Whatever time you do practise, make these happiness habits a ritual. And then be ready to experience a beautiful transformation in life.

5 essential daily happiness habits in just 5 minutes

Minute 1: Just breathe

It’s important because: Breathing connects us in to these wonderful bodies of ours. It grounds us. It releases tension. It relaxes body and mind. It keeps us alive! As you inhale, try visualising breathing in peaceful energy; as you exhale, imagine breathing out love. Really feel it. [Also read Breathe in—Stress out]

Minute 2: Give thanks

It’s important because: We spend most of our lives in haste, mostly unaware of all the wonder and beauty around us. When we become grateful, the universe responds in kind and we only receive more gifts. Gratitude is an essential daily happiness practice. [Also read It’s time to thank…]

Minute 3: Visualise tomorrow

It’s important because: It’s so easy to get caught up in your head. Worrying about tomorrow, and often about things you have no control over. This exercise creates the positive intention for your next day, and tells your mind ‘all is well’. It’s especially beneficial if you find it difficult to switch off from whirling thoughts.

Minute 4: Let go

It’s important because: If we’re not spending our time worrying about tomorrow, then we are usually fretting about yesterday. All the things that went wrong, the people that annoyed us, the things we wished we’d done differently. Honestly, it does you no good and only distracts you from being happy right now. [Also read 4 powerful tools for letting go, moving on and releasing regrets]

Minute 5: Give love

It’s important because: So often, the person who most needs our love and kindness is the one we most easily forget: ourselves. Give yourself love every single day and you will notice a true difference in how you feel inside. Then comes the magical part: as within, so without – you’ll naturally start to experience more love from others too. And love and happiness go hand-in-hand.

The post 5 essential happiness habits in just 5 minutes a day appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Leaders of countries, including Prime Minister Modi and President Mukherjee, are no doubt motivated by all four because their careers afford them all four of those motivators. But that doesn’t happen to many people.

Perhaps you go to work every morning just so that you earn enough money to make a good living for yourself and your family. Maybe the security of your job helps you relax, so you can enjoy other things in your life. If your career gives you power or fame, perhaps money isn’t your greatest motivator.

I have learned over the years that I am not motivated by any of those four. Instead, I believe with all my heart that I have been motivated completely by the search for happiness. I want to be happy in this life. If what I do for a living did not make me happy, I’d choose another career even if it paid less than the one I have. And the one I have as a writer and a speaker doesn’t pay that much, believe me, but it makes me happy.

I’m one of the happiest people I know

Over the years I have travelled, read, played, loved and experienced life to the best of my ability. I’m your average woman who lives life simply, one day at a time, just like most people. Like most ordinary people, I know a little bit about a lot of things, but not a whole lot about any one thing. I’m not a gorgeous beauty, nor do I spend hours every day trying to be. I don’t obsess about exercise or food. I do my best, but I don’t waste time beating myself up if I gain a few pounds or eat too many sweets.

I have a good husband, relatives and friends who love me. I have a small, stress-free condo that’s paid for, and the sun, beaches, swimming pools and a good bicycle to keep me healthy and happy.

I believe with all my heart that I have been motivated completely by the search for happiness. I want to be happy in this life

Honestly, I’m one of the happiest people I know. I do not believe for one nanosecond that money or wealth makes anyone happy. Even though I don’t have a lot of money, I’ve lived an interesting, fulfilling, relatively stress-free life with more adventures than most of my friends who have lots more money than I have. Happiness is a goal I have achieved for most of my life.

It helps that I’m a frugal soul who still looks for restaurant coupons in the paper, buys many of my clothes at consignment shops, and enjoys the thrill of a good bargain. But the main ingredients of happiness have nothing to do with being frugal or for that matter with money at all.

It cannot be found outside

My years of experiences have taught me that nothing that is outside of ourselves makes us happy. Nothing. Not good health, free time, luxuries, being in control of others or being successful in business or finance. Happiness comes from within. It’s a state of mind, an attitude.

How do I know this? Because I’ve met people who are very happy and yet they struggle from pay cheque to pay cheque. I’ve met people who are happy and yet they’re in poor health or physically challenged in ways we cannot even comprehend. I’ve met people who have more money than they could spend in a lifetime and yet they are not happy. Being successful can only make you happy as long as the happiness comes from doing something with your life that has something to do with the talents you were given at birth. If it’s money that drives you, chances are you are not truly, intrinsically happy.

My years of experiences have taught me that nothing that is outside of ourselves makes us happy

Many times when people become executives who are in control of many people, their lives simply become so stressful and busy that they barely have time to tie their shoes, let alone step back and actually enjoy their wealth, power or business success. The pressure to keep the status quo is so great that they can’t leave work for one minute, even when they’re trying to relax at home with their families. Their cell phones, computers, iPads and other electronic gadgetry make sure that their minds are never more than a click away from running things.

It’s never in the future

Another thing I’ve learned about happiness is that it doesn’t matter what’s ahead for us in this great scheme of things. What matters is whether or not we’re happy today. Right now. Are you? I am. I really, truly am.

I was raised in a happy two-parent family with hard-working parents who instilled good moral values in my life. I graduated from college, married, divorced, lived in five different states and raised four children with very little income. Thanks to inexpensive friend passes on airlines where some friends worked, I’ve seen much of the world and had amazing adventures. However, it wasn’t the adventures that made me happy. It was [and is] having the freedom and the determination to never say no to an opportunity that makes me happy. The strength to be adventurous and happy comes from being bold, taking chances.

It doesn’t matter what’s ahead for us in this great scheme of things. What matters is whether or not we’re happy today

For some, the ability to be happy is clouded by worry, stress, despair, fear or not being able to forgive or ask for forgiveness. Whenever any of those things hang over my head like a huge black umbrella, I fix it. I talk to friends, get counselling, pray, write about my feelings, sort things out logistically, then often I take a vacation to make sure I’m not running on empty… even if it’s just an afternoon walk along the beach. I know I have to get rid of the negative things in my life if my goal is to be a happy person.

It’s my job alone

Along the way I discovered that the only person who can make me happy is me. It’s not fair to blame someone else if I’m unhappy because it’s not their job. The job of making me happy is mine alone.

Over the years I’ve asked many people what, according to them, were the five ingredients to happiness and invariably they blurt out “lots of money” or “a bigger retirement fund.” Or they name things money can buy: “A bigger house”, “an expensive automobile”, “a trip around the world”, “a yacht”, “real diamonds”, “a maid” and so on. Or they say something too difficult to accomplish like, “World peace, perfect health or a cure for all diseases.”

Once at a holiday party that a big company was sponsoring, the attendees were in a festive free-for-all mood. During an after-dinner speech I was giving, I asked the audience, “What makes you happy?” A woman raised her hand, giggled, then shouted, “Great sex and good chocolate!” We all had a big laugh; then I reminded her that both are temporary and being intrinsically happy is a much bigger, longer-lasting feeling.

Another older woman at a church group said good health had to be one of the most important ingredients to real happiness. I reminded her that we all know people who don’t have good health or are physically challenged in some way and yet are quite happy with their lives.

You may be asking, “What happens when life throws me a curve? What happens when a loved one gets cancer? Or teenagers are brutally slaughtered by one of their own? Or a family member gets involved in drugs? Or a marriage fails? How do you find happiness as a refugee in a country where tens of thousands of people are pushed out of their homes by enemy soldiers? How can people be happy when they’ve lost their homes because of the raging fury of devastating tornadoes, hurricanes, floods or earthquakes?”

It’s not fair to blame someone else if I’m unhappy because it’s not their job. The job of making me happy is mine alone

The five ingredients for happiness

How do you find happiness when life throws a curve? The same way you find happiness on a normal day when the sun is shining and the boss is happy and your spouse not only did the laundry last night but gave you a tender hug before you left in the morning. You depend on the five ingredients for happiness: someone to love, something to do, something to hope for, something to believe in and laughter. You simply grab on to them with even more grit and determination. When you’re caught in the midst of a gully-washing nightmare in life is when you really need someone to love more than any other time. When the chips are down is when you need something to do to begin to repair and rebuild. When life seems its bleakest is when we must have something to hope for on a grand scale. Something to believe in makes it possible to go on. And laughter makes the journey worthwhile and fun.

I believe that if we have the five ingredients, our lives will naturally be happy. The best thing is that all five are easily attainable. All five start from deep within ourselves and grow and flourish until our happiness quotient bubbles up and out and becomes contagious. Before you know it, not only are you happy but you’re helping to make others happy as well. What a concept!

1. Someone to love

I believe it. I live it. After all, what good am I if I don’t walk the talk? The fact is simple. I’m happy and I know why. Anybody can be happy if you have someone to love. That’s the first ingredient to happiness. Someone to love. Notice I didn’t say someone to love me. Or someone to love you. No, I said someone to love. It’s the act of loving someone else that makes us happy.

Personally, I’m blessed with so many people to love that it’s no wonder that I am conscious of being happy every day of my life. I love my amazing father and step mom. They head the list because they’re the oldest and deserve the most respect. Dad [95] and Bev [90] have been married since 1982 [my mother died in 1979].

I love my four incredible children—Jeanne, Julia, Michael and Andrew. I think the fact that I dragged them through two marriages and two divorces makes me love them all the more because they survived and they are all incredible, smart, interesting and talented humans. I am very proud and happy to have them in my life. Three have spouses, one is in a relationship, and they all have children. They’ve given me nine incredible grandchildren to love.

I have one brother and one sister, a sister-in-law and a brother-in-law. Three nieces, one nephew, dozens of cousins and only one aunt still alive out of 12 aunts and uncles. It’s a good family, scattered all over the country, but when we get together we enjoy each other and every minute of our time together. And like I said, I am totally aware every day of my life how much I love this family of mine.

The interesting part of loving someone else is that it usually produces a boomerang effect. The love we give out is almost always returned back to us. But it isn’t about being loved in return. It’s about simply loving someone, nourishing that love. Give anyone—a spouse, child, parent, other relative, friend, neighbour, co-worker or teacher—your time, energy and devotion and bam! Happiness becomes a part of your life. It’s the act of loving someone else that makes us happy.

Anybody can be happy if you have someone to love. That’s the first ingredient to happiness. Someone to love

2. Something to do

Will the person who doesn’t have something to do please stand up? We all have plenty to do, don’t we? Something to do is one of the five ingredients to happiness because we must have something worthwhile to fill up our days or our whole purpose for being on this earth is for nothing.

We need to be productive members of society, working to make things better in our world. Whether we have a career outside the home or we work at home taking care of our families, most of us have plenty to do, so it isn’t a problem. However, many older retired people actually don’t have enough to do and that’s when they need to get off the sofa, turn off the TV and volunteer their time to help others if they want this piece of the happiness puzzle.

Even when we plan a vacation where we can escape to an island and do nothing for days on end, we invariably get tired and bored with nothing to do. After a few days of sun, sand, sea, surf and little drinks with umbrellas in them, we sit up, dust off the sand and say, “Hey, let’s do something today! Let’s go exploring. Let’s go into town, go for a hike, try snorkelling, visit the local museum. I can’t stand to sit here another minute!”

The trick is finding the right things to do. It could be noble things, interesting things or helpful things. Volunteering, no matter how old you are, is absolutely one of the best things we can do with our lives. Isn’t the Golden Rule all about doing for others that which we would want them to do for us? Donate your time, talent and treasures so that others may have better lives. It’s something to do and will most definitely make you happy.

Volunteering, no matter how old you are, is absolutely one of the best things we can do with our lives

3. Something to hope for

The one thing that prevents us from becoming a world full of babbling psychotic, depressed, stressed-out individuals during this highly stressful 21st century is the third thing on my list of five ingredients for happiness: something to hope for. This one is imperative because without the hope that some things in our lives will change or be different or get better, then we simply have no reason to look to the future. Quite simply having a hope or a dream makes us happy.

Why do you think so many older people in homes for the elderly are so unhappy? They have no one to love, little to do and nothing to hope for. Many just sit around in wheelchairs waiting to die. Hope is such a splendid gift because it buoys us up in times of tragedy, bad health, lost jobs, death of a loved one, divorce, or any of life’s pitfalls.

Here’s an assignment. Write your dream or goal on a piece of paper… at least one thing you’d like to do, accomplish or experience before you die. Something that will make you happy once you do it. Place that paper on your refrigerator, on top of your computer, or on the bathroom mirror… any place where you’ll see it every day. And then get busy making that dream come true. You are the only person responsible to make your dreams or goals come true. Make sure your dream is something you can control. Winning the lottery doesn’t count.

When I speak to groups I often have the participants write down their dreams on paper that I collect. At least 90 per cent of all dreams that people have seem to fall into one of eight categories—get rich, retire, travel, lose weight, get more education, change careers, dreams for others [they want their kids or grandkids to be happy and successful, etc.] and what I refer to as the impossible dreams: world peace or a cure for all diseases.

Hope is such a splendid gift because it buoys us up in times of tragedy, lost jobs, illness, divorce, or any of life’s pitfalls

Years ago, I asked a group of my women friends to share their dreams or goals. Connie said she wanted to become an accomplished writer and make enough money to also be a philanthropist. Her first dream may take 20 years like it does most writers, and the second may be out of her control. Hopefully she’ll fine-tune her goal into something like selling one article to a magazine in the next six months. It’s important to keep our goals, hopes and dreams in bite-size chunks so we can actually make them happen.

Elaine said she’d like to work with wood and find her creative voice. Bravo! Now there’s a dream that’s doable. I hope she’s enrolled in a woodworking class at a community college by now.

