Happiness

What is happiness? 

Is Happiness a state of mind? If you can think yourself into sadness, then it stands to reason that you can think yourself into happiness. 

When you think happy thoughts, you change the chemicals – the hormones in your body that govern mood and emotion. Hormones can be triggered by the thoughts  that you think, or even the environment that you find yourself in. 

An example of that might be that a bear jumps out at you – your body will instantly send two hormones – adrenaline and cortisol – to prime your flight or flight reaction to danger. Increased blood supply goes to your extremities to help you do this, non-essential organs shut down, your pupils dilate, your heart rate increases, peristalsis ceases.  The desire to procreate stops, in short everything that isn’t essential to your survival takes a back seat. The stresses and strains of everyday life can kick start these hormonal reactions, leading to emotional highs and lows.

Your hormones are fed by something called negative feedback – something has to happen for the hormones / chemicals to be sent. This chemical reaction also happens when we feel happy or loved. We have the power within us to create and release these hormones with the help of our thoughts alone, because your thoughts create your feelings and your feelings dictate the  actions that you take.

Our thoughts are incredibly powerful; they have the ability to make or break us. Learning to control one’s thoughts – even our subconscious mind, is a life changing thing. Our subconscious mind runs most of our day – we do so much without really being aware, of what we’re actually doing. Learning to become aware of our thoughts can be very liberating; we all have bad days, and some worse than others,  but by building the resilience to deal with the chatter in your head, that makes all the difference. 

I have a term I call the barking dog. It is an internal voice that is never nice, it is always negative. If we can learn to quieten this negative voice, we will then hear the little voice that guides you, your natural intuition. It is quiet, to the point, sometimes even amusing in the way it lets you know it’s there.  It always has your highest regard at its centre and if we can start to control the negative thoughts in our head, we become more resilient, the expansions are bigger and the contractions are smaller in life. 

It’s not the falling down, that happens to us all, it’s not necessarily being tough on yourself, but maybe it’s your  resilience -your ability to shift your perspective, when you need to. 

The technique;

Try being aware of your thoughts, say for a week or two, and when you become aware of the negative thoughts you can literally change them to positive thoughts, quite the opposite of what you’re thinking. If you can’t think of anything else tell that barking dog to sit down, say it out loud with meaning!! I even have a name for mine. 

Feel you have the power to create your own happiness, try to visualise a smiling, happy you – see it, as if it has already happened. Believe  it, really feel it with every cell in your body. Be in the present moment as much as possible. Forget about what happened in the past, the future is something that is just going to happen.

But if you want a happier future you can create it. Everything is already within you, the power is in your mind – as Steve Jobs pointed out, everything  ever created started with a thought. 

Remember -Your thoughts create your feelings which dictate the action that you take. And if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got. So start by changing a pattern. Take action towards the happier future you desire.

Step 1 – Try being aware of your thoughts. Are they negative? Or do they sometimes not make you feel so good. If so,

Step 2 – Try changing that thought to a positive and be aware of how it  feels in your body. It should start to feel good, it should feel expansive.

Step 3- Try a couple of short Meta moments during your day.  2 mins just for you and your bodies health and well-being. 

Meta moment.

Close your eyes for a moment. Breathe into your belly through your nose and out through your mouth. Try not to let your chest rise if you can. Breathe in  for 5 1/2 seconds nice slow  full  belly breaths. allowing the sides to fill up and the last sip into your chest. Exhale for a minimum of eight seconds – continue breathing  like this. 

Now  place your hand over your heart centre. And think of something you love.

Do this for around two minutes. hold onto your chosen thought, nice long slow deep breaths. When you open your eyes you will feel lighter happier, and another side effect of this is you will have released those happy hormone that are now flooding throughout your body. 

Enjoy…