be better, that you’re lost, in pain, alone, that life is just happening to you rather than you truly living it. But it’s precisely in those mo- ments that you can reclaim hap- piness — happiness that has been hidden away for far too long!
Looking Out or In? The external world has a huge impact on many of us, and looking out at that world is the direction we’ve chosen for our life and success. So we follow fashion or what society advocates — but then what are we left with? The feeling that it has all been a waste of time and money? Disap- pointment because yet another fad has failed to give us what we needed? In short, a lack of long- term fulfilment?
If we focus too much on de- velopments outside ourselves, whatever they are, we’ll miss the opportunities to develop within. So think for a moment — are you working to achieve inner peace or to buy the next digital thingama- jig? Which is more important?
Ultimately, the external things that we’re trying so desperately to obtain are only transitory. A new fashion will come along soon
lopments outside e, we’ll miss the in. So think for a chieve inner peace hingamajig?”
— something faster, more com- pact, in a new color or style. Prog- ress is great and I’m all for it, but there’s a lot more to life than that. Society’s over-consumption at least shows us that having more doesn’t make us happy. Maybe we needed to get to this place of over-consumption and waste to realize that we already had the most important thing there was: ourselves!
In the grand scheme of things, we are actually all we’ve got, but so often we put restrictions on our happiness and the inward journey to reclaim this. I know because I’ve done it myself. I spent many years being extremely unhappy. I built a set of negative patterns around myself that reinforced my unhappiness. So what changed? I realized that misery didn’t make me happy — hardly rocket science — and that in order to get rid of it I had to find out why I wasn’t happy.
We’re all different in how we go about recognizing that it’s time to change. Some of us choose the gradual route of learning and growing, while others, like me, opt for a lengthy period of pain, ‘dis-ease’ and suffering which gives us a good kick up the back- side! Whatever your story, right here and now is where you will change. You’ve already decided to, I know — that’s why you’re reading this book!
Choosing to Be Happy I believe that if we choose to, we can all be happy. I believe that we’re put here to experi-
aspiremag.net
ence happiness, health, nourish- ment, fulfillment and a divine connection with everyone and everything — it’s our birthright. But I’ve met far too many people who aren’t embracing a life that will make them truly happy — and that’s not just because I’m a psy- chologist! Take a look for yourself. How many people around you are really happy? In fact, take a look at the lengths that some people will go to distract themselves from embracing a natural state of happiness.
More to the point, if you’re not happy yourself, what can you do about it? The answer is simple: you can learn how to make your- self happy. That’s what you want, after all, isn’t it?
The Lightbulb Moment I was brought up in a family that believed strongly that there was a solution to every problem. When it came to health, nature had the answers, so I looked to nature and learned about it. What was my part in the big scheme of things? I looked at that question on every level, from the physical to the metaphysical to the scientific, and within both Eastern and Western philosophies. I dedicated this stage of my life to discovering how the universe worked and how I played a part in that. However, I found out that the most important thing was not just to read about things but to actually experience them — to incorporate the principles into my
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