Happiness. Yours & Mine
From the time we are small children, most of us learn to seek happiness outside of ourselves. Ironically the same experiences in life that bring us pleasure and fulfillment; our relationships, careers and attainments, have the potential to bring us pain and disappointment. When we define ourselves solely through our positions and possessions, we are destined to experience anxiety and disappointment as a result of our attachments.
Happiness is a state of being (it’s unconditional) When our happiness is dependent upon people, situations and things, the ever changing objects of our experience overshadow our essential nature. An enduring source of happiness exists in the realm of our being, which is beyond form and circumstance. What does this really mean? We can look at a new car in our driveway and it makes us happy for a couple of days, we can look to other people in our lives and when they act loving toward us, we reciprocate and feel happy. But what happens when the car breaks down, or the lover loses interest? If we are only conditionally happy, then we really are not happy at all, because we can lose the conditions that make us happy at any moment.
We all have needs
The noted physiologist Abraham Maslow expressed this in his famous “Hierarchy of Needs”. Beyond physiological hungers, we can express these as four fundamental human needs:
• Attention • Affection
• Appreciation
• Acceptance
When our basic needs are met, feelings of comfort, pleasure, and happiness are present. However, when our needs are not met, we feel distress, pain, and sadness. When these feelings are repressed or retained, eventually we will feel depressed, anxious, guilty, or hostile.
So can we give ourselves Attention, Affection, Appreciation, and Acceptance? YES we can! This is called Self Love :-) When we focus on love and allow ourselves to feel the sun shining on our lives, we allow a dialogue with our soul to unfold and lead us to the highest and best path to follow and flow.
The first step, is acknowledgement of our Now experience. No matter where we want to be, we must come to acceptance of where we are right now. Once we have established a starting point from where we can grow, we can forgive any unnecessary faults we see in the present moment, whether a body image, undesirable relationships, or non manifested expectations..
Attention - When we get present and tune to ourselves, asking the questions, “How do I feel now?” “What do I want?” “Does my body need anything right now?” “Do I need a break, or do I need to move around?” Give yourself the attention you would to another. Answer your own questions. Don’t just blow through with a “fine” response. Notice what is missing. Sometimes when I spend too much time at the computer, I start to drain energy. When I notice, I get up, change rooms, drink some water, take a few deep breaths, and then ask the questions. Sometimes I realize I just need to change topics for awhile, other times I need to go for a walk. The more you give yourself attention, and open the dialogue of tuning into your needs, the easier it becomes to feel satisfied with your own attention.
Affection - Even for me this was a hard lesson to learn. I was taught not to “toot my own horn” as a child and I learned at an early age that praise and love came from others (or God). So I have recently in the last few years opened my ability to love myself. In the beginning of this practice, I even felt if I was a “self” and a “soul” it would be easier, as its easier to love another. Start simple, finding the things that are easy to love about ourselves: maybe you love your feet for example and so getting a pedicure and wearing fabulous shoes that show your beautiful feet is a start. Or, you love your voice, so you can record your messages instead of writing them down or sing your voicemail message. These are starter examples, eventually you want to love your whole body, your personality, your soul desires, your taste in music, everything that say’s “you”.
Appreciation - This need is similar to affection and self love, but let’s focus on outcomes and circumstance. We can appreciate our legs as they climb the stairs and send out a mental “thank you” that we reached the top and without much thought. We can appreciate a personal goal we have achieved at work or school by feeling proud of the job we accomplished. We can send the cells of our body appreciation that we made it through the day without having to think about breathing, digestion, or beating our heart!!
Acceptance - We are where we are. We can either choose to accept where we are now, or push against it. As soon as we accept our current state, we feel relief, which is a better feeling than denial. This does not mean we stay there, settle, and toss our desired conditions out the window! No, but it does mean we accept today and now, and then from there we can move forward if we choose. As we learned earlier on the vibrational scale, acceptance is much higher than frustration, therefore by breathing into the acceptance of now, we already line up with higher levels of energy.