Deborah’s dream was to integrate her smarts and experience and talent into a position where she can make a difference in the world. Sounds like she could use the help of a good career counsellor who can help find out where her strengths lie and what her options are.

Kitty wanted to visit Iceland, write about her travels and get her travelogues published. She went on the trip, kept a detailed journal and sold a few articles about her experiences.

Jean, who was in her mid-70s at the time, wanted to finish the eighth edition of a college textbook she wrote years ago and to keep her health in top shape by continuing her weight training and her three mile walks every day. Jean’s dreams and goals kept the younger ones in our group inspired to the max. Now in her 90s, Jean has finished even more editions to her college text and still exercises every day.

Karen, who worked as a home health nurse, said her goal was to become a more positive influence at work. She said her work environment had become riddled with rumours and back-biting gossip and she wanted to be a catalyst for helping change the attitude and camaraderie on the job. She said she was going to bring in a box to work where fellow employees could drop the funniest, most outrageous things that happened at work. Her dream was to replace stress with laughter on the job.

Whitney, in her early 20s, was working on her Ph.D. She said her goal was to facilitate a woman’s group like the one in my home that evening. She wanted to encourage and empower women. Right on!

What’s your dream? What is it you’re hoping for? Whether you’re 18 or 98, write it down and then get busy making it come true. Something to hope for is the most delightful of the five things we need to be happy because hope and dreams give our lives wings.

It’s important to keep our goals, hopes and dreams in bite-size chunks so we can actually make them happen

4. Something to believe in

Something to believe in is critical in this happiness puzzle because it takes care of all those things we simply can’t understand or explain. It’s a place to tuck away the scary parts of life and simply stop worrying. Having something to believe in is a gigantic comfort. Faith in your belief system is a gift. Some have the gift, some don’t. Something to believe in: faith, religion, spirituality, a being greater than ourselves, like happiness itself, must come from within.

The religions of the world provide us with deities: God, Mohammed, Buddha, Jesus, Confucius and many, many more. Hinduism has diverse beliefs and traditions but no single deity. Each religion has a history and ability to quell our spiritual fears and anxieties. If we want to be truly happy, we need to relax and let religion do its thing. In Christianity, there’s a saying, “Let go and let God.” In other words, go to God with your problems, fears, anxieties and then relax. Have faith that God, or whatever deity you believe in, will do for you what you can’t do for yourself.

It’s nobody’s responsibility to force feed faith into my veins and make me faith-filled just like it’s nobody’s responsibility to make me happy. I have the gift of faith. I appreciate the fact that I have that gift. I use it daily because my faith tells me that I can’t solve all of life’s problems. But I can turn them over to my God. Faith is a lovely gift. I don’t think it’s something I can create for others, but it is a gift that goes a long way in the pursuit of happiness.

5. Laughter

I’m a big fan of laughter. The gift of laughter is such an important ingredient for happiness that I’ve saved it for last. It’s the one ingredient that turns happiness into joy, into giggles, into slap-your-thigh outrageous wonderment and delight at life itself. Laughter is happiness turned vocal.

Laughter is in my key-ingredients-for-happiness list because it is a critical part of our physical and mental wellbeing. Joy from our inner souls spills out from our bodies as laughter. Laughter helps us physically by elevating our thymus cells that are used in defence against viruses and rejection of foreign tissues. Laughter releases endorphins, which also help build up the immune system that keeps us healthy by fighting off sickness, germs, viruses, infections and disease. Laughter massages our internal organs and increases oxygen to the blood by 10 times, thus raising our energy levels.

Laughter reduces our blood pressure. A minute of hearty laughter can produce a heart rate equal to that of 10 minutes of rowing on an exercise machine. Laughter benefits the respiratory tract, helping people at risk for pulmonary infection to clear their lungs of air containing carbon dioxide and water vapour and replace it with oxygen-rich air. Coughing produced by laughter can clear the trachea and bronchi of mucus. Laughter makes you breathe from a deeper place in the lungs. It relaxes the skeletal muscles in the arms and legs to improve circulation.

Laughter turns happiness into joy, into giggles, into slap-your-thigh outrageous wonderment and delight at life itself

Laughter also helps us mentally. It improves our moods, reduces depression, helps us sleep and it brings us into the present where there is love and hope, and away from the past where there may be sadness or regret. When laughter is a part of a conversation it helps you remember things you say and things you hear. Watching a funny movie can eliminate tension and anger and greatly ease depression.

Career counsellors and human resource professionals look for people with a good sense of humour and an ability to laugh because studies have shown that such people have better problem-solving skills and are usually more creative than people who don’t have a sense of humour.

