Absolutely Happy in Seven Days!
Try this for one week to help feel absolutely happy and then let us know how it went by clicking here.
Day One: Joy is Your Natural State
Joy is our natural state yet it can be hard to access just like a beautiful stained glass window covered with dirt. One of the things that blocks us from joy is holding onto past trauma.
Paramhansa Yogananda says “Circumstances are neutral.” Much of our trauma actually comes from our definition of what happened and our response to that. Then we often hold onto a definition of our own selves and feel bad throughout our lives because of it.
As an example, I used to always hang onto a memory of a time when my father played with my brother and sister and not me. When I was three years old I could see them under the door playing the game Operation where you, as the doctor, have to take the bones out of the body without touching anything else and making the buzzer go off.
What I read from that was that my own father did not want to play with me. That interpretation made me feel unworthy, not liked and alienated much of my life. Of course I could have focused on all the happy memories but did not.
A few years ago I called my father, told him of that memory, how it impacted me, and asked him what that was about for him. He took him a few minutes to even remember something that happened so long ago. Then he explained that he always tried to have quality time with each of the kids alone. He felt so bad to see what my response was that he called me everyday for almost two weeks to say “I love you.”
I still get tears in my eyes just writing this because all my life up to that point I blocked a deep amount of love that existed between myself and my father.
Try This: Resolving past trauma is most effective if we go to the root, one of the first things that happened in life that we can remember that causes us pain. Sit quietly with a long spine. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Think of that first memory. What is the meaning you gave it? How has that impacted your life until today?
What other stories can you make up about that incident? How do those stories change your definition of yourself and how you relate to this world? I believe the story and definition that feels the best is the one that is true.
Day Two: Choose to Be Happy Today
Happiness always exists. It is more a matter of if we tap into it or not. Just as above you recreated the story from a traumatic incident, which story do you want to focus on? When you go to the grocery store do you have time to look at everything on the shelves or do you have to make a choice as to what to focus on? Imagine if you had that power with your feelings.
Try This: Today set the intention to be happy. When you notice yourself in a state other than happiness, ask yourself if you would like to continue in that state or feel happiness in that moment. If you choose to continue in that state, then fully feel it out. If you choose to be happy than start to think about one of your best moments in life. If you cannot come up with one, then imagine Mickey Mouse chasing Minnie Mouse through the scene followed by Donald Duck in a pink tutu and Goofy barking along.
Day Three: Let Emotions Flow
I don’t actually think one needs to be happy all the time. It is fine not to. When we stifle or bottle other emotions besides happiness they just corrode our interiors and prevent us even further from happiness. Allowing ourselves to experience the full spectrum of emotions that show up lets them pass through us and be gone. And then follows an even greater happiness.
Try This: Today pretend like there is no judgement about what is a bad emotion to have. Allow yourself the time and space to experience every single one that shows up. Enjoy the emotion as if it is a reminder of the feeling of being alive.
Day Four: Share
They say the channel is blessed by that which flows through it. I have always been determined to spread joy rather than pain to others. I may walk into a room full of people I am about to teach wearing the pain of what just happened in my personal life. Yet they are there to get inspired and that is what I want to give them. When I step into that role all the pain I was feeling quickly disappears. By the end of class, I usually do not even care about what was bothering me beforehand.
Try This: Do at least one kind act for someone else today beyond what you normally offer. Maybe make someone breakfast, call someone and tell them you love them, ask your boss how you can help lighten their load today…
Day Five: Expand
When we expand who we are, we are breaking through limitations and definitions. Recently I was asked to move in a way I have never moved before. How do you get someone who has performed or studied most types of dance around the world, does improvisational free dance, and guides others in authentic movement to move in a way she has never moved before? I had to dance in a way I have judged as dorky. And you know what? It was quite fun! Afterwards I felt a little lighter because I no longer need to be as guarded in who I am and have accepted more as being a part of me.
Try This: Turn on your favorite song. Start by walking around the room and letting your feet lead the motion. Then let your calves lead the motion, knees, thighs, hips and up through the rest of your body. How does it feel to find new spots in your body or new ways to move?
Day Six: Balance
Imagine if every force has an equal and opposite reaction than the amount of happiness that is shown outwardly will match the amount received inwardly. Thus to exude happiness we keep ourselves balanced through taking care of our bodies, doing what we love, and taking time to connect with Source or your beauty within.
What we receive is also within our perception of its greatness. If we love what is happening we feel more fulfilled and thus happier.
Try This: Celebrate everything you do today! When you brush your teeth, celebrate how well you did it and how clean your teeth are. When you make breakfast, celebrate making the best breakfast. When you turn the keys in the ignition in your key, celebrate how smoothly you did it. Before you begin, choose an anchor to repeat each time you celebrate. That anchor can be a simple hand motion like touching two fingers together or a hand on the heart. Something you feel comfortable doing in public. I have noticed the more I celebrate, the more everything feels like a celebration, and the more great things come into my life to be happy about.
Day Seven: Have No Agenda
Remember why the Sabbath was created on Saturday for Jews? There is the belief God made the world in six days and rested on the seventh. When the Jews rest on the Sabbath they use that time to connect with God.
If we look at God as the truth within, or love, light, peace, calmness, energy…, then how can we more clearly get in touch with those aspects? One of them is by living in the moment, not needing life to be a certain way, and not needing anything from life. Not applying definitions from the head as they block our heart from feeling and our intuition from speaking.
Try This: Today look at the time as little as possible. Eat when you feel hungry and sleep when you feel tired and it is dark outside.
After you have completed Day Seven, please let us know briefly how this impacted your life by clicking here so we can better serve you. For maximum results, repeat for 90 days.
To supplement this blog, I created these short videos on how to be absolutely happy each day:
After you have completed Day Seven, please let us know how this impacted your life by clicking here.
