Happiness, it’s an inside job!

Tam Johnston

The secret to happiness?

It’s international happiness day, and happiness has a message for you to help you find it!

Time after time I hear from people “I’ll be happy when…” as though it’s there, glistening temptingly in their future somewhere, but they haven’t got it yet.

What we’re really saying when we think this, is that we believe happiness dependant upon something – circumstances, possessions or other people.  What goes with this is the belief that we can’t be happy until we have whatever it is that we believe will make us happy.

Happiness is a state of being, for choosing in the nowIt can be a tricky and powerless place to be – as time shifts along, often so does the possibility of us getting those things because even if we get them, our mind has a way of skipping ahead to the next thing in the future that will make us happy, and I mean really happy this time!

So what are we missing….why is it that so many people are stuck hoping for happiness, one day?! There it is, apparently sitting there waiting for them on ‘one day island’, yet somehow the journey through life is getting us nowhere nearer that island and all the things it holds that will provide that happiness. Are we on the wrong journey, or do we need to look elsewhere for it?

Well, the fortunate and easy truth is… that happiness we seek is already inside us.

“Happiness is a mood, not a destination”.

It’s in there, crying out to be found, brought out within us and experienced in our everyday life. If it could talk it would tell us it’s an emotion, a mood, a feeling that is there for the taking…. we can choose to find and experience it, in any moment; it’s not about being dependant on tangible things or the circumstances to bring it to us.

It would tell you that just as we’re good at knowing how to feel irritated or stressed or sad at times, so too are we good at remembering how to feel happy! We have access to all our emotions, it’s just that sometimes we forget that we have the ability to feel happy just as much as we can perceive the day to day troublesome moods that leave us wanting more.

It would remind us that just as we seek out the problems and things we don’t have, we can also choose to focus on what we do have and what is good in our lives. We can find ways to stop dwelling on the things that get us down, to let go and laugh, have fun, appreciate the good things in the moment; rather than focusing on what the future may or may not bring for us.

 It wants us to know today that it wants to make us happy, right now! All we need to do is search it out and let it! If we allow it to make us feel happy, it will show us the way, it will guide us towards more things that will feed it and help it grow. It will be with us on our journey and help us create more of what we want in the future. It is within us; seek it out today and let it have its voice and show us where it lies. It’s an inside job!

talking bubble image

STAY CONNECTED