You may be saying, “That’s easy for you to say, but I’m not funny.” You don’t have to be a natural born comedian to put laughter into your life. Share jokes you hear at work with your friends. Put a rubber chicken in your guest bed when you have houseguests. Wear a crazy hat to your next party. Play harmless practical jokes that will make the people you care about laugh with delight and then plot ways to return the laughter. Tell stories about the dumb or silly things you’ve done in your life. Hang out with funny people and let it rub off on you. Go to funny movies. And remember, you don’t stop laughing because you grow old; you grow old because you stop laughing.

So, be happy…because it’s easy

So, you can see that happiness in this world is not that difficult to find—you can make it happen. It just takes five simple things: someone to love, something to do, something to hope for, something to believe in and laughter. All of which you have.

The post 5 simple ingredients to make a perfect recipe for happiness appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Happiness, like so many things in life, is subjective. No two people will give the same response to this question: “How do you define happiness?”

We are all unique, and you will create your own meaning of happiness and of bliss. You may even rediscover and recreate your definitions of both throughout your life, perhaps even as you read this.

The multiplicity of happiness lies in the subtle experience of the word itself. On the one hand, the word conjures feelings of joy, visual images of gleeful smiles, or contented moments of idyllic bliss on a tropical beach. Whatever happiness feels like for you, it fills you up inside. Everyone wants to be happy.

On the other hand, striving to be happy sees most people trying to change everything and everyone around them, dictated by some deep-seated belief that it is an external experience. The oversight of happiness seekers is not realising that it is a state of being rather than an external experience. When people realise that they need to look within, and connect to themselves, happiness becomes a much more challenging concept and an even more challenging experience to find.

My role here is not to tell you what happiness is. My role is to help you rediscover it for yourself. However, just as I’m sure you have, I have experienced it in so many forms. Yet no matter the variation, the result was always the same for me: fleeting.

» Storybook happiness

We frequently compare ourselves and our lives to others. We strive to have the storybook-perfect life we perceive some others as having. Because they appear happy, we believe they are happy and make all kinds of wild assumptions as to the reasons for their happiness. We believe they must have found the key, that they must have all the right happiness ingredients. We want their “happily ever after”, so we seek to emulate what they have. Sadly, we believe that whatever they have is better than our own lives.

This stems from not truly accepting who you are. When you don’t love and cherish yourself, it is easy to compare yourself, often less than kindly, with someone else’s life. You may perceive others to be more beautiful or successful than you, to have more thoughtful partners than you, or to have nicer homes than you. Sometimes you may go a step further, comparing yourself to people you don’t even know, like the airbrushed gorgeous celebrity on the front of your favourite magazine or even fictional characters in television shows.

We judge all these people based on what we see—without any true insight into their lives. If what we see mirrors our perception of happiness, often we will go to extreme lengths to create our storybook happiness.

» Surprise happiness

Happiness has been defined as an emotional state characterised by feelings of enjoyment, pleasure, and satisfaction. Enjoyment, pleasure, and satisfaction … In my view, these are all the result of doing something—cause and effect, if you like. Depending on who we are with, what we are doing, and how we are feeling [the cause], we can dip in and out of the effect of happiness on a daily or even an hourly basis. It’s almost as if happiness is a surprise we are looking for and even trying to make happen, but we never quite know when it will appear.

We can all think of moments or events that have made us happy and put smiles on our faces. Perhaps for you, it came from receiving unexpected flowers from your husband, hearing a sincere and heartfelt thank you from a colleague, or even enjoying the simple pleasure of a sunny day. It might even be the way you feel when you buy something new or receive a gift. Perhaps you even base how loved you feel in a relationship on the number and size of loving gestures and gifts. Or you try to create surprise happiness for others by lavishing them with gifts rather than seeing that the best gift is your time and unconditional love.

The feelings of happiness associated with these things may last a while, but eventually the feelings fade and we wait for the next moment to be happy because of something or someone. It is no wonder that although we strive for more and more, we’re constantly left feeling unfulfilled.

» Surrogate happiness

Surrogate happiness comes in three forms: when you base your happiness on someone else’s expectations of how your life should be lived, when you put all your energy into making someone else happy because you believe that will make you happy, and when you expect someone else to make you happy through his behaviour and actions.

Happiness by expectation: Too many people are living lives that are not theirs to live. They live their lives according to what others think is best for them. Foremost, our parents shape us. Sometimes we are so desperate for their approval and love that we live our lives the way we believe they think we should. What our friends, colleagues, and even the media think is best for us also influences us. Sometimes we are so busy pleasing people that we give away ownership of our lives. We ignore our inner voices and let others’ opinions divert us from our paths. Now is the time to give up living your life according to other people’s expectations.

