Happiness is a crucial part of health, and today we're diving into habits that help us be, experience and create happiness.
1. Perspective.
'Happiness' and a state of happy all the time isn't the goal. You can't heal from being human. You will feel all and every emotion, including the very, very difficult ones, when you live in 'happiness'. You will still have days where you struggle to function, where you use numbing behaviours, where you feel loss, grief, despair, and hardship.
Happiness isn't one state.
It's a bittersweet miracle to be alive, and happiness is tasting that in tiny or large amounts every day. It's a peace within oneself, a calm satisfaction - whilst still being tossed up and down by life perhaps. It's riding the waves, without sinking. But nobody gets to skip the human part.
2. They know who they are, who they want to be, how they feel and how they want to feel.
There's clarity there my friend, a deep seat within themselves that means they are can make their own decisions for themselves, without being tugged into our people's priorities, expectations and pathways for their life. They're attuned with their needs; physically, emotionally and mentally.
You can't plant self-love from seeds of self-hate, so this is a practice - moment by moment, daily, weekly or whenever of appreciation, gratitude and connection to who they are and where they are going.
A gratitude practice sounds a little cliche huh? I'm sure every wellness blog mentions it. But it doesn't need to be a journalling, or an affirmation or a meditation moment. Gratitude might be noticing one breath, tiny beautiful things whilst out on a walk, like the sky or a weed pushing up through a path. But in that moment, there's a connection, to self, to others, and to their purpose.
They have a clear purpose in life, and that is fulfilling.
Their happiness is defined by them, not for them.
3. Connection
Doesn't need to be lots and lots of friends, but it means whoever they spend their time with, it's with people that understand them, they can be themselves with, and who energize. It might just be 1-2 people (this isn't a popularity contest), but it's about how deep those connections are. How truly they can be themselves, be accepted for it, and vice versa.
I've written about this one before - the single most important thing for our long-term happiness is the quality of our connections to other humans.
To see, and be seen.
I put this one third however, because it's hard to make a true connection with another human if there's fear within yourself about who you are. If you can't see and love yourself, then it's pretty hard to let another human do that. So there's having a deep seat within yourself - and then meeting the other person from that place. Two individuals standing separately within their own magic, reaching out there fingers to join in the space between.
4. They have systems
It's hard to create happiness in a biological system that is suffering or just surviving. Whether that's for food shopping and prep, a movement schedule, great work scheduling, sleep habits or a morning routine; there are systems in place that help them be happy and healthy. That help them prioritise the important things in life, and show up for themselves consistently.
That's not to say there's one system, or only organized people can be happy, but it is to say that importance is laid on where importance is due (and no more head space than that is needed). Overly exhausted, fuelled on caffeine, sugar and/or nicotine, and without the movement our body needs, is just not gonna feel good over the long term. The basics taken care of gives you more capacity to LIVE.
Using the word 'they' above, I am aware, creates a false of 'them' in that camp over there, different from me. Happy people in the happy camp.
So with these, can I also just remind you of some habit basics i.e. a great place to start changing habits (but not the only way):
don't try to change a habit based on a critical or shaming story about yourself (self-love doesn't grow from seeds of self-hate remember!). Because, the majority of the time, that unwanted habit ifs expressing an unconscious need, and it will keep asserting itself until its legitimate need is lovingly witnessed and met.
pick a habit above that you think will ADD more goodness and sparkle to your life, rather than trying to do less of something.
At first, try picking habits that you want to change that feel small, manageable, spark your curiosity, and don't feel emotionally heavy.
So with these in mind, what 'happy habits' might you try more of this week?
In fact, maybe even start with defining happiness on your terms first?
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