We are born happy. Happiness is our natural state. Then stuff happens! Somewhere along the way we get caught up in everyday living, and ‘forget’ to be happy.

During a workshop someone said to me: “But we can’t be happy all the time, can we?” The fact is that as adults we give up on the idea that we can be happy and accept our misery as an inevitable part of life. “Because stuff happens” she added.

Is happiness a rare enlightened state, reached only by Saints, Mystics and accomplished Yogis, or is it something we can all aspire to?

I once lived in a town where the Postmaster was known as ‘Grumpy Bill’. How did Bill get to be grumpy? He wasn’t born that way. Understanding our mind and emotional patterns gives us a clue. The answer lies in self-awareness – in becoming aware of our habitual emotional patterns.

Look at very young children playing in a nursery. 2-3 years old. They experience emotions as an energy that passes quickly. One minute they are happily playing. Then one takes anothers’ toy. There is unhappiness, sadness, anger, rage, despair. They run the whole gamut of the emotional scale within minutes. Then the carer asks: “Who wants Ice Cream?” and they are happy again.

Happiness is the default position: our natural state. We would naturally experience happiness most of the time if we knew how to stop the other stuff getting in the way. So how does stuff get in the way?

Let’s say your boss calls you on Sunday afternoon to ask if you’ll come in early tomorrow. You miss 5 minutes of the football game.  Now you turn to your wife and rant. “Can you believe he did that? It’s Sunday. He should know better” Okay so you felt angry for a moment but now you’re putting fuel on the fire. You’re now going to feel angry for the rest of the day, possibly even a week. It all depends on how long you keep telling yourself the story that is feeding your anger.

A natural emotional response to something lasts for only a few moments. By nature  emotions pass quickly, and a state of happiness returns. But if we ‘feed them’ with our thought patterns we keep them going. Then an emotion becomes a mood, and a mood becomes a temperament. If you’re not careful a temperament becomes your personality. It becomes how the world sees YOU.

Before you know it you are no longer ‘Sunny Jim’ and your friends are calling you ‘Grumpy Bill’. You missed the football game and your whole day was ruined. Not because your boss called an hour ago, but because of what you are still telling yourself about the boss calling.

When we experience emotions fully in the moment as children do, allowing them to pass without a story, we can have our experience and be over it in a matter of moments. Then return to our default state: Happiness. Not because we saw the football game, but because we knew how to experience our emotions and discipline our thoughts.

At dreamcoach.co.uk we can support you in returning to your default state. Contact me on ruth@dreamcoach.co.uk or visit our website and check out our books and resources. Don’t accept chronic misery as part of life!

Relax … and Be Happy! ( PS – it’s a skill!)

Ruth Hadikin
Supporting Stressed-Out Professionals
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