How to be happy?

At the bottom of every action, every desire of a human being there is one, single need - a need to be happy. We are all on the journey of searching or pursuing happiness every day of our lives.

If you would ask people today what would make them happy, you would hear something like:

"I would love to own a beutiful house in a beautiful place", "I will be happy when I have children", "It would make me happy if I was financially free", "I would be happy when I find my soulmate", "I would be happy if I have lived in a hot country" etc. Can you relate to any of these statements? Most probably yes, and if no you have definitely heard it hundrands of times from the people around you.

And I need to tell you this: there is a fundamental problem with the way people think about happiness- they look for it outwardly. You see, happiness is a state of being, not a place to get to, therefore to find its nature we need to go inwards. What I mean by that is that only by taking control of the inner processes within ourselves we can uncover the feeling of happiness. It was always there, joy is our natural state of being, we just need to find it again.

Here are some steps that you can take to awaken happiness within:

1. Gain the control back.

Stop waiting for something or someone to make you happy. Take a full responsibility and ownerships of how you feel. The outside world: things, people, places can only give you a certain amount of pleasentness, comfort and joy. In order to feel real happiness- sustainable, which comes from our inner source, which doesn't fluctuate like the outer events, we need to first tune in our inner anthenas.

You have seen it yourself, there are people who have everything and are miserable and the ones who have nothing, yet are very joyful. If your emotions are sweet and full of love, whatever you look at is beautiful. If your state of being is sad, angry or frustrated, that's how you will see the outside world. When you are in love, everything seems to have colours of a rainbow and on a bad day whatrever you look at appears to be a disastear. Your emotions are like lenses through which you perceive everything around you. The good news is that you can awake any emotion you wish at any time. Everybody are capable of that. I did take control of my inner world through yoga, coaching techniques and meditation.

2. Spend time connecting to your heart and keep holding that feeling throghout the day.

Your heart can take you to the sweetest, most blissful emotions- love, compassion, kindness, care, passion, joy. Think of some moments in your life when you felt those emotions at the highest peak. Feel them now, be present with them for at least three continous minutes or hold it for as long as you can to begin with (most people struglle to hold it for three minutes without any distractions). Do it as often as you can throughout the day. If you find it easier to be guided through the process of connecting to your emotions there is plenty of material on YT. Here you can find one one my favourite videos: Dr Joe Dispenza Meditation Guided | Heart Coherence | Law of Attraction | Becoming Supernatural - YouTube

3. Create a distanse between you and your mind.

Our suffering comes from two primary sources: our body and our mind. The body is an obvious one. The mind, because it perceives and decides how you are going to feel about something. Imagine two people looking at the same mountain view. One would see it's glories size, beautiful colors and perceive it as breathtaking, the other person might view it as dark, scary and uninviting. We paint the world through the filters of our mind (our opinions, preferences, beliefs etc.). When we put our body and mind into a right balance all the suffering ends and we enter our natural state of being - happiness. When it comes to the body we can use diffent breathing techniques, yoga, proper diet or work with energy. When it comes to the mind, the first most important thing is that we need to stop indentifying ourselves with it. Our thoughts are the product of all the impressions gathered by our five senses subconsciously. Only when we make a councious choice, we can call it truly ours.

How can we work on distansing ourselves from the mind and ultimately become happier? Keep reminding yourself that you are not your thoughts (it's good to set up few alarms throughout the day). Keep your thoughts at a distance and get curious, start questioning them: where is that thought coming from, do I really believe that today? Maybe it's some opinion that I have heard many times before and started to believe it automatically, but never took time to look into it. If you are a visual person, when a thought accuers, either pictures or words, "zoom" them out, literally make it smaller and smaller with your minds eye. Create that distance first visually and then take a fresh look at them again. Think of your thoughts as books in a library, you can look at them, you can learn from them, you can decide not to ever open them, but they are not you. If you are able to observe your thoughts, therefore be an observer, you can not be your thoughts.

4. Ask yourself why you do what you do?

Take couple of steps back and look at all the things that you spend most of your time on, write it down. Be as honest as you can, only the truth will help you to move towards desired happiness. Now, are these activities connected to what is truly most important to you in life? If it is esier, you can also write down what are your values, what is it that you really treasure inside your heart. During this process try to FEEL more than THINK. Next compare the lists. Do you need to spend more time and energy in one area and less in another? Is there something that you need to reduce or stop doing? Is how you spend your time match with what really matters to you most? Maybe it's your loved ones, your passion, spirituality, nature, you name it...

5. Focus on what you have and count your blessings

You can be racing all your life and get to the top of the ladder, but if you can not appreciate what you have (in every single aspect) YOU HAVE NOTHING. Usually this statement ends up only as a fancyfull saying in people's minds, very rarely it becomes a living day to day practice. You can only truly experience something if you are totally present with it and involved in it - with your senses, your mind, your emotions.Therefore you need to conciously and regurarly take time to focus on all the beautiful things which are within you and around you right now.

If you keep asking yourself how to be happy, try this very simple, but extremely powerful method: every day write down something that you are deeply grateful for. It can be something big or small, it doesn't matter. What matters is that it awakens happy feelings within you. Stay with those emotions for as long as you can. If you are struggling to come up with more than few things, get playful and reach for photographs, videos, music or even places which remind you what you truly appreciate in life and can directly connect you to that emotion. Please remember this is crucial: the thought of something you are grateful for is not enough, you need to feel it - the emotion of appreciation needs to be at it's highest peak.

Everything you read above is something tested and proven, it worked for myself and many of my clients.

If you are striving to get amazing/exceptional results, you are going to have to set high expectations from yourself. All the above techniques and exercises must be practiced on a regular basis until they become a habit.