Happiness? Who doesn’t want to be happy? Well here are few simple instructions that can serve you as your Personal Happiness Machine, with perpetual batteries included 🙂 Yes, perpetual because you don’t need an external energy source. I don’t blame you for being skeptic, but why not give it a go and check it out for yourself.
Instructions
1) Check the RED ALERT light:
- If it is OFF, then you are OK. Stop reading this and just cherish the moment without wanting to change it at all; even for the better.
- If it is BLINKING it means you are not feeling well and you think you must seek happiness.
- If it is CONSTANTLY ON it means you are not just thinking about it but already actively seeking happiness?
- STOP seeking happiness. That’s the main source of your unhappiness; even if you attain happiness, you’ll soon be unhappy again. It’s a familiar cycle, isn’t it?
2) Press the BREATH button.
3) Now reflect on how you actually feel incomplete and unhappy.
Essentially wonder what is it that you feel is wrong with you and with your current experience. Be curious about why and how you are rejecting yourself and your experience and then seeking happiness somewhere else.
- Ask yourself: “What do I think is wrong with me, how do I feel about it?”
- What is wrong with this moment, right here, right now?
- Don’t just think about it, feel it, sense it in your body.
4) Tell yourself I am OK just the way I am. I’m not perfect but just OK.
- And check how you feel again.
- Who is blaming you, ridiculing you inside? Which part of you is not believing you, and convincing you that you are not OK, that things are not OK? How does it feel and sound?
- That is your Inner Critic, your Inner Judge; tell him/her to go away, get lost. You”l call him/her when you want to, because you are in charge.
5) Go back to step 1.
Supporting Notes:
1- The RED ALERT light could be your feeling sad, rejected, guilty, angry, frustrated, agitated, or simply not being able to relax into the moment, feeling you have to do something, go somewhere; or any other way you feel unhappy.
2- Breath naturally but deeply and consciously, allowing your inhale breath to go down your chest and then fill your belly; followed by a nice, long and relaxing exhale. It’s a bonus if you let it make a loud aahhhh sound.
3- For the self inquiry process, see “Get to know yourself: The ‘Wonder Why Why’ method”
4- For more on the Inner Critic please listen to this talk Freedom from your Inner Critic.
You can also watch this short video by Byron Brown the author of Soul Without Shame:
