Happiness: Discovering joy from within

There’s one thing we as humans all have in common regardless of where we are born, our skin colour, our gender, our age, or our personality: we all want to be happy. Happiness can come from two sources: externally and internally. In this article, I am going to share with you how we can stop relying one external sources of joy and seek and cultivate joy inwardly.

External Joy versus Internal Joy

In a previous article about happiness, I talked about hedonic vs eudaimonic happiness. Hedonic happiness is the fleeting bursts of joy that we get from external circumstances like drinking a cup of coffee, getting a promotion, or winning the lottery. We feel great momentarily, but the happiness fades are we are left wanting more.

Eudaimonic happiness is longer-lasting happiness that derives from meaningful experiences like close and intimate relationships, contributing to others, and cultivating kindness towards ourselves.

I am not saying to avoid coffee, and avoid getting a promotion, and turn down a winning lottery ticket. No, of course not! I would love to win the lottery. I am saying, that these ways of experiencing happiness in your life is dependent on external situations — they are fleeting — and it is out of your control. However, joy that comes from within is boundless, absolutely free, and you have more control over your inner circumstances than external situations!

Joy from Within

Joy can be seen as an emotional state of being. It is an emotional state that has one of the highest frequencies compared to other emotions. When we are joyful the world seems brighter, opportunities are more easily seen, and obstacles are seen as challenges rather than terrible problems. We are more creative, open, and kind when we are in a state of joy.

Being able to tap into the inner well of joy takes practice. We are conditioned and programmed to be quite negative. It is easy for us to become stressed, anxious, depressed, angry, judgemental, and doubting when we are repeating old programs and loops that keep us comfortably small and feeling stuck.

When we are experiencing joy we do not experience our negative emotions. We absolutely — for the most parts — cannot feel Hate when we are bathed in Joy; With joyous virtues, values, beliefs, thoughts, actions and speech there isn’t room for Hateful words, actions, behaviours, racist us vs them mentality, and hateful systems and policies.

By developing and cultivating our ability to tap into our inner Joy (whenever we want) we start to reprogram ourselves to cease clinging and grasping: We give up engaging and dwelling in negative emotions when the guest has outstayed her honourable visit.

The 6Layers to _discover_ Inner Happiness

In the following series of articles I will share with you the 6 layers we must transform to tap into inner happiness and to experience a lighter, funner, and brighter life. I am a newly Certified Happiness Life Coach and I will share with you what I have learned and how you can take control of your life and experience greater joy while shedding old belief systems, patterns of thinking, and identities that no longer serve you.

June 28, 2020