Watching the sunrise over Bangkok’s city skyline I felt it radiating through my body. That elusive feeling which is so precious – happiness.
In spite of the intense traffic which meant I was late for a client meeting, I could feel the warmth rising from the pit of my stomach and spreading across my chest in a golden glow. Things in my life weren’t perfect. There were challenges, but nothing that couldn’t be handled.
When I work with clients there are often patterns in the things they seek.
Love, connection, happiness.
The ambitions they express sound like this:
- I want to find my dream job
- I want to meet my life partner
- I want to be financially stable
- I want to know I’m on the right path
- I want to provide for my loved ones
Love, connection, happiness.
Why do these simple desires often feel impossibly of reach?
A goal is set, a path determined and the steps are diligently taken one by one. Along the way the course is met head on with grim and steely determination. Focus, effort, tenacity, single mindedness. It requires a lot, and everything seems to ride on the result, the end goal that you have pre-determined. Glimpses of happiness shine through momentarily as a minor goal is met. But the inner happiness is fleeting as the outer focus returns.
Strive, drive, eat, sleep – don’t miss a beat
My clients who experience this tell me it’s exhausting. I hear it in their voices, and I remember the total tiredness I used to feel as well, but more than that I remember the flatness that I experienced. Maybe I could even call it dead-ness. A lack of aliveness or spark. A lack of fire burning bright inside.
Going through the motions of life without ever really feeling part of it. A spectator in your own show.
How do you discover the love, connection and happiness you desire?
The answer is counter intuitive. It requires a different approach to life. One where you flow rather than fight with what is. A path where you engage with reality, and what’s actually happening in your life, rather than driving through something different.
It’s not an easy path, and to be honest it doesn’t make life any smoother. Life after all is beautifully messy. What it does do is provide a stability inside that allows you to dance with the difficulties. Ultimately it’s a spiritual path, requiring a trust in yourself and a faith in something bigger than you. This doesn’t need to be religious but can be if you choose.
Accept you can’t hold onto happiness
Like all emotions happiness is designed to flow. It moves through you. It comes and goes. It isn’t a permanent state. The same is true for love and connection. We fall in and we fall out.
But as the client I met that day wisely said:
Whenever you reach a river there will always be a bridge.
I believe the art is simply knowing where to look for it.
