What makes us happy? The experience of happiness or to be happy is unique to everyone. There are no hard and fast rules to make us happy. As the old saying goes, money does not make you happy but I am sure it sure does make things easier.
So in thinking about happiness I have come up with some points that perhaps describe times when we are unhappy to help realise what actually makes us unhappy.
1. We are unhappy when we try to control things or people we know we can't control.
If we spend our life trying to control a person or thing that we have no control over then we feel powerless. If we get angry and frustrated because we have no control we could even feel despair and helplessness. If we feel a sense of loss then we feel grief. If we cannot control something then we have to surrender to the notion that we must let it go and move on or simply stop trying to control things. When the ego gets scared it holds on and tries to be in control. It is a automatic safety mechanism within us. The more we hold on the more pain we feel. This pain is fuelled by fear. Fear of loss, fear of not having something whether it is a relationship or event in our life that we desperately want to happen.
2. We are unhappy when we do not honour our Self.
When we dishonour our Self we fail to act in a way that is with love and care for our Self. This may be reflected in the fact that we fall short in our efforts to perform or achieve something and we let our self down. Or it may be a scenario where we do not stand up for our self and we feel angry inside because we undervalued our self. It may be that we procrastinate on making a change in our life when we know we really need to, or that we have made poor decisions that are leading us in the wrong direction. All these different cases mean that we are either consciously or unconsciously not honouring our Self.
3. We are unhappy when we over-react and hurt other people.
There are times when we fail to do the right thing by others and this can eat away at us like a slow sore that makes us feel angry. Angry perhaps that we were out of line or did not act when we should have for the sake of someone else. Guilt is the emotion we usually feel when we have wronged another or not performed when we know we should have. When we are guilt-ridden it is very difficult to feel happy. We must transform the guilt and forgive our self. There are always positives with every 'negative' event for all parties involved.
4. We are unhappy when we feel unsupported in life.
We can feel unsupported in many ways in our life whether it is emotionally, spiritually, or physically unsupported. It may be that we do not receive in the support from our partner that we desire or the support in the form of a better paying job or promotion at work. We feel unsupported in general because at our core we are not feeling worthy of support. Somewhere deep down we either hold an emotional wound of guilt or grief. The guilt or grief will make us feel not worthy and feeling under supported is a symptom. We may feel we have to 'do everything on our own' and this relates to a deep down fear of trust - either trust of Self or trust in others to give assistance. If we have do something on our own all the time we either do not trust others to help or we feel that we are not worthy of asking for assistance.
5. We are unhappy when we fail to follow our heart's desire and true purpose in life.
When we fail to listen to the whispers from our Soul we dishonour our Self and inner needs to move in a certain direction. The more we do not listen the more angry and sad we get. Extreme sadness can stem from ignoring our Soul's purpose. In times when this happens we need to be able to vision and dream to find what our heart really wants. The hard part is then determining whether or not it is something we can do full time or part time and if it generates income. Sometimes it does not necessarily mean income but we must move towards incorporating it into our lives in some way. Often our ego procrastinates and our Soul wants us to move. The conflict we feel between ego and Soul is the pain that we feel. When we act in alignment with our Soul we can operate in the flow of life and life become enjoyable and easy.
6. We feel unhappy when we feel grief and the loss of someone or something.
Loss and grief are often hard to lift out of. Depending on the severity of the loss grief can debilitate us and prevent us from happiness for long periods. If we lose a loved one it is very hard to focus on other people that bring us the love and joy that our loved one represented to us. But over time the only way to move on is to realise that nature abhors a vacuum, and love can come from other people and sources in our life. We need to move from grief to feeling love in their absence. Feeling love for someone when they are no longer here is still possible without the grief. It is a fine line between feeling the loss of someone and the feeling that the love for them is still with us. One is love and the other feeling is grief.
Emotional intelligence is the ability to decode emotions and understand which part of us that needs attention. Every emotion needs to be felt and released so that we can free our self from lower vibrating emotions such as fear, guilt and grief towards more positive emotions such as pure desire, expectancy and joy.
By feeling emotions we can discover the deeper issues and themes that play out within us that need resolving. When we change our perspective on life we can change our emotional reaction to people and events. There are always positives in every negative and vise versa. When we weigh up all positives and try and look at the bigger picture playing out for us in life we can free our self up from the emotional pain that comes with focusing on the negatives - either real or imagined.
Are we focused on the negatives or the positives, or do we see both? Balanced mind is where we can see both sides but remain in a state of non-reaction and gratitude at all times.
The end of the year is almost upon us again and I take this opportunity to wish you all a great festive season and a joyful and prosperous 2007.
With gratitude,
Fi Taylor
Barakaya Programs for the Soul
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