities, our relationships, etc. Introspection helps us explore and better understand who we are. Reflection helps us feel grounded and calm. It enables us to feel more like a 'human being' as opposed to a 'human doing'. Being is connecting and connection is a crucial element of being. We can connect with ourselves, others, nature, beliefs and even with a Higher Power. We need connection to thrive.
Take some time for yourself to reflect. It may not be an easy task, but I promise that over time it gets easier. The more you are within yourself and accept things and yourself as they are, the closer the road to inner happiness gets...
Perfectly Imperfect,
Stephanie
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