By Raf Adams
One of the questions I keep hearing in my workshops is, “how do I live a happy life and enjoy the journey and what does it mean?”
Living a happy life is something we all want, yet so few of us are able to live happily continuously. During the journey of our life when we look at other people and they smile, we tend to believe that they are happy because they smile. We believe laughter and smiling equals happiness, but nothing is further from the truth.
Everyone seems to be happy around us, but what about you?
Let me tell you a secret.
Most people are NOT happy. The reason I can say this is because I run workshops for 3 years for people from different cultures, backgrounds and education and I haven’t met a single person who tells me “I am happy every single day, every single moment”. In fact, one of my friends asked me, can you be happy every single day, every single moment? The answer is YES, you can, so how do we do this?
First of all we need to understand what happiness is and where it comes from. Happiness comes from the heart, it is an internal state of feeling or being. If internally you don’t feel happy and you smile (like most people do) you are still not happy within, right? This happens to most people. We don’t want to show our unhappiness so we smile.
Happiness can be developed by the following 3 areas:
- Stay true to yourself and be who you are. By accepting yourself as who you are, you allow your heart to flourish. You allow yourself to express as who you really are. Are you currently hiding things from yourself to live up to others expectations? If the answer is yes, try to reduce this part and stand up for yourself.
- Find out what your purpose is, in life. By following your life purpose your heart can express itself through its purpose which brings joy and happiness.
- Letting go of negative emotions you carry with you, breaking up from a relationship, an argument with a colleague are emotions you carry with you. By accepting these experiences and letting go you will reduce suffering. When you reduce suffering, happiness will arise.
Happiness is a journey towards self-discovery. Happiness is not something to be achieved, it’s not something you can have today and tomorrow it disappears. Happiness is every lasting. The more you are true to yourself, love what you do and let go of negative emotions and feelings the more inner happiness you will cultivate.
Remember, you cannot change others but you can change yourself.
Editor’s note: My name is Raf Adams, I am a workshop facilitator, professional speaker and book author of The Suited Monk an Empowering New Book on Life Purpose, Happiness and Self-Discovery.
