The ultimate personal challenge — choose to be happy, unconditionally

A journey to freedom — post #2

“Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.”
― Abraham Lincoln

This seems easier said than done, Mr President. I’ve opened my mind to the possibility though. Challenge accepted.

First, what exactly is happiness?

Happiness: a state of well-being and contentment, JOY
- Marion Webster Dictionary

Okay, but what about Joy? They are not the same, are they?

The most common theme I have heard suggests that happiness is a reaction to an event, or to some good fortune, and is more fleeting whereas joy reflects a deeper feeling of contentment, an inner sense of well being that transcends the frequent emotional ups and downs we experience. However, Webster’s definition indicates that there is tremendous overlap, if not equivalence between the two. Thus, we will consider both as the same for the purposes of this challenge.

When I read Michael Singer’s highly acclaimed book The Untethered Soul this past summer, I was initially taken aback with his assertion that challenging ourselves to be unconditionally happy is the most effective way to becoming free of psychological pain and suffering — more so than meditation and yoga moves.

What Singer was telling me is that living in a state of well-being and contentment is really just a choice — a decision or intention I needed to make if I wanted to truly live a joyful life.

This sounds pretty simple, and it is, though it is not easy — and that is what makes this challenge a game-changer.

If you meditate, or have tried meditating, you know that it is difficult to keep your mind still — to not have thoughts come into your head despite your best efforts to “simply focus on your breath”. Meditation is not a pass/fail exercise however. It is all about intention, and building awareness. Over time, with practice, you learn to be more and more still, in conscious awareness, for longer periods of time. You just have to do it.

“Do or do not. There is no try.” — Yoda

Meditate or do not meditate. There is no trying to meditate. By doing meditation, regardless of how much your mind wanders, you are already succeeding. I have been meditating now for about five years, between five and 15 minutes each morning, and I still have thoughts come and go every time. Yet I have learned to be patient, and to keep my mind still for longer periods, letting new thoughts go more quickly.

The same principle holds true for doing this unconditional happiness challenge. For me, it started with an intention, and an intense commitment to follow through. Knowing how strong the ego is as part of our psyche, and how hard it is not to attach who I am to events that happen to me (like when the driver of a vehicle recently yelled at me while I walked across the street on a cross walk because he had to slow down), I knew this would be a major challenge!

It’s not just events that happen in the moment though, it is thoughts and emotions that get triggered by various things we see, touch, smell, hear throughout each day. Using another personal example, my mother (who died of ALS in 2013) used to be a docent at an historic lighthouse. I’ve noticed that sometimes now when I see a lighthouse (I live in coastal Maine so this is not rare), I can start to feel a bit melancholy, and that this can affect my mood for some time.

Like the tactics you may use during meditation to gently let your thoughts go, you can deploy a similar strategy to gently let negative thoughts and emotions go. For example, I use Singer’s strategy and I simply tell myself to relax and release whenever I notice that my mind is in a negative state. Again, this is simple to say, but often hard to execute. You must be patient and forgiving of yourself. The trick is not to fight the feelings you are experiencing, rather you want to accept and acknowledge them. Emotions are tied to the ego in us all, and fighting emotions only feeds the ego. Recognizing that it is your ego at the root of your feelings immediately disempowers the ego and thus allows the feeling to dissipate and pass more freely, and completely.

Finally, I have deployed a trick that has helped me to not get discouraged when I find myself feeling negative. I have re-framed how I think about negative thoughts and emotions. Instead of beating myself up when I notice negative thoughts, I express gratitude to those thoughts for reminding me to be present, free, and happy.

“Gratitude is a powerful catalyst for happiness. It’s the spark that lights a fire of joy in your soul.” — Amy Collette

Until next time, peace.

— Scott