“The wound is the place where the light enters you… Darkness is your candle” – Rumi
We’ve all probably read and heard, and maybe felt that sense of isolation and loneliness associated to the month of November—the most depressing month of the year!
Last week, I had clients lamenting the early snow and cold in Montreal and expressed that it’s already making them feel down and depressed.
I totally get it!
So, I’m not going to go there. It did however, make me ponder on the whole phenomenon of the pursuit of happiness.
I’m not an expert on depression and happiness. What I’ll share is from what I’ve learned through my own life experiences. Although we all have our own life lessons as our best teacher, through my mistakes, failures and false beliefs, I have come to understand something about happiness which I think is at the root of all human beings.
I hope that by using it as a mirror to look at your own experiences, it’ll help you to know your own truth.
Happiness is not something to be chased, earned and obtained, it just IS. A state of balance that manifests itself from the aftermath of your life experiences, decisions, choices and actions.
Happiness can’t be seen through a peep hole and reduced to one aspect of life in order to achieve it. It’s meant to be looked at, felt and experienced through the whole of life, allowing it to be flexible to change and grow in different forms.
1. Too often, happiness is wrongly confused with pleasure.
While pleasure keeps us chasing something external in order to find happiness, whether it’s acquiring possessions, appearance, partying, money and so on, it’s the perfect, easiest way out of numbing and avoiding what’s really going on inside.
Unfortunately, “easy” doesn’t quite cut it. Before you know it, you’re right back where you started, stuck in a vicious circle.
Happiness isn’t something tangible you own, preserve and cling to. It is to BE, not to have.
2. Happiness has been misdefined as always being positive.
It’s unrealistic as a human being to go around with a permanent smile on your face, forcefully replacing a negative feeling or emotion with a positive thought.
Negative emotions need to be given full attention. They need to be embraced, felt and deeply understood. It’s in this attention and understanding that real change of the source of those emotions takes place and real self-development occurs to being your true self.
When your whole self comes to life, you set yourself free to living the life you truly want, making the reality of it a little more present every day.
As human beings, we are part of a living movement of nature. There’s a beauty to endings and beginnings, constantly growing, changing and renewing, just like the seasons.
3. Unhappiness is largely due to our mistaken way of viewing solitude.
Human connection is a wonderful thing. Relationships are the most important thing in our daily life. But the moment you stick out your hand, demanding and craving your happiness from another, you already lost it.
True relationship with others begins with the relationship and connection you have with yourself. Solitude is not loneliness, it’s spending time to get to know the only person who will ever truly understand your needs and meet them; YOU!
You may experience moments of “happiness” with others. Usually it’s when they behave, act or treat you in a way that fills your void or pleases you. But everyone has their own inner battles and goes through changes. Sometimes those past moments of pleasure end up taking on a completely different form; one that keeps you clinging to the memory of the way things once were and wanting them to remain static.
You can never experience true relationships with others, if you haven’t experienced it with yourself.
You will always see in the eyes of others a reflection of yourself.
So, if you’re beginning to feel the winter blues, before the days keep getting shorter and the weather colder and you end up hibernating, waiting for it to all be over, so you can be happy, try using this season as an opportunity to see what’s happening inside.
If you can let go of the belief that by following a set of rules or a fixed system that’s based on seeking pleasure, forcing positivity and avoiding solitude, you’ll reach the finish line to happiness, you’ll come to effortlessly understand the art of living in all its forms, and the truth about inner happiness.
It’s not easy. It means diving deep inside your darkness and facing the hard stuff that scare you most. Once you do, you’ll stop being afraid of living!
