Basic Steps Towards Happiness

It takes effort to be happy. Basic Steps Towards Happiness is obtained through desire, effort, and overcoming the internal and external forces that create unhappiness. What makes you happy may work one day, but the next… not so much. In knowing the tools to improve your mood can make all the difference in the world to brighten your mood and bring enjoyment to your life.

What Blocks You From Feeling Happiness?

There are some forces that block you from experiencing happiness. The external ones, such as the people that drag you down, or the weather, you have no control over. As much as you believe in the fallacy that if people change, you’ll change is a fantasy. How long have you tried to manipulate others into acting exactly how you want and have had limited to no success? In fact, if you do find some success, its usually for the short term. The sobering fact is that people are people and are in charge of their own lives. This brings you full circle back to you. The person you see looking back at you in the mirror is the only person that can fully impact you.

Making ourselves happy is a full-time job. You are the one making yourself irritated, unhappy, and filled with anxiety. You may want to make-believe that they are upsetting you, but in all actuality, their behaviors are quickly processed in your mind and you are creating the response.

The Key Steps Toward Happiness

So, you are with you. They can’t make you feel happy, it isn’t their job. It is your job to turn that frown upside down and here are some suggestions that can help.

      1. Self-Praise

How often do you acknowledge your own efforts? Wouldn’t it be great if others did so? Well, often they don’t. Instead, treat yourself the way you want them to treat you. Pat yourself on the back. Give yourself a hug. Above all, catch yourself doing something right.

     2. Intentions

Make it your intention to be happy. We convince ourselves all the time that no matter what, the day is going to be miserable. In doing this “we create misery”. Misery may have been a long time traveling companion of yours and has become automatic. How long do you want to stay married to your misery? Create an affirmation by following this format: “MY INTENTION IS __________”. For example: “My intention is to be happy”. Or, “My intention is to enjoy interacting with my mother-in-law”. You decide how you want to be and be that way. Intentions begin the journey towards what you want to have. Avoid using the negative in your intentions. For example, “My intention is not to be sick”. The subconscious mind does not hear the “not” and in this example will focus on sickness. Lastly, we cannot intend for others. For example: “I intend for her to fall madly in love with me”.

     3. Positive Affirmations

Positive affirmations can help. Simply create a statement and repeat it over and over again. A positive affirmation is an “I am” statement and helps you focus on the qualities you want to experience more often in your life. For example: “I am a positive, loving, and happy man.” Repeat the statement 100 times daily for a few months and notice how your thought pattern change about yourself.

In repeating negative affirmations, we lock in our faults. “I am ugly. I am fat. I am unhealthy. I am stupid”, these thoughts will continue to drag you down and create these experiences. Learning how to change your thoughts to what you do want can make a huge impact on your overall happiness.

     4. Processing through Past Difficulties (Baggage)

Our mind is a storehouse of information but mental and emotional. Learning how to process through emotional baggage, or the past traumatic experiences that keep festering underneath the surface is a great road to happiness. Imagine if the traumatic events from your past were gone! Positive thinking is only an emotional exercise. This does have limits. This is the same for exercise. Often people work on the physical experience of anger through exercising but fail to address the underlying hurt at the root of the angry feelings. Our emotions run the show. And when our emotions are on high alert we lack access to our higher brain functioning. To address our emotions here are a few top suggestions:

  – Writing

Writing out your feelings in either free form (just letting the words flow), journaling, or writing a letter to the person that bothered you (including yourself), can release a lot of pent up emotion. Once written, rip it up and/or burn it. This exercise helps you process the emotions out. If you re-read it, you will cement it back into place.

  – Talk things out

In getting things off your chest, it helps move the emotions out. Talk with a person who you feel safe with and will not gossip. Find a therapist. Walk on a trail by yourself and talk out loud. Often, I will do this with a stomp: “How Dare That Person Cut In Front Of Me On The Freeway!”

  – Creative Expression

Dance things out. Write Poetry, music, or even a book. Writing out your life story has incredible emotional benefits.

  – Addressing Your Younger Self

To heal emotionally, love must be applied to the part inside of us that got hurt in the past. Opposite Hand Writing is an excellent method that tops the list. Write out a conversation with the part inside of you that went through difficulty by allowing your opposite hand to represent your younger self and your dominant hand to represent you now. Your older self needs to be loving to your younger self regardless.

Basic Steps Towards Happiness and a Better You!

So many people are angry with themselves for being stupid, doing horrible things, etc., etc. In realizing that given your life experience at the time and how you were feeling physically, mentally, and emotionally at the time, that was the best you could have done. In learning from our past mistakes, we can use them as stepping stones to the incredible person we are today. And this is the key. We learn each time we fail. Life is all about trial and error. Do you want to hold onto a self-imposed label about being a horrible person and continue to make the failures your identity? Perhaps, you can excuse yourself, let it go and march on forward with more insight and more conviction.

Before this article gets turned into another book, ask yourself one question: “Are you willing to let go of the familiar and stretch your comfort zone to be happy”? This is an interesting question because logically you may want happiness, but it may seem so far-fetched if it isn’t your normal. Are you willing to be happy? If so, then intend it, affirm it, play it, communicate with it, and overall apply love to you in the process.

Compassionate Care is Always Available

There are many more tools and strategies you can use in your pursuit of happiness. Here is where we come in. Contact us at Basic Steps Mental Health and let us support and educate you on this journey back to your loving heart center. Imagine living a heart-centered life, regardless of what is happening externally. We’d love to be of help.

For 25 years, Dr. Scott Alpert, the clinical director of Basic Steps Mental Health, has treated over 7,000 people with mental health and addiction problems, using a Psychological approach that mixes and matches ten of the top approaches used in the industry.