Happiness by sacrifice: For many of us, it is easier to give love than to receive love. Some people ignore their own needs, preferring to focus all their energy on making someone else happy.

Sometimes this is shaped by our upbringing. In my own life, I have been used to putting others before myself since an early age. The eldest of four children, I was a second mum to my youngest sister before I had reached the age of 10. She would choose to come to me with her problems, climb into my bed for reassurance if she had a nightmare, and confide her fears and dreams to me. I love my two sisters and my brother dearly, but being the responsible-before-my-time older sister shaped my belief that my role in life was to nurture others and put their needs before my own. That continued well into adulthood. I believed my role and my happiness stemmed from making others happy.

The truth is that you can’t make anyone else happy. Others are in charge of choosing to be happy all by themselves. Of course, we are here to love, nurture, and care for and share our lives with other people, but not to the point of sacrificing our own needs to meet theirs.

There is a lot of literature around about the benefits of doing good for others… and how doing so makes you feel happy. Indeed, a compassionate and generous heart is a wonderful gift. But the happiness that comes from doing good for others will only be fleeting unless you first bestow yourself with gentle compassion.

Happiness by delegation: You can no more make another person happy than that person can make you happy. True happiness comes from within. When you delegate your responsibility for your own happiness to someone else, you unfairly tip the scales in your life. You unwittingly create a situation where neither of you will be happy because of the expectation of being made to feel happy. Often we look to our partners in our relationships to make us happy, as if it is their job. Yet we become more and more miserable when they don’t live up to our expectations of making us happy, particularly if we believe that we are experts at doing it for them. Other people enrich our lives, they support us, they treasure us, and they love us. But happiness is your choice. No one can create it for you.

If you are searching for happiness in an external source or from another person, you hide your true self. You forget what makes you happy, what you want, what you need. Eventually, you no longer remember who you are, and soul sadness is inevitable.

you can no more make another person happy than that person can make you happy. True happiness comes from within

» Someday happiness

Someday happiness is having a happiness plan. It’s when we plan to be happy . . . someday, when all the stars in our lives come into alignment and create a cosmic burst of happiness. A happiness plan is believing that happiness is all about having the right ingredients in one’s life. Much like following the recipe for your favourite cake, when you have all the right ingredients, the oven turned to just the right temperature, the perfect baking time, and a beautiful platter to serve it on to someone special in your life, that’s when happiness will be created. Of course, this is all at such a deep subconscious level that we don’t really ever realise we even have a happiness plan. But most of us are putting off happiness, telling ourselves we’ll be happy when we are mortgage-free, happy when we lose five kilos, or happy when we take a well-deserved holiday. We’re putting off happiness today, tomorrow, and even next week or next year, until our storybook lives are perfect, rather than focusing on being happy now.

» Soul happiness

Can you remember the last time you were deeply, blissfully happy, when you were so happy that you felt you were beaming with joy… so happy that you felt lovingly content with yourself… so happy that you wanted to break into song… so happy that everywhere you looked, everything and everyone had a golden glow… so happy that you felt indescribably beyond happy? For a moment, hold that feeling of deep, blissful happiness in your heart. Imagine if you could feel that way for more than just a day, a week, or even a month or a year. Imagine if you could feel deep, blissful happiness all the time. When you do, that is what I call enduring bliss.

For me, enduring bliss is feelings of pure, unburdened joy. It is when you connect so strongly to your light and your happiness within that it becomes an infinite source of joy in your life. In some ways, enduring bliss is impossible to truly define. It is beyond happiness.

Happiness transforms from fleeting to enduring the moment you really embrace and love the brilliance of you. I believe that happiness and a life with purpose are intrinsically linked. I also believe there is a difference between happiness and enduring bliss. We often settle for fleeting happiness without realising that we have the power to move beyond happiness to enduring bliss. Enduring bliss is part of who we are. Enduring bliss comes from happiness of the soul rather than happiness of the mind.

Soul happiness is a trinity within; I believe we can’t truly be happy in a lifelong way unless we love ourselves, honour ourselves, and authentically live our soul purpose.

We are limiting happiness because we are limiting love. By loving yourself unconditionally, you give your true self a stage. When you love yourself, your spirit shines. You have purpose. You have peace of heart. You move from doing things you think you have to do to be happy, to finding joy and abundance in doing what you love. You change your vibration from one of seeking, striving, and pursuing to one of peaceful contentment.

Happiness of the soul is when we become love and when we become happiness. That is enduring bliss. Soul happiness transforms our daily experience of fleeting happiness into lifelong enduring bliss.

The happiness plan

Let’s explore in more depth the concepts of storybook and someday happiness; both of which are the stuff our happiness plans are made of.

