The Fastest Way to Happiness
Don’t you just love those days when everything just seems to go right? Why aren’t there more of those days? Why do they have to feel so few and far between?
They don’t have to be.
It’s ironic to me that even when focusing on joy and bringing it to others, I myself have even gotten caught up in the daily grind. I get tired and the burdens of life just weigh me down.
I had a realization this morning. Well, ok last night, since it actually started with a dream that led into a really great morning. And I’m pretty sure this good morning feeling will last the whole day. Most of the times my dreams are just crazy, but every once in a while they can be incredibly impactful. Like this one I just had.
There has been a bit of ongoing drama in my family, and some extended family that was once really close are no longer part of our lives. It’s been this way for several years at this point, and this dream makes me want to close that rift.
One particular family member has been going through a lot of hard things as of late. We may not talk, but I still see things pop up on social media feeds. In my dream, I went to the house of this particular family member. I was incredibly nervous about going and was ready to simply run away when they answered the door.
While I don’t remember the exact conversation we had in the dream, I do remember the anxiety calming down as the time progressed.
It was just a dream and I have yet to do this in real life, but I still woke up incredibly happy about the whole situation.
The difference?
In a word, it is simply forgiveness.
There was forgiveness on both sides and a sense of healing. Now if you read my last article on Medium, you will know that healing is an important thing to me. So I’m going to talk about it just a little bit more to explain why this is so key to any kind of happiness.
If we don’t heal from hard times and experiences, we just get stuck. We are unable to move forward and to progress beyond that situation. If we look at life as a game, we can’t level up until we have passed the current level we are on. If we can’t beat the monsters and demons where we are, we can’t ever get to the next level.
We feel stuck.
And oh what a familiar feeling that is to all of us!
When we feel stuck, there is something lurking that we haven’t addressed yet. This is going to be different for everyone since everyone is at a different level and dealing with different challenges. These battles can happen in any area of our life.
We can be dealing with something in regards to family, work, friendships, relationships, and more. Problems may have been caused by money, abuse, conflicts and a myriad of other things. It doesn’t matter what it is, or what caused it.
What matters is moving past it. Like this rift within my extended family. There were accusations made about this that may or may not have happened decades ago. It was so long ago, and everyone has a different memory of events. It was not dealt with back then (we were children after all), so it came and reared its ugly head and divide family members decades later.
The thing is, whatever did or didn’t happen was so long ago, and people change. People have changed even in the years since the feud has been going on. Things obviously aren’t going to play out the way they did back then. Everything has changed.
So why do we hang on to the old hurt? Why do we keep out people that we love? Why do we let ourselves be miserable, upset and angry?
We want to be right and them to be wrong. We are waiting for apologies we may never get. We want punishment and retribution for the hurt we have gone through.
Chances are, none of that will ever come. So we sit and stew over the incident, and are unable to take our lives to the next level.
As the wise Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr once said, “ Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
When we are able to forgive whatever it is we are dealing with, we are no longer held back by our pain. Forgiveness isn’t about the other person, it’s about us. It is allowing ourselves to deal with and heal from past pain, trauma and hurt.
Once we let go of those, it is amazing the joy that can then be found. We are no longer holding on to the emotions we don’t want in the first place. This leaves room for the good things to enter into our lives.
This is the secret to happiness.
Ironically, the process can take time. Yet it is simply the fastest way to reach the next level of our lives.
Now What?
In order to fully forgive and heal, we need to start with ourselves. I’ve created a free guide to help reconcile that.
Learn how to turn your negative traits into assets with my free guide. It’s completely FREE and all you have to do is CLICK HERE and I will send it to your inbox.
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