Aware Of The Stories
Three Happiness Tips:
1. Beware of Your Background Unhappiness:
It’s a general feeling of discontentment, resentment, and irritation that’s present in the background as they go through their everyday lives.
This feeling is fed by unconscious thoughts that go along the following lines:
“There is something that needs to happen in my life before I can be at peace (happy, fulfilled, etc.). And I resent that it hasn’t happened yet.”
“Something happened in the past that should not have happened and I resent that. If that hadn’t happened I would be at peace now.”
In addition, we need to become attentive to our thoughts and emotions. Ask yourself constantly: “Is there any negativity in me at this present moment?” Then watch out for thoughts that attempt to explain or justify this unhappiness but in reality cause it.
Once you become aware of a negative state within yourself you realize that you’re not those thoughts, emotions, or reactions. Instead, you’re the conscious presence that is witnessing those states. And at that moment—in which you create a disconnection between your thoughts and yourself–you can choose to simply change the thoughts and beliefs that are causing the background unhappiness in your life.
2. Choose Peace Over Drama:
We choose peace over drama. Although we all want peace—that is, we all want to be happy–there is something within each of us that also wants drama and conflict. Think of the following:
You have an argument with someone;
You feel you’ve been somehow slighted;
You’re not properly acknowledged, and so on.
In all of the scenarios above your mind races to defend its position, attack, or blame someone else.
“Can you feel that there is something in you that is at war, something that feels threatened and wants to survive at all cost, that needs the drama in order to assert its identity as the victorious character within that theatrical production? Can you feel there is something in you that would rather be right than at peace?”
Of course, that something that would rather be right than at peace is your ego, and–once again–the way to lessen your ego’s grip over your thought process is to become aware of it.
By listening to the voice without judging it in any way you’ll realize that “there is the voice” and “here I am listening to it“. It is then that you can override what the voice is saying and instead say to yourself: “I choose to be happy rather than insisting at any cost that I be right”.
3. Turn Your Work Into a Spiritual Practice by Releasing Your Ego:
Those who are exceptionally good at what they do are often completely or largely free of ego while performing their work. They’ve taken their attention off of themselves:
Their petty resentments;
Their need for recognition;
Their apprehension over how their work will be perceived by others, and so on.
Instead, they’ve placed their attention fully on the task that they’re performing. They may not know it, but their work has become a spiritual practice: when they work they become one with what they’re doing.
Conclusion
Do the following:
Become aware of the stories you’re constantly telling yourself in the back of your mind of why you can’t be happy now.
Decide that being happy–and at peace– is more important to you than being right.
Release your ego while you’re working so that you can become one with what you’re doing and–at least while you’re exercising your craft–you can forget your petty grievances and everyday concerns.
