Happiness and any other word that you can’t put into a wheelbarrow are internal experiences and not outside events.

 

 

Yes, there may be an outside catalyst that has you experience happiness on the inside but that happiness is always there ready to be experienced regardless of outside circumstances.

 

This is a notice for all of us to discard any notion we may have that takes this form: When ____________ happens, then I’ll be happy. That practice will always keep you looking outward and waiting, rather than experiencing.

 

We go on endless searches for water when we, in fact, own a reservoir.

 

The alternative is also true. We also have a holding tank for unhappiness.

 

I read a story recently from best selling author Elizabeth Berg who was reflecting on her earlier life and former marriage. She discovered something eye opening when she realized this: “What I wanted to say to my ex-husband was ‘For so long, I blamed everything around me for problems that were in me.’”

 

What we can learn from her discovery is that we generate happiness or unhappiness from within. Spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle notes that when we are feeling unhappy it’s best to describe our situation as having unhappiness within us rather than making it a solid event by declaring, “I’m unhappy.”

 

When we discover something is within us, we have the opportunity to notice that we are the sole generator of our feelings and our endless search for outside causes can come to an end. This gives us only one area to concentrate on - inside. We can feel our happiness for as long as it stays, and we can also notice our unhappiness and insure its visit will be shorter by realizing that we generate it.

 

Put your scapegoats out to pasture and spend some time in quiet reflection and you’ll stop blaming the things around you that are in you. This practice may not make you happy but it'll keep you from searching in all the wrong places.

 

All the best,

John