Physician Healer
Issue 5 Finding Happiness
Finding Happiness
For the first time in a long time, I felt listless. I didn’t wake up this morning feeling ready to start the day. And yet, I did everything right—I didn’t grab my phone to check my messages; I did a 20 minute guided meditation; I stretched and did simple yoga while listening to a podcast; and lastly, I went to my desk, opened my journal and entered my 5 gratitudes, 2 wins, 1 next step to improve my game, and reminded myself that I was indeed worthy of having all of my needs met all of the time (as Michael Beckwith would say). Still nothing except this weird heaviness in my head. Did I remember any of my dreams? Not this morning. Why do I feel so sucky? Oh wait, stop the negative self-talk or maybe this is “mental chatter.” No matter, I’m ready for today’s assignment. I’m ready to start the day. No, actually I’m not. Who’s with me?
I was about to ask myself,
”Why aren’t you happy today? What’s wrong?”
when I suddenly remembered not to ask bad questions. The brain will literally give you a million reasons why you aren’t happy or all that is wrong with you.
Then, I remembered what to do. Perhaps the egoic brain is trying to rear its ugly head again. So, I quickly asked myself out loud,
“Right now, this very moment, where are you? Can you feel your heartbeat? Can you feel yourself breathing? Are you aware that you’re alive? Are you grateful? Now, look out the window. What do you see? Look around you in this room. What do you see?”
I have learned that there are 3 states of being—love, peace and joy; and if you are feeling anything other than these 3, chances are your egoic brain (your bodyguard) is taking you for a ride. If you refer to my previous issues, I’ve made mention that the ego does not like anything about the present moment. It prefers the worry, the regret, the disappointment, the anxiety, and the fear of the past and future. So, any focus on what’s going on “right now” displaces the ego, and resets the balance established by the aforementioned states of being.
I wasn’t sure, but perhaps more importantly the right question I should be asking is,
“Do I feel joyful this moment?”
as that is a better question than
“Do I feel happy this moment?”
Perhaps happiness is overrated. It seems like such a loaded word and its content elusive to find. Aren’t we always “chasing” happiness? It means different things to everyone. For most of us, happiness is synonymous with an uncontainable big smile; it represents elation and bursts of laughter. It is excitement that causes us to jump up and down. It can be connected to getting what we’ve wished for as long as we can remember or as recent as just 5 minutes ago. It can be a quick dream come true or a fulfillment of an inner longing that has finally been revealed and realized.
And, what if I told you that happiness may be all that except that it is not synonymous with joy? If given a choice, which would you rather be—joyful or happy? Is there a real difference? The answer is yes and the reasons are worth knowing.
Across all cultures, humans tend to be a goal-worshipping, goal-oriented, goal-setting species. We express wants, needs, and make wish lists for a better job or position, or material items, such as cars, houses, money, or vacations. We enter and excel in competitions to win awards, recognition and receive other accolades. Many of us can say we’ve been there, done that and truly, there is nothing wrong with any of it. The ultimate question we have to ask ourselves is whether or not we allow these very things to define who we are. Do we “need” them to exist or would we be just fine without them? Do we need attention from others to validate our existence? Do we have a need to be seen? Or, can we retain our identity without them? Do we know who we are as a stand-alone regardless of what we possess?
One of my patients yesterday said,
“I’ll be happy if I can take off this weight.”
Another patient today said,
”I’ll be happy if my back stops hurting.”
One of my friends said just now,
”I’ll be happy if I win the lottery tomorrow.”
These all seem like wonderfully innocent goals at first glance but they are anything but that. They are very common things people generally wish for. Most of us believe that this form of wishful thinking is a good thing. We are taught early on and reinforced that hopeful thinking is healthy. Hopeful thinking is optimism. Perhaps a little bit of optimism in this manner is harmless and can be healthy but taken to either extreme, these can be damaging thoughts in the long run.
