My first thought when I was introduced to this idea was “How depressing!”
This can’t be as happy as I’m ever going to be, can it?
I’m for sure going to be happier than this.
There’s more I want to do and learn and be.
But then I let the idea soak in.
I marinated in it.
And I kind of get it now.
After reading and listening to Eckhart Tolle, Wayne Dyer, and Pema Chodron for years, I’m finally getting glimpses of what this really means.
NOW is the only moment there is.
So right now has to be the happiest moment; it’s all there is.
Ok, it’s a little esoteric, maybe, but very true.
But how can this idea help you?
It can help you because you don’t know the future.
You only have right now.
And yet you put off being happy for some future point when you’re thin, rich, with your soulmate, or running a successful business.
You think you shouldn’t be happy until you have what you want.
(In fact, I think that’s the mantra of the western world.)
That somehow being unhappy and frustrated will drive you to where you want to go.
But it doesn’t usually take you far.
When fueled by negativity, you’ll end up making yourself even more miserable and unknowingly resist any positive change from happening.
Needless to say, you’ll run out of gas pretty fast.
And your goal will stay out of reach.
But what if you could be happy right now, exactly as you are?
What if you could accept yourself, faults and all, and choose to be happy at this very moment?
Well you can.
Because happiness doesn’t come from getting what you want.
Happiness doesn’t magically show up because you’re thin, rich, or any of those other things you aspire to.
Happiness comes from what you think getting what you want will give you.
Read that last line again.
Ok, this kind of makes my mind explode.
It’s not the thing, it’s the thought.
Basically, we all know that there are thin, rich people out there who aren’t happy.
A lot of them, right?
So, that kind of proves the point that these things don’t make you happy.
But somehow your mind has formulated the thought that if only, for example, you lost 50lbs and had more money, life would be awesome.
Your problems would disappear.
And you’d finally be happy.
But it’s not having those things that will make you happy, it’s only the meaning you’ve attached to those things.
And that’s kind of good news.
Because if it’s only about your thoughts, then you can use your mind to choose new thoughts.
And you can choose to be happy right now, without those things.
Exactly as you are in this moment.
Now, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have goals and dreams.
It just means that you should go for your goals with the knowledge that they won’t make you any happier than you are now.
Because happiness is created in your mind.
And you can choose to be happy now.
Ok, I know this kind of goes against the striving-for-more society you and I are living in right now.
Society has dictated what you should want and have to feel happy and fulfilled.
In today’s standards that means things like being thin, having a good job, being in a loving marriage, with wonderful thoughtful children, a beautiful home, getting a lot of likes of Facebook or Instagram, having lots of friends, and taking care of everyone around you.
But those aren’t rules to live by.
They’re just ideas.
Ideas that were created by people you don’t even know.
Those ideas were passed onto you from the world around you.
You weren’t born with those ideas.
And you don’t have to have any of those things in order to be happy.
You can be happy now.
You can enjoy your life now.
You can love yourself now.
You don’t need permission or to jump through hoops to prove yourself worthy of feeling and having these things.
You’ve always been worthy.
And you can start by looking at yourself in the mirror, if you dare, and tell yourself you’re worthy.
You have nothing to prove.
Claim your worthiness and choose to be happy.
I’ve struggled with this idea.
Most of my life I’ve had a checklist of things I believed I needed to be happy.
Things like being in a loving relationship, seeing my kids off to bed each night, and having enough money to live well.
There’s nothing wrong with these things, it’s just that I had to learn that even if I didn’t have them, I could still choose to be happy.
So, it was a tough lesson I learned when going through separation and not having my kids one week out of two.
I was unhappy.
I felt I could never be happy because I didn’t have the things I thought I needed to make me happy.
Those things were gone.
But inside me I knew I had to keep going.
And I quickly found out that trying to move forward with bitterness and anger is tough.
I had to choose to accept the circumstance as it was, and then choose to be happy so that I could still be a good mother, and still work towards my goals.
Happiness was as much of a choice as bittnerness and anger.
And it doesn’t mean that feelings of bittnerness and anger didn’t come in, they did.
But I had to allow them to pass through, knowing, as Pema Chodron says, they were just clouds.
And happiness was my blue sky.
I’m still working on it, and I will be for life, but I definitely notice a shift in my happiness over the years for the better.
Keep moving forward my friend,
Debbie
P.S. Do you feel unhappy with something in your life? Is it keeping you stuck? Then maybe coaching could help you. Book a free session with me and we can talk about it: www.momentum-fit.ca/book-a-session