We tend to think that happiness is some distant destination that perhaps can be reached some day in the future when things are better in our lives, perhaps when....I get this job....that partner.....this house....that car - we seem so focused on creating happiness in these external things, only to realise that happiness is within and we've been climbing a ladder set against the wrong wall! I call this the ladder to distress......
Happiness to me in being content, comfortable in ones own skin and feeling at peace, not some fleeting moments of external fun, yet we are conditioned to search endlessly outside of ourselves for happiness.
The key is to place the ladder against the wall that leads to your personal freedom, finding your own bliss, following your own truth. I know this because I spend many years with my ladder against the wrong wall trying to get all the things that I was taught would make me happy.
I got the qualifications, the "good" job, "a stable" husband, a nice house and car, a beautiful son, only to find myself a year later a single parent questioning where it all went wrong as I'd done all the things that society had told me that I should do yet I was miserable, had I failed?
Instead of falling to pieces though I looked at my life as it was and made a decision, a decision to look within and follow my own path. I quit my job that would only just cover my sons nursery fees and I decided to spend more time with him and look at what I'd really like to do. What was my passion? what did I enjoy as a child? what was my calling? The answer for me was dance, I'd always wanted to be a fitness instructor but I wasn't "loud" enough, I was "too shy" I was told I wouldn't be able to do it and that I should get a "steady" job. I decided to follow my dream anyway.
I qualified as a fitness instructor and began teaching Zumba which was perfect for me being afraid of public speaking because you simply get up and dance / visual cue so no need to be shouting and screaming or pretending to be some kind of "miss motivator" which I was not! but I could move and I had a passion for dance and I was determined that I could do it whilst still being the gentle and calm me - no masks. The first time I taught, I was petrified, I was shaking like a leaf but at the same time I was filled with a sense of awe and had goosebumps all over my body - I felt like I was where I was meant to be, doing what I was meant to be doing at that stage of my life, I had done it! I'd faced my fear and I was following my bliss.
Continuing on my path to inner peace I decided to become a yoga teacher and have found that since taking these leaps of faith in what I felt at the time were terribly traumatic circumstances I stepped onto a journey of self discovery and personal freedom.
This journey for me will never end, in fact I'm writing this now because I am ready to follow my next calling in life which is helping others. I don't know how or in what way that will be yet but I feel a calling so I'm following it. Life doesn't always turn out the way that you want it to but I believe that as soon as you embrace your circumstances, look within and follow your own bliss instead of what society or others tell you to do that you step into your personal power and authenticity. As the quote says, you are born original don't die a copy.