In developed countries around the world, we have never had more ability to make our own decisions and discoveries. Right now we can be, do, and have more than at any other time throughout history. Fuelled by society, consumerism, and lavish access to material things, we push ourselves harder and harder to achieve our visions of perfect happiness. We strive for our storybook dream lives where we get to have and do everything our hearts desire. We tell ourselves that we’ll be happy, someday, when we “get there”.

But in the process of focusing on creating the wealth and success that we think will make us happy, we have lost sight of who we really are. The more we focus on creating happiness, the more we forget that happiness is already within us. The more disconnected we become from our true selves, the more unhappy and discontent we become. The search for happiness is causing us to feel empty, to feel as if there must be something more. We feel as though because we haven’t found it yet, we need to search higher and wider. The search becomes more intense as we focus on doing and having more and more. We begin questioning and searching for what we really want in life.

It’s curious how we can go from a time of knowing that we are perfect, whole, and complete to striving to create happiness—but only when we have all the right ingredients in our dream lives. Our subconscious beliefs, fleeting thoughts about things we want or need, and even our obsession with controlling every minute detail of our lives shape our happiness plans. Your beliefs behind storybook and someday happiness combine to create the ingredients in your happiness plan.

Your happiness plan may look a little like this:

• I’ll be happy when I get a pay rise at work . . . maybe this year.
• I’ll be happy when I finish my degree . . . three years.
• I’ll be happy when my partner proposes to me . . . who knows.
• I’ll be happy when I have a baby . . . in the five-year plan.
• I’ll be happy when my friends are more thoughtful . . . who knows.
• I’ll be happy when I live in my dream house . . . in the ten-year plan.
• I’ll be happy when I go on holiday . . . six months.
• I’ll be happy when the weather improves . . . who knows.
• I’ll be happy when my kids do well in school . . . who knows.
• I’ll be happy when . . .

We strive so hard to have all the right ingredients in our perfect, happy lives. Most of these ingredients won’t come to fruition today or tomorrow, some won’t for years, and many we have no control over. And we wonder why we can’t quite touch enduring bliss. We may create fleeting moments of feeling good, satisfied, or rewarded, even fleeting moments of happiness. But mostly these feelings always go away, leaving us feeling anxious about cramming as many things into our time as we can, focusing on the next thing we want to have or do or achieve. We feel confused, empty, and as if we’re still searching for something. What we are searching for is enduring bliss.

The guilt and fear of happiness

Some people choose to feel guilty about being happy! They are stifling their enduring bliss because they don’t want to appear too happy. I like to think that you can be so happy that when others look at you, they become happy too!

But it is difficult to be surrounded by people who may not be on quite the same vibe as us—people who may have an unhappiness habit and are constantly complaining about the many people, situations, and events that cause them to be unhappy, sad, and depressed. Happiness really is a choice. When they choose to see such things as triggers for unhappiness, they will be.

We stifle our happiness because we fear how it will make people feel. The best way you can show these people that no one can make you unhappy and nothing can make you miserable unless you let it, is to be the positive, happy you.

People have a fear of happiness. Consider how often we say or hear these types of things: “It’s too good to be true,” “It’ll never last,” and “I’m just waiting for something to go wrong.” We literally are creating a state of unhappiness for ourselves because we think we can’t possibly be that happy. It’s as if complete happiness has become so unattainable—in our own minds—that we are looking for reasons why we can’t have it or expecting it will be taken from us.

It’s as if happiness is a gift bestowed on us if we are really good . . . and which can be taken away just as quickly as it was given. Some people have an attitude of “If I expect the worst, then when it happens, I won’t be upset, because I knew it was going to happen anyway.” It’s no wonder we feel so miserable.

Then there are some who feel guilty about being happy because of larger global issues. There is so much poverty, suffering, and hurt in the world that it can affect us, if we let it. When there is world happiness, there will be a world full of peace, love, and abundance for all.

I believe that rediscovering your happiness within is vital for lifting the happiness vibration of the entire planet. I believe that world happiness starts with you. Feeling guilty about radiating your positive energy regardless of what is happening in your world serves no one, least of all you. The stronger and more radiant you are, and the more in tune you are with your true self, your true purpose, and happiness within, the more you can serve as a positive influence on the world.

Even happy people feel unhappy sometimes

The worst thing to be thinking right now is that unhappiness is a bad thing. Even happy people experience unhappiness sometimes, and it’s OK.

Just because you choose to make happiness your way of being doesn’t mean you won’t ever experience unhappiness. Everyone has low days, everyone faces challenges, and everyone experiences loss or trauma in some measure.

