Happiness

Happiness

What is it to be happy? I typed happiness into Google to find out what the rest of the world thinks happiness is and it really hit home that happiness is different for all of us.

Is happiness an emotion? A state of being? Fleeting or long term? I think we can all identify moments of happiness but what about our underlying mental state? Do we have to be mentally healthy to be happy? I don't think so. OK it helps, but happiness can be found in moments, people, things; it can happen anywhere at any time. 

I remember nights sitting on my bed at 4am with a friend writing the most amazing songs, him playing his guitar singing in my ear. These were during the darkest days of my life, unable to sleep for days even a week on end, self harming, not eating, barely functioning with panic attacks and depersonalisation. Yet when I hear those songs, the lyrics that mean so much to me I almost feel nostalgic. Would I go back there - no way! It was not a long lasting contentment, it wasn't a secure warm feeling; but was there happiness in amongst the misery? For sure. 

I believe happiness is not hard to find! Recognising it, allowing yourself to feel it and making it a priority in your life, those are the hard bits!

So I asked myself, what makes me happy? 

I looked at all the pictures of myself to see what I could include in this blog, and as you can see it showed me that I smile, the biggest natural smiles when I am lit up by my family (my husband above, and my son below). So why is it that as soon as I finish work I feel pressured to call a friend, work more, clean an already tidy house,  do the 101 other things that I tell myself are 'priorities'?

The pursuit of happiness

I think that somewhere deep inside so many of us there is something blocking us, not letting ourselves be happy. This may be a controversial statement, but I believe for a large amount of people, myself included, it is because we feel selfish if we do what we want to do to feel personal satisfaction, over that which we feel obliged to do through external pressures, even when these things bring us little satisfaction at all, or indeed sap us of happiness and make us miserable to those who mean the most...

Can any of you identify with this? If so I want you to make a pact with me! I will vow (and I'd love you to do the same) that I will allow myself to embrace that which makes me happy and darn well enjoy it! I will not let moments and minutes of joy pass me by because I'm busy doing something else (usually trying to make someone else happy) and I will embrace the feeling of fulfilment.

If I can master this, if I can not only allow myself to be happy but actively pursue it, I know I will be better at the things I do for others, after all I will be doing it with joy!

Happiness exercise

Right I would like you to do this! Write down on a piece of paper 5 - 10 things that make you happy (these have to be things YOU can do, for example compliments from my husband would not be something YOU can write on your to-do list, where as 'tennis' could be) then follow this with a list of 5 - 10 things that sap your happiness. For example:

Things that make me happy

Time with my family, keeping fit, taking walks in the country, motor sport, horse riding, watching NCIS, good food

Things that are sapping my happiness

Committing to events that take me away from things I want to be doing, having an inbox full to the brim, taking on board other peoples negativity, my emtophobia, lack of time with family.

Committing to happiness

Now the good bit! Identify one thing from each list that you could change. For me, the list above has identified that I should be spending more time with the family and less time taking on projects that don't fulfil me. Also I could very easily plan to go horse riding, or a days motor sports (with the family even!) without very much time or effort. 

So why have I not done this before? It seems so simple doesn't it, but sometimes, unless we have these things in black and white it is easy to succumb to external pressures and deny our own needs and desires, this may be unselfish in the short-term, however long term your own happiness is most important to you and all around you!

Make being happy a priority :)

Charlotte x