Tag: #happiness

And now to stop chasing happiness

Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

Recently I have been posting about how we are encouraged to try to find our happiness by defining what we desire and taking action to achieve it.  Today, I’m going to suggest that we stop trying to chase happiness.  We spend so much time, energy and money in trying to achieve a state of happiness but are we truly any happier?

Some nuggets of wisdom from my podcast fave (sorry if you’re getting sick of her but I find her interesting and challenging)  Tonya Leigh who suggested that we should stop chasing happiness and accept that we have different moods, sometimes things are a bit doom and gloom, and we’re not always on our A game.  These emotions should not be avoided or resisted but acknowledged and allowed.  She questioned what if we used our emotions to discover the wisdom those days hold, what if we didn’t make a negative emotion mean something has gone terribly wrong in our lives?

The chances are when we delve deeper into our emotions they can be the key to unlocking a successful life, feeling and understanding our emotions can be fundamental to our creativity and desires.

Continually trying to chase happiness can be exhausting and whilst we are intent on that, we can be abandoning taking care of ourselves.  Consider whether we are running towards something or away from something when we chase happiness.  Sitting with our emotions can be a journey of discovery of beliefs that have been holding us back, patterns that keep showing up and how we can feel an emotion without having to react to it.

TL suggested that there  will always be occasions when we are not on top of the world but that’s ok, its normal and part of everyday emotion.  However, we still get up and get on with our day.   She suggested that it was important to show up and be who you are in the moment.  Trying to be happy all the time can actually make us more miserable as we’re always striving for something slightly out of reach.  Turn the focus off of you and onto all that is around you, even when you are feeling less than 100%.

She suggested that is was normal to have negative emotions.  It’s only the meaning we chose to attach to it and that when you stop resisting or reacting to an emotion it simply becomes a feeling in your body.  She concluded that moods come and go, so navigate according to your desire, not your mood.

You could be happier if you stopped chasing happiness.

The pursuit of happiness

Every time I hear that phrase I think of the film The Pursuit of Happyness starring Will Smith. It’s about a young man who loses everything, his wife, his home and almost his son, but through tenacity and determination teaches himself how to make huge money investment sales and went on to make his millions. It’s the real life story of Chris Gardner who is now reputed to be worth around £50million.

The story shows that how we interpret happiness can directly affect our experience of it and how we strive to achieve it.

In October’s Psychologies Magazine an article discussed how our sense of happiness was influenced by who and what we surround ourselves with, including what we read, listen to and watch.

There is a certain pressure to attain a certain level of happiness which can have damaging effects. Other people’s views of what should make us happy doesn’t necessarily mean our sense of happiness is wrong though. We might be trying impose other’s happiness on ourselves as a way of avoiding our own feelings. Someone else’s view might provide the opportunity to challenge our own thoughts.

People often say to me that I must enjoy #bellringing and doing that makes me happy. Yes and no. I have become so accustomed to a way of life that revolves around #bellringing that I often don’t enjoy it. That’s not to say I hate it, its just become “the thing I do”. It makes me happy when I master a new method. It makes me happy to see someone else have that moment of clarity and they now understand or can do something they couldn’t before. It makes me happy when large groups of ringers get together and there’s an excitement and energy in the room. I’m not necessarily happy (but not unhappy either) about Sunday ringing every week, or practice every week. Particularly when the striking isn’t so good. These are just things I do. Like getting out of bed in the morning.

In exploring our authentic happiness, the article offered five questions (although most of them had multiple sub questions) to ponder:

  1. Write down what you define as happiness for you. Where do you feel happy? Who with? Doing what?
  2. Where does your sense of happiness come from? What influenced your happiness growing up?
  3. Who influences your happiness? Family, friends, colleagues, partner? Do you chose to be around them because they make you happy or are you around them because you are happy?
  4. What other factors influence your happiness? Do you find yourself comparing your life to someone else’s?
  5. Are you in touch with yourself? If you’re out of touch with your thoughts and feelings, you’ll be out of touch with your happiness.

What can we do to ensure a better relationship with our happiness?

I will be ensuring I do more things that make me happy and fewer things that please other people, or out of some sense of obligation. I’ve still got some birthday experience vouchers to use and now things are opening up again I’ll be getting dates booked in before the diary is taken over by #bellringing!

What will you do to connect to your happiness?