Unhappiness is sometimes an inevitable part of the school of life. When you connect to your light within and know that happiness dwells within you, you are better able to handle the times when your mind draws unhappiness to your attention. You are better able to see unhappiness for what it is, to understand where it has come from, and to move through it more easily.

It’s not about being happy all the time; it’s about being happy by choice.

Unhappiness causes the most discomfort when you try to resist it. If you take the role of observer and accept that everything that happens in your life happens to teach you, then you can transition more quickly back from your ego state of unhappiness to your soul state of happiness.

Rediscover you

The greatest lesson and purpose in your life is rediscovering you, recognising that you are the single defining factor in your own happiness, allowing yourself to give and receive love and to simply be.

If we are born pure, in touch with our true selves, our souls’ essences, and our happiness within, then it is the layers of life, wrapped around us over time, moulded by experiences, and shaped by beliefs, that create our feelings of emptiness, of searching, of feeling as if there must be something more. In essence, we are trying to remember what we already know, what is already a part of us. We are trying to remember where we put the key to the place where we have safely hidden our precious jewel of happiness. Really, we spend most of our lives trying to remember where we hid ourselves.

By now, you may be able to see some patterns or occasions where you are preventing your own happiness, usually not by choice but by virtue of years and years of conditioning about what you have to do to create a happy life. In effect, without realising it, you are sabotaging your own efforts at happiness.

If you feel as if your ego is ruling your life and choosing unhappiness over happiness with monotonous regularity, it’s time to start recognising when, why, and how this is happening.

It’s about now that you may be thinking, This sounds lovely, but it all seems too hard and unattainable, and I’ve got too much going on right now. I’ll come back to this when I have time.

So pause and consider that now is your time.

Give yourself permission to be completely open, uncensored, and deeply honest with yourself, for it will change your life. There are times to let things happen, and there are times to make things happen. Choose to make your life beautiful now.

The post The path to lasting happiness, through self-love appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Well, here’s a secret. The next time someone tells you to dance when you’re sad, jump at the invitation—and you will feel joyous again. You see, if you are feeling low and you begin to dance, you’ll notice that your sadness and gloomy mood begin to dissipate.

Let me explain. Just like happiness makes us want to dance, dancing too makes us feel happy. This is because dance and joy are inseparable, so sadness leaves when you start dancing. Indeed, joyful dancing is just another proof of the invisible connection between our mind and body.

What’s more, there is enough scientific evidence of the therapeutic benefits of dancing. For instance, a study published in the science journal Frontiers found that “dancing potentially offers a ground for emotional coping through emotional enhancement and regulation”.

Spontaneous Dancing

Note that I am not referring to dance as an art form. I am speaking about the spontaneous kind—one that is not premeditated or rehearsed but happens usually as a result of extreme joy or ecstasy. Such dancing transcends barriers of age, culture, geography and language. Anybody who feels joy feels like dancing. Likewise, anyone who dances spontaneously is bound to feel joy.

Little children seem to know this intuitively and that is why they have no hang ups about dancing whenever, wherever, with or without any reason. They don’t care about the steps — they just move their whole being without reservation.

Sadly, as we grow older, we lose the magic of spontaneity. We become conscious and cultivate an unnatural attitude towards dancing. Most adults look upon dance as a flippant act, to be indulged only on rare occasions when they let their hair down — in parties and social gatherings, for instance, or when they are in an inebriated state.

Cosmic Dance

If you still doubt the power of dance, I invite you to reflect on the ancient Hindu scriptures that describe our universe—indeed the entire creation—as a cosmic dance of God, the ultimate dancer. That is why we can’t imagine a sad God. We visualise God as always blissful, always celebrating.

The most visible proof of this is found in Nature. Observe Nature, and you will see dance in its every movement—the flow of the rivers, the waves in the seas, the fluttering of the leaves, and the blowing of the winds. The entire creation is dancing with joy. It is hardly surprising then that dance meditations are part of many shamanic, aboriginal and other spiritual traditions.

Dance away your woes

Best-selling writer Vicki Baum put this succinctly: “There are short-cuts to happiness, and dancing is one of them.” I invite you to try this short-cut the next time you’re feeling sad or out of sorts. Don’t think or analyze. Drop all self-consciousness. Close the door if you feel like, or invite your kid or spouse to join you. Play some peppy music and start moving your feet and legs, your hand and arms, then your entire body. If you have any physical limitations, move whatever part of the body you can move — all you really need to do is to lose yourself in a rhythmic movement for as long as you can, without inhibition. Not only will you find that your spirits have lifted, you will also experience a renewed sense of energy and vitality — because dancing serves as an wonderful workout too.

The post Dancing Is a Short-Cut to Happiness appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.