Sunday, February 23, 2014

Happiness 24/7

Happiness 24/7

Find happiness using this one weird secret! Professionals don’t want you to know this! Call now for the secret to happiness! Only $99.95!

Kidding!

But I do have a secret to happiness, and you know how I feel about secrets: Unless they are yours, I’m tellin’!

Happiness is inside each of us all the time. I’m going to say that again because it’s really important. Happiness is inside each of us all the time.

We are born with it, like brains, or skin. I think that is so remarkable. It’s right there. Maybe happiness holds our spirit, like the coating of a cell. Or maybe it is the nucleus of our spirit. Maybe it’s just a special part of our brain, like the optic nerve, or medulla oblongata, but it’s there, just waiting for us.

Whatever it is, all we have to do is find our way to it.

Happiness is available regardless of our circumstances. It’s a 24/7 service, so to speak. It is available whether we think we deserve it, whether we think we’ve done anything to earn it, whether we think we are good enough for it. It’s like our brains, or skin, we don’t have to deserve ‘em to have those, we don’t need to be something remarkable to enjoy the benefits of our dermis; we take our brains and skin for granted.

Tibetan saints get it. Enlightened beings get it. Grownups, yeah, we get it. I can be having intense physical experience, like the saint I met in Kathmandu, who couldn’t want from the intensity of his physical experience, and yet was peaceful and oozed joy and bliss. Or the people held in prisons who maintain their happiness, from their core, not from their outsides.

Happiness is not a prize to be won, it’s just a place inside us.

How do I feel when I feel happy?

That question is gold. Here’s how to do it. Become aware of your feet, become aware of your bottom, become aware of your breathing. Focus on the question, How do I feel when I feel happy? You might want to ask it several times. And notice changes in your physical being.

First thing that happens for me is that I relax my physical body. My posture often shifts upward. I find that my chest feels more open, and my heart-space feels light. I often notice that I smile.

This is what I mean when I talk about being able to change feelings as easily as changing socks. We can ask a good “how do I feel” question with focus and presence, and our physical experience changes. And the more I go to happy, or peaceful, or relaxed, the easier it is for me to get back there. And that’s a fact.

When I choose happiness, I choose soft, I choose vulnerable, I choose peaceful, too. It’s like a nice set. It comes with joy, ease, bliss, and satisfaction. I love that!

I live that a lot of the time.

How have I changed from thinking that happiness was happenstance to knowing happiness is always with me?

(c) Pam Guthrie all rights reserved 02232014

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