Cynthia L. DeWild, BASc, MA, CCC
Are you happy?
10 suggestions to help you achieve happiness:
1. Bring passion back. Learn something new. Whether it is an art, cooking, writing, running, salsa dancing, horse back riding, or photography. Find something you truly enjoy. Learning activates passion and passion is power – in fact it is one of the strongest forms of energy that we can generate within our body. Passion leads to a sense of accomplishment and a feeling of purpose in life.
2. Live on a day-to-day basis. Learn from the past. Live for today. Hope for tomorrow. Don’t let your life slip through your fingers by living in the past or for the future. Living one day at a time will ensure you live every day of your life. Use your resources and past learning experiences to deal with the challenges of day-to-day living. When faced with a challenge, remind yourself of past challenges and how you made it through them, and will do so again.
3. You always have choices. Your greatest power is the power to choose. At different times in our lives, we may say to ourselves that we don’t have a choice. However, there are always different avenues that can be explored. If you feel stuck right now, step back, view the situation from a different angle, identify your choices, and select one. By not making choices and staying stuck, you are making the choice to stay stuck!!
4. Surround yourself with love. Surround yourself with people who have your best interest in mind. Choose friends that make you feel loved and want to improve your life. We all have an innate need to belong. Wouldn’t you rather belong to a group that supports and encourages you than a group that does not?
5. Teach those around you that you are worth something. We teach people how to treat us. By taking care of yourself and your needs, you are modeling to others that YOU ARE IMPORTANT. By taking care of ourselves, we start to feel that our needs are being met, and we can let go of any resentment we feel towards others. Remember if we harbor bitterness or resentment, happiness will dock elsewhere.
6. Get what you want! Do you expect your friends/family to be mind readers? Do you expect your partner to know what you need from them? How do you expect them to know if you haven’t told them? So tell them! Take charge of yourself! Help those around you understand what you need, rather than expecting them to know it at all times. Be explicit rather than implicit.
7. Stop worrying. Can’t change a situation? Stop worrying about it. Rumination and constant thoughts of things we can’t change are a waste of our precious energy. Remind yourself only to concern yourself with those things you can change.
8. Stop self-pity. If you’ve been taking rides on a runaway train called “self-pity”, perhaps you may want to get off at the next stop. We can become addicted to self-pity! We may look outside of ourselves and place blame on everyone and everything around us. We may believe we are the victims of daily punishment, which leaves us feeling out of control and angry at the world. When you are feeling angry, and find yourself pointing and blaming others, say the word STOP and do something nice for another person. How could you think about giving to someone else when you are angry at the world? Try it. Try to help someone else even if it is just smiling at a stranger that passes by. The kindness you share will be returned.
9. Cultivate gratitude everyday. Much like fire and water, gratitude and anxiety cannot occupy the same space. What are you grateful for? Write down things, people, etc. you are grateful for. See if you can be grateful for them before they happen, and for any challenges you encounter.
10. Adopt a virtue. Someone once told me that in order to grow spiritually, we can focus on one virtue at a time and all the rest will come. If I focus my attention on the virtue of “Patience”, and truly dedicate my life to becoming that patient person, I will need to practice other virtues as well: kindness, love, justice, forbearance etc. One cannot forget the power of spiritual growth in the search for happiness.
REMEMBER: If you always think the way you have always thought, you will always feel the way you have always felt AND if you always feel the way you have always felt, you will always do what you have always done AND if you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always gotten.
If there is no change, there is no change.