If You're Happy and You Know It...

I've been paying attention the past few weeks about how people refer to happiness. "I'm so happy". "I thought I'd be happy when..."  "I have everything I want, but I'm not happy". "She makes me happy". For me, happiness is a fleeting emotion, one that comes and goes. As are all emotions - feelings that happen and then move on, replaced by the next one and the next one and the next one. Happiness to me is not a state of being. Peace, on the other hand, is a state of being. I believe it is peace people truly desire and they (and I) confuse this with being happy.

Three things about being happy:

- I have spent years looking for happiness, wondering where it was, why it was so hard to find. When would I be happy? Why wasn't I just HAPPY? I was the queen of the self-help books. I had dozens on my shelf. I'd read them, agree or disagree with the principles therein. I may have done some of the exercises and a little bit of work. I still wasn't happy. What was wrong with me? I should be happy; the books said so. There was absolutely nothing wrong with me. I had just learned to believe that happiness was magical, that somehow the right person, place, thing would come into my life and with it would be...happiness. Once I decided that it wasn't happiness that was missing from my life but peace and soul-feeding, my life began to seem better, feel better. I need to remember to always go back to the place of peace, no matter what is going on in my life, in my brain, in my heart.

- Some people and things do make me happy. Externals that influence how I'm feeling can bring some moments of happiness. But I've learned, for me, that nothing and no one BRINGS happiness. When I choose to react to a person or situation or a physical object with acceptance and joy, I label that feeling as being happy. I have the choice. Often times it is hard to remember. Sometimes I want to choose unhappiness. I want to wallow. I just want to feel miserable. I need to have those times too. We all do. When I deny the happy, I also deny the sad, the mad, the love, the enjoyment. It is far too easy to turn emotions off. That is dangerous. I'm getting better at knowing this and better at catching it sooner.

- Replaying old life scenes in my head with a focus on "happy" brings a different perspective to the life I've lived. I don't pretend awful things didn't happen, I don't pretend it was all okay. I look back with curiosity and try to re-learn a lesson from a different viewpoint. It's a tough exercise and often I relive pain and anger. I can almost always find at least one nugget of good, of happy.

I want to always return to that place of peace within me. I want to bring others along. I want to tell those who are chasing happy to chase peace instead. It's not easy. It seems to leave and abandon, but it does come back. Nourish it. Enjoy it, Accept it. Find your peace and you'll find your happiness.