What is happiness??
We all have our own definitions, but since you are reading this post, you get to hear mine!
Happiness is the byproduct of good health, positive self image, and the ability to appreciate what we have.
It arises on its own, can not be tamed or controlled, and is as fickle as a sorority girl on a fall afternoon before a football game.
While happiness is something we all strive for, it seems to be out of grasp for some people. For this reason I am creating this Simple 3 Step Program (plus or minus 18 steps) that will (hopefully) help people cultivate more happiness in their lives.
First let's talk about the opposite of happiness...
Near Antonyms of Happiness
agony, anguish, desolation, joylessness, sorrow, woe, woefulness
blues, cheerlessness, dejection, depression, desolateness, despondency, disheartenment, dispiritedness, doldrums, downheartedness, gloom, gloominess, melancholy, mournfulness, plaintiveness
To put it simply, if you are experiencing one of these emotions you ARE NOT experiencing happiness.
The human creature is simple in this regard. We experience emotions bipolarly, one side being positive and the other slightly less.
Let me give you an example.
Say you have a speaking engagement coming up.
You are sensing the upcoming nature of this event, and in most cases, will respond in one of two ways.
If you are confident about your presentation and eager to share your wisdom, you will most likely experience excitement.
If you are uncertain of yourself and afraid of making a mistake, you will most likely experience nervousness and angst.
This is how we work
Both scenarios are exactly the same...
The ONLY difference is your perceived potential outcome.
If you think the outcome will be positive, you will experience positive emotions.
If you think the outcome will be negative, you will experience negative emotions.
This is key folks!!
When you understand this paradigm, you possess the first key to unlocking Self Love, happiness and joy.
So how do we put it into action
Today I am going to focus on Self Love.
I think it is integral to a happy life and is a great place to start an journey of self-evolution.
Let's translate the concepts we learned into the arena of Self Love.
To begin we will define the opposite of Self Love. This can be stated as self loathing, disgust or a general dislike of oneself. We want to clarify this as the first step in creating an emotion is knowing which ones you want to avoid.
If you are experiencing these it DOES NOT mean you are doing anything wrong, or that you are flawed in some way; but rather, it means you are not doing ENOUGH RIGHT ... yet.
Keep this in mind during your journey. If you are noticing these emotions do your best to let them fade away. Emotions have no more power than we give them. This is a practice (try not to be upset with yourself if you are not perfect) and we will improve over time. This is our secondary focus and can be looked at as a program running in the background of the computer of our mind.
Our main focus will be inducing feelings of Self Love. There are many ways that we can do this that I will elaborate on shortly. I first want to describe how we can use moments of Self Love practice, to induce extended and lasting feelings of Self Love.
Learning To Define Yourself (as you see fit)
We all exist with a somewhat fluid definition of yourself. If you have mastered Self Love it means that you totally accept the person you perceive yourself to be.
If you have not mastered Self Love than you will be experiencing the contrast that arises when you acknowledge something about yourself BUT ** do not accept that aspect fully**.
This unwelcome part of ourselves is described by many as our shadow self and we are going to be working to integrate this into our wholesomeness.
There are many ways to work on integrating the shadow self. I will be describing a singular technique that has worked for me.
Expanding One's Self Love
If our Self Love is quantified by the % of ourselves that we accept and love, we can increase self love by accepting more of ourselves.
Rather than trying to hone in on the particular aspects of ourselves that we struggle to love, I choose a blanket bombing approach that easily covers all bases.
How To Love Yourself
Anytime you express love towards yourself, allow yourself to express yourself truthfully, or do something nice for yourself (and others), you are expressing self love.
The more you do this, the more your Self Love will grow.
Over time you will automatically be confronted with parts of your shadow self (thanks universe for setting things up for us). These instances will be opportunities for you to accept and love yourself a bit more. Don't worry if you have a few at bats where you swing and miss. As long as you have the intention to grow, the universe will provide you with opportunities to do so.
Three Ways To Practice Self Love
Here are three easy ways (in increasing intensity/efficacy) that you can practice Self Love.
The Inner Smile
While in a comfortable position, take a moment to center yourself and focus on the present moment. Once you are ready, visualize a copy of yourself, sitting/standing right in front of you.
Then, imagine your twin SMILING right back at you, beaming love and joy right into your soul. You can do this practice anywhere, anytime for as long as you like.
It works due to a few tricks of neuroscience (hmu in comments for more details), BUT ultimately you are telling your brain that you accept and love, EVERY PART OF YOURSELF.
If you are interested in taking part in our Self Love Challenge (more details to come), each time you practice this will count as (1) Self Love point.
Do It Cuz You Love It
Any time we do something we love, we are practicing Self Love.
Essentially what you are doing is this:
Your true self (the inner child) ALWAYS knows what it really wants to do. When we allow ourselves to express ourselves truthfully, we are (our conscious mind) telling our true selves (the inner child) it's ok to be ourselves, I support you and I love you.
The more joy that you are experiencing is directly related to how in tune with your true desires you are. Don't worry about perfection, this is a practice for a reason, but you can use your feelings of joy as a compass to navigate through life.
Each time you allow yourself to do something simply because you love it, you earn (5) Self Love points.
Do It Because You Deserve It Baby
Another way of practicing Self Love is to give a gift to oneself. Our culture is full of opportunities to give to others, but how often are we incentivized to give to ourselves??
This one is the easiest, and often the hardest. Many people are trained to self-sacrifice for the sake of their family, their friends, their careers and their communities. While acting selflessly is a spectacular trait to have, we also need to act selfishly sometimes.
There are no rules for loving yourself. If you like ice cream, take yourself out on a date. If you like taking bubble baths, schedule a relaxing evening one week.
There are no limits, there are no rules.
For this, we are going to self-assign point values. If you give yourself a small gift, maybe it is worth 5-10 points. If you take yourself on a spa weekend, maybe that is worth 50.
At the end of the day, YOU get to choose how much Self Love each of these activities is worth.
There are MANY ways to Love Yourself
These are some of the ways that I practice Self Love.
If you have other ways to practice Self Love, don't hesitate to share! We can ALL use more tools in our respective Self Love toolbelts.
If you are interested in joining the Steem Self Love Contest (an inclusive event where EVERYONE wins), be sure to stay tuned and/or drop a comment (I will tag you in relevant posts).
I will be finalizing the details over the next few days and will then release a post.
If you are Whale and want to support this initiative, drop a comment or DM me on Discord @ Joozie_beanz #4336
Shout out to 
I would love to get a bunch of people involved and then we can chip in to create some awesome prizes.
As always, much love from ya boi. We are all in this together and the more we can share/support each other, the faster we will all grow.
Stay strong, Stay positive, Stay up.