We can learn to cultivate happiness. For most of us, happiness isn’t something that happens to us or comes naturally. It’s something that we must make effort toward. Our state of happiness can be improved by first noticing any habitual patterns that contribute to a state of unhappiness—such as negative thinking, comparing ourselves unfavorably to others, ruminating on regrets or worries, etc., and then redirecting our thoughts to ones that nurture positive emotional states.
When we practice mindfulness and meditation, we become skillful at recognizing where our attention lies, and we become more able to redirect it to wholesome thoughts.
We can cultivate happiness by engaging throughout the day in experiences that generate positive emotion, practicing inclining our minds toward optimistic thinking, trying to see the good in people and situations, practicing gratitude, and practicing compassion toward ourselves and others.
As we make effort toward feeling happier, we want to also make effort toward learning how to respond in healthy ways to difficult thoughts and feelings. Simply turning away from or trying to escape difficulty and replacing it with happy thoughts is not a healthy or effective strategy. We want to learn how to allow the feelings and thoughts that are difficult, investigate them and try to understand their origin and our needs, let them go, and then refocus our attention on what supports wellbeing.
It’s not the difficult thoughts and feelings that cause us stress. It’s the things we do to try to escape them. Or the tendency to ruminate on them. As much as we need to learn how to allow the difficult feelings and thoughts, we also need to learn when and how to let them go and then rebalance ourselves by cultivating more wholesome mental and emotional states.
What habits contribute to your state of unhappiness? What small step are you willing to take today to cultivate more happiness?
Don’t wait around for other people to be happy for you. Any happiness you get you’ve got to make yourself. —Alice Walker
To learn more about mindfulness and meditation, register for Jen’s online mindfulness course.