What Exactly Is Happiness?

The following is adapted from The Intelligence of Happiness by Gi Gi O’Brien.

I’d lived thirty years of my life having never asked: What Exactly Is Happiness?

This question is so critical to our existence that you rarely have an interaction without someone trying to gauge the answer by asking, “How are you?” If you are physically unwell, this is counteracted with concern, empathy, emotional support, and even medical treatment. People often respond supportively when your physical health is compromised, yet your mental health is almost intimidatingly shied away from, or even completely neglected.

Why deny your Self the naked truth of that answer?

Are you really happy?

The feeling of happiness is the reason for your life. It is the only measure you should be referencing your Self against.

The goal is joy.

Otherwise, why else are we here?

If you feel resistance to that, take a deep breath, let your guard down, feel your shoulders sink, exhale one long breath, and say to your Self, the goal of life is joy.

Inhale now for five seconds.

Hold for five seconds.

Now exhale slowly for as long as you can.

Empty your lungs like you have been found after being lost for days at sea.

Now breathe into that relief.

The goal is joy.

What is happiness?

At times, the routine that had become my life neglected to integrate such a powerful birthright, my own joy. Instead, I replaced true fulfillment with expectations, obligations, pleasing others, and a multitude of detractors from my happiness. I often said yes to requests, while intrinsically taming the resistance and displeasure of the commitments I made.

Happiness is a completely subjective feeling, an emotional state that is positive. It feels energizing, is pleasant, and is welcomed. It’s a feeling of elevation, as the splendor of a high vibrational frequency in your body gets you high.

It’s a feeling only you can determine through your Self. You get to decide for your Self what makes you feel like your life is extraordinary, meaningful, and worthwhile.

You are the only determining factor of your measure of happiness.

There have been interesting ways of dictating how to obtain that joy. Sometimes, I have mistakenly put my faith in the material to provide me with such happiness, only to find the feeling to be fleetingly inadequate. The new wardrobe, house, car, and even sometimes the much-looked-forward-to holiday delivered fast-hitting fulfillment, but were unsustainable in their ability to keep the feeling of happiness in perpetuity. I lost interest in chasing materialism, and I did not want to obsess over a better body or gain elite status based on which restaurants I frequented and how often I traveled. Those metrics did little to measure true happiness. I had a good life and I loved my lifestyle, so long as I could afford it. But, I wondered, what would happen to my happiness if I stopped spending?

Is happiness a financial transaction? Is this how we were designed to experience the best of life? Work to be able to pay for happiness? We use the resources we work so hard to acquire — mostly money, time, and energy — only to watch them deplete, leaving financial burden and a desperate need to get more from the rat race. We then focus on the next hit of happiness in disguise.

But there are alternatives. There are other ways to feel life, to feel happy, to feel fulfilled.

You feel a lot, every day, all day.

For a person to believe they can escape the emotional intelligence and gravity-defying turbulence of feelings, is to be a corpse dressed in a designer suit.

Feeling escapes no living being.

The investment in getting to know your feelings, your Self, and your happiness is arguably the most important investment you will ever make, withƒso, great returns.

So, How Are You feeling?

It took me a while to realize that emotions and feelings are different. Feelings are derived from how you perceive your emotions, which are activated in response to a stimulus.

A stimulus is just something that evokes a reaction. We are built to use our senses to process stimuli, and then we generate emotions as a reaction to those stimuli. Most of the time, an emotional reaction is initially instinctive, and you might not give it conscious thought. Or, you might be completely unaware of it. Think of it as your natural autopilot. What you do have control over, however, are the thoughts applied to the emotion, which create your perception and feeling about your world. This is where I felt like I hit the jackpot: when I understood that the thoughts I applied to my emotions created the feelings I had.

Stimulus → Emotion → Applied Thoughts → Perception → Feeling

At times I was oblivious or overwhelmed in what I was stimulated by, but now I know our species’ reactive mechanism cannot control for stimulus. Sometimes it can’t even control for emotion, but we absolutely have control over our feelings.

The buck stops with me, and only me.

I choose the thought around an emotion and how I want to perceive any given situation and its conditions. That is my great power.

For more advice on mindfulness, you can find The Intelligence of Happiness on Amazon.

Gi Gi O’Brien is an author, social entrepreneur and founder of the Global Intelligence Initiative (gii). The company focuses on a trifecta model of intelligence that combines simplified neuropsychology, neurobiology and cosmology for enhanced well-being and performance emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually.

Gi Gi’s vision is to help people leverage their brilliance by mastering the innate intelligence of the human design. Since receiving the prestigious Australian Pacesetter Award from American Express Centurion in 2015, she has worked in consulting and coaching between Barbados, Los Angeles, and Bali prior to establishing gii.

Gi Gi is currently living in her island home, Barbados.