With our culture and world dealing with an epidemic of depression, I feel speaking about happiness is paramount. According to the World Health Organization, 300 million people worldwide have depression, and 16.2 million adults in the U.S. have experienced a major depressive episode in the last year. Here in Canada, 1 in 5 people will experience a mental health problem or illness in any given year (Canadian Mental Health Association).
To be clear, if you are dealing with a serious episode and feeling alone, I highly recommend speaking to a professional (ideally someone that specializes in some form of counseling or mental health). Family doctors are great resource, but please seek professional help from someone who specializes in how we think. Know you are not alone, and find someone who can give you guidance.
With that being said, is it even possible to attain happiness?
It has become part of our culture to endlessly search for happiness, likely because so many people are feeling deeply unhappy. Many people are on the treadmill of chasing the idea of happiness, instead trying to embody it day to day.
I believe happiness just is. It is about being, versus doing. You either are happy, or you’re not. It is not something outside of you, it is something that exists within you. Something you are able to access during your day. It is a combination of feelings, including contentment, joy, bliss and enjoyment in the simple things. You don’t need to change anything to be happy.
We all experience sadness, disappointment, frustration, anger, guilt, shame, and fear. Happiness is not the absence of these emotions. Happiness is knowing that they are part of life, and that in time, these emotions will shift. That time frame may be a day, a week, or few months. But if you’re being sucked down into those emotions, you are pulling away from what feels good. When we are in that state, most of us have a desire to change, to feel anything other then what we are feeling. But if we become fixated on not feeling what we are feeling, that fixation produces more of the same feeling. The sense of scarcity becomes overwhelming as we begin to believe happiness is outside of us; we claw desperately, trying to move out of the dark feelings. We seek something – again outside of us – in our need to feel something more positive. We desire difference.
Happiness is the absence of desire. It is when you stop thinking that if you keep going, if you keep struggling, if you keep grasping, you will find it. When you stop believing that happiness is in a job, a house, a partner, in family or money, only then will happiness arrive. Because it isn’t attached to an outcome. You just live it. You are it, and you embody the feeling of being content with exactly what you have.
Do you rewarding or punishing yourself for the various outcomes in your life. The desire to reward ourselves for things we perceive as good, and punish ourselves for things we feel are undesirable, can be tempting. But if you stop clinging to ideas of good and bad, there is more space to just be.
I struggle with happiness when I get attached to outcomes in the past, present or future. I watch myself unfurl stories about how things ‘should’ be whenever I am attached to an outcome. Just recently, I was hurt by someone’s actions, someone that I’d let into my life. I felt disrespected. I opened and it felt jarring, because I was attached to how I felt I should be treated. As I let go of needing the outcome to be different, and I regained my sense of balance. I no longer held onto my anger and frustration, and I felt lighter and far less attached. It doesn’t mean I don’t continue to move with integrity; not only that, I want the same for those who are close to me. It does means that I learn and let go quicker. I stop holding.
When you are constantly chasing outcomes, you are unable to be in the moment. Happiness is attached to an outcome. But when we achieve certain outcomes, the emotion we desire only lasts for a short period. So if you want to shift towards feeling happy, you must be willing to let go of the attachment of achieving. Happiness just is. It isn’t in the outcome. If you have spent your life chasing outcomes, you probably already know that once that outcome arrives, you are creating new desires to find the ‘next’ one. So that you can get your fix. Your outcome fix is entirely different from learning to be in the moment, and feeling present in your happiness.
Happiness is very individual. The things that make one person happy are not the same for the next person. Find what it is that makes you happy. Spend time each day being able to enjoy the small things that bring you joy. For me happiness comes when I listen to music, have a real conversation with someone, connect with my daughter, do the work that I love doing, get outside, and find ways to just be. Find what that is for you. Find your own happiness barometer and keep moving your life towards that, each and every day.
Sharing thoughts like this makes me happy. Perhaps one person will be able to make a shift in their life that creates a huge inner change. It makes me happy to support others.
with gratitude,
Noelle
Is Living a Life Of Happiness Attainable?
