Those of us on the path of personal and spiritual growth have a
tendency to analyze our unhappiness in order to find the causes and make
improvements. But it is just as important, if not more so, to analyze our
happiness. Since we have the ability to rise above and observe our emotions,
we can recognize when we are feeling joyful and content. Then we can harness
the power of the moment by savoring our feelings and taking time to be
grateful for them.
Recognition is the first step in creating change, therefore recognizing what
it feels like to be happy is the first step toward sustaining happiness in
our lives. We can examine how joy feels in our bodies and what thoughts run
through our minds in times of bliss. Without diminishing its power, we can
retrace our steps to discover what may have put us in this frame of mind, and
then we can take note of the choices we've made while there. We might realize
that we are generally more giving and forgiving when there's a smile on our
face, or that we are more likely to laugh off small annoyances and the actions
of others when they don't resonate with our light mood.
Once we know what it feels like and can identify some of the triggers and are
aware of our actions, we can recreate that happiness when we are feeling low.
Knowing that like attracts like, we can pull ourselves out of a blue mood by
focusing on joy. We might find that forcing ourselves to be giving and
forgiving, even when it doesn't seem to come naturally, helps us to reconnect
with the joy that usually precedes it. If we can identify a song, a picture,
or a pet as a happiness trigger, we can use them as tools to recapture joy if
we are having trouble finding it. By focusing our energy on analyzing
happiness and all that it encompasses, we feed, nurture, and attract more of
it into our lives, eventually making a habit of happiness.
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