Unlocking The Happiness Within

by Gavin Hoole
(Cape Town, South Africa)

My tips for happiness are based on my own experience of how happiness seems to work in this human world of ours. Firstly, happiness is an inner experience. It can bubble up at any time with no discernible outer stimulus. It’s just there, inside us, waiting to be experienced. Children demonstrate this to us daily.

If we can but allow happiness to flow, it will naturally be experienced daily. What blocks the full experience of happiness is the stresses we have accumulated over time in our mind-body system. If we follow a few simple habits, we will experience that inner happiness more richly while functioning in the external world of daily living.

To experience happiness fully I believe we need to approach it in two ways:
(1) Unlock the happiness from within, and
(2) Cultivate a few simple habits in daily living to minimize putting more stress into our system.

Here’s how I approach this.

1. Go towards the quietness of ‘being’ on a daily basis – the home of bliss within - to allow the stresses and blockages to dissolve themselves through that deep mental and physical rest. Some call this deep meditation. The name matters not, as long as it a method that leads to the dissolving of the muddiness caused by stresses in the system. I have my own method I use, and it works well for me.

2. Listen to the inner cues for what will enliven that happiness further in daily life, instead of clouding it again with more stresses. Those inner cues come to us as feelings. When we think about something, say something, or do something, how do we feel in that moment? Does it feel good and right, or does it feel not so good and right? If we follow those built-in cues (our 'conscience') and always choose the path that feels good and right, we will be following our bliss, as the saying goes. We'll be enlivening our inner happiness by our way of living.

I have found that there are three habits in daily living that will further help us to consistently take the road of joy and happiness. The three habits to cultivate and live by are so simple: truthfulness in all matters, kindness to all, and appreciating what we can appreciate in our lives.

So, to summarize, what I find works for me is:

Meditate daily.

Follow my inner cues for what feels good and right.

Consciously cultivate the habits of truthfulness, kindness and appreciation.

That’s it - not much to remember; not many rules; no affirmations; just some simple habits to cultivate. And I find it works. With that foundation, all the other experiences of life create ripples and waves of more joy - experiences such as sunsets, loved ones, nature, and all the things that people say bring them happiness.

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Gavin Hoole is an author and the founder of Conscious Mental Rest, a natural process for gaining profound rest for the mind-body system. You can read more
about this at www.Unlock-Your-Happiness.com

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