FW: DailyOM: Analyzing the Path - Recognizing Happiness

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December 20, 2010

Analyzing

the Path

Recognizing Happiness

We are used to

analyzing why we are unhappy, but taking the time to contemplate your happiness

is important too.

Those of us

on the path of personal and spiritual growth have a tendency to analyze our

unhappiness in order to find the causes and make improvements. But it is just

as important, if not more so, to analyze our happiness. Since we have the

ability to rise above and observe our emotions, we can recognize when we are

feeling joyful and content. Then we can harness the power of the moment by

savoring our feelings and taking time to be grateful for them.

Recognition is the first step in creating change, therefore recognizing what it

feels like to be happy is the first step toward sustaining happiness in our

lives. We can examine how joy feels in our bodies and what thoughts run through

our minds in times of bliss. Without diminishing its power, we can retrace our steps

to discover what may have put us in this frame of mind, and then we can take

note of the choices we've made while there. We might realize that we are

generally more giving and forgiving when there's a smile on our face, or that

we are more likely to laugh off small annoyances and the actions of others when

they don't resonate with our light mood.

Once we know what it feels like and can identify some of the triggers and are

aware of our actions, we can recreate that happiness when we are feeling low. Knowing

that like attracts like, we can pull ourselves out of a blue mood by focusing

on joy. We might find that forcing ourselves to be giving and forgiving, even

when it doesn't seem to come naturally, helps us to reconnect with the joy that

usually precedes it. If we can identify a song, a picture, or a pet as a

happiness trigger, we can use them as tools to recapture joy if we are having

trouble finding it. By focusing our energy on analyzing happiness and all that

it encompasses, we feed, nurture, and attract more of it into our lives,

eventually making a habit of happiness.