Happiness is something we all seek and perhaps part of that search is to find something which fulfils us, makes us feel valued and needed. Yet happiness although sought as a greater venture can also be found in simple delights, in moments, places and spaces which we can find in our everyday life, some small instant which can bring us joy and peace. What then, would our lives become if we connected those small fleeting moments to engage with them fully and more often? Would that then lead to our true fulfilled, valued happiness?
Many have the almost unconscious view that when I get the car, the perfect job, the partner and the parts of life we are meant to strive for and attain THEN we will be truly happy. Yet I think more and more people are becoming awakened to their greater being. They know from deep within their heart that they can be happy right now in this moment despite the chaos that may be happening in their lives.
This does require some mind-set shift, nothing taxing but perhaps a shift in allowing those happy moments to shine through, reconnecting to them and allowing them to warm your heart. In that moment then it is possible to see the light at the end of the tunnel and have hope for the chaos to be diffused.
This remembering and feeling the flow of energy from previous happier times in fact really helps, as a different perspective, connecting with a light moment can simply remind us that this too shall pass, and that hope can be restored. The warming of the heart can lift energy and so what comes to you from the Universe may be lighter and brighter.
This way happiness seems reachable and empowering not something constantly strived for. My happy places can be anywhere with friends and family, exchanging a funny story which triggers shared laughter. It can be a moment in a park watching a family of ducks with their new offspring. Invariably there is one duckling that strays in the opposite direction, swimming for freedom, and mother pulls them back into line. Or suddenly looking up in the city and seeing two Herons on a roof watching a nearby river trying to spy lunch.
When our lives become smaller as it inevitably does as time passes and we become the golden threads of life’s rich tapestry it is the simple things which offer delight. A cup of favourite tea in a special mug which has a warm and cossetted memory attached allows the heart to sing. A meeting with friends re-joining a conversation which had an interval of many years yet resumed as if it were yesterday can bring joy. A moment holding hands with a loved one, held so dear. Reminiscing in the garden sunshine with the sun beaming a warm and friendly smile as you share moments past, once again invites happiness into life.
Happiness is already here, it is in the heart, it is in the small moments fully experienced, the revelling of a favourite chocolate bar, finding a new coffee shop which sells plants and gifts for calm, sharing a new recipe providing a sumptuous soulful supper.
Being grateful for those moments, our favourite places, people, and spaces in our busy lives, to wallow in the moment of good fortune and peace in the small treasures allows us to shift focus and concentrate on the feeling of warmth, joy and indeed happiness enveloping our being.
Giving time for an extra moment in a happy recollection to expand that feeling until it really does surround you to carry you through your day, like a warm and comfortable blanket until you have the next happy moment. Reading a book that reminds you that the greatest treasure is those of the heart and because they are there can be carried with you now, in this moment and for always.
I have recently experienced all these happy moments whilst immersed in a difficult and sad family experience. We lost a dear family member. I speak not with deluded airy-fairy ideals but with a system of taking each moment and finding the joy within it. Seeing and most importantly feeling how precious and unique it is. It was an important lesson and reminder. It has encouraged me further to not take anything for granted and to be thankful for everything in this wonderful life.
Having travelled through these sad times I decided my mantra would be simply to make memories and to experience them happily. To ask what happy memory I can make today. What happy experience can I recall? If the happy memories seem few and far between…I too had some patches in my early life when they were hard to find; well then focus on what to create today. Remember to feel it. That’s the key. It can be something very small, yet you can build on this and after a while it becomes a habit.
Happiness is in this way a choice of not seeking out and striving through an unhappy life to reach a big target that is supposed to make you happy at the end of it like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow or some alchemy of changing lead to gold. This is really an insight to say that the lead is your heavy challenge, yet you have within you the gold; the awakened soul knows how to change this heaviness to light hearts and joy, the golden treasure.
Happiness and joy are within the heart, we have the great capacity to share, to make people laugh, to lighten each other’s burdens. Look inside and there written on you heart really is happiness and peace. Happy hearts, happy minds, and happy souls.
That is life’s treasure. No more is needed. Nothing else needs to be searched for. It is here and now. Choose happiness in the small moments and carry it with you as you go, passing that joy forward. My budding author friend, David Burrow always says “Be happy and happiness happens”. We can be happy now not when we have something or reach for something and being in that happy moment, place or space IS when happiness happens.
I wish you all happiness searching for those happy treasures you already have and the new happy memories you are going to make. In the meantime, I am going to make my own happy space. I am just off to buy myself a bar of chocolate…
By Patricia McDowall – More to Life Elder
