Secrets of Spiritual Happiness

Are You Already Happy?

By Sharon Janis

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Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

- Abraham Lincoln

Did you ever think that you might be happy and not know it?   Maybe this is IT! Maybe you just need a diploma of happiness like the college diploma the Wizard of Oz gave to the scarecrow, or a happiness medal like the medal of honor that made the lion recognize his own true courage.   Congratulations, you are now officially a happy person!  

Being happy doesn't mean that you have to act like some carbon-copy cyborg of smileyness.   You can be happy while enjoying whatever role you are playing - flowing and growing while being whoever you are, however you are, and wherever you are.   Some people may even find happiness in being somewhat of a curmudgeon.   In fact, quite a few journalists and media personalities have made fortunes from doing just that!

Just imagine - what would it feel like to simply accept and believe that you are already, always, automatically, deeply and profoundly happy, and to know that you will always inherently be happy, regardless of what does or doesn't happen in your life?  

Sometimes happiness can boil down to whether we think we are happy, therefore, please don't confuse your happiness with things that may or may not be out of sorts in your life.   Remember that every life will inevitably have ups and downs.   With this awareness, let the waves of your life come and go, and seek to maintain a happy spirit through it all.  

Don't be swept away by how others might interpret a challenging situation.   Take the reins of your mind, and choose to affirm your natural state of happiness.   Learn to enjoy all the twists and turns that come with being alive as you, on this planet, and at this time.  

Start with the assumption that you are already happy, and you'll have taken an amazing and powerful step to being happy.   By accepting that you're already happy, you'll be relieving yourself of a great burden - that of always seeking and desiring to find happiness in external people, places and things.   You'll sigh with relief, while relaxing deeply into the arms of your own natural state of happiness.

After all, being too needy for happiness can have the same effect on your happiness that being needy about money can have on your finances - it can weaken your sense of self-empowerment.   If you spend all your energy fervently seeking happiness, it may elude you. The very act of desperately seeking happiness may keep you from being happy; and the more you constantly ask yourself if you are happy, the less happy you may become.

This is one reason why those who think they're not feeling happy are often advised to focus their attention on observing someone who is happy, or on helping someone else to find greater happiness.   While admiring or helping others, our focus is on appreciating and serving, instead of on monitoring our own personal, momentary experiences of happiness.   Remember, a watched "happiness pot" never boils!  

Put your efforts into helping others, and, voila!   You just may slip into the ocean of happiness that exists beneath the part of your mind that had been so desperately seeking to grasp a mere mirage of momentary happiness.   

On this journey of spiritual happiness, let's start by assuming that we are already, essentially, happy.   Then our task is not so much to create something that isn't there, but to uncover and discover what already is.

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