These are conditional statements basically saying that you are not happy as you are now, implying that there is a “better” you to be had and that there are no other redeeming factors about you, that you have no control over your emotions and that you depend on outside factors (my weight, my back, my finances) for your mental well-being. The first person is giving away his power to his weight while the second person is giving away her power to her back. And, of course, the third is giving away her power to money. In the past 5 years, I’ve discovered the irony in conditional emotion. Happiness is highly conditional and its achievement is dependent upon external factors. Usually, you feel happy as long as something you want to happen happens. However, like anything you come to expect, disappointment can be waiting for you around the corner. So, as with many things in life, if it is happiness that you seek, the more you seek, the less likely you will get it. This is because you’ve triggered a sense of lack.
“I’ll be happy if I get this. I’ll be happy when this happens. I’ll be happy if that happens. I’ll be happy if or when…”
What about being happy RIGHT NOW? It is said that the universe gives you more to be happy about if you started feeling happier. There’s truth in that. You can feel the difference when someone is happy or unhappy.
They call it the law of the universe that we attract things we don’t want because the very thing we fight against finds us. What we obsess over controls us. The very thing we say we don’t want to happen finds us. The universe picks up our energy signals for things we fear and worry about, especially things of which we feel we don’t have enough and since it is generally agreed that the universe is benevolent and conspires in our favor then one might ask why doesn’t it just grant you your happiness and be on its way? The explanation is that when you feel lack, your personal energy mirrors that sense of not having enough or being enough, namely not-enoughness.
Joy has a completely differently meaning altogether. Many use happiness and joy interchangeably but they are not the same. According to spiritual literature, joy is a state of being like peace and love, and has no opposite quality. Spiritual literature tells us that happiness is a sporadic and unpredictable emotion resulting from external factors whereas joy is a more consistent inner state derived from a sense of awareness or knowledge of who and what we are and our true purpose of existence.
I find that no matter what the patients believe is holding them back from feeling the best they can, there are simple steps that they can take.
Start with breathing techniques—inhale slowly through the nose and focus on how the air feels. As your chest expands, visualize filling every cell in your body with a sense of gratitude and peace. Then, as you exhale slowly through your mouth, sigh into it as if you are getting rid of heaviness and releasing it into the space around you, remembering to focus on how the air feels and how your chest moves. Do this 5 times. It should reset you.
Instead of saying you don’t have something, focus on what you do have that you’re grateful for and change the wording of not having the material or some desired situation by adding the word “yet” as in I haven’t lost the weight “yet.” How we word things is important because words create thoughts, thoughts create emotions and emotions create physiological manifestations.
Understand the paradox. Before any change is possible a vital question you must ask yourself is whether or not you would be ok with staying the way you are. Remember that the universe will conspire to help you as long as you accept who and what you are right now and don’t reek of desperation and incompleteness.
The most powerful technique for change remains your meditative practice. I sit for 1 hour everyday either with meditative music or in silence. I do more whenever I can. It is the only method that effectively quiets the egoic bodyguard in your mind by getting rid of emotional clutter. My patients have learned either through me, Headspace on Netflix or android/iPhone app, Calm, Mindvalley, or Kyle Cease’s guided meditation YouTube video. The trick is to sit through the noise and chaos going on in the mind and remembering that none of that is about you and all that is trash being sorted and removed. Sit without expectation. You may feel nothing happened but trust me, a lot happens. As soon as you get up and distract yourself all that trash stays to torture you another day.
No matter what happens I try to remember that each day is a gift. Life, in general, is short. We all have a purpose. I believe it is to become aware of our uniqueness and share with others what we’re passionate about. To experience joy, it is important to surrender to life around us, to give ourselves a break, to find out what we’re made of and to discover that we are more than enough exactly as we are.
Choose to open up your heart each present moment to — JOY.
Transformational task: Depending on when you started your journaling or perhaps you just bought one to begin, what I found beneficial is to write in the morning when you wake up—5 to 10 things (or more) you’re grateful for and they could include things you know how to do or unique qualities you have and then read them before bedtime and add a few more if you are up to it. List your wins or triumphs for the day. Dreams can be revealing also if you remember them. I don’t always remember them but I write them down when I do. Write down also what 1 or 2 things you can change or 1 to 2 next steps you can take to move you forward in your journey.
Just fabulous and a great reminder. Thank you.