How to Be Happy

I found this reflection in one of my journals recently and it still rings true for me so I thought I would share it on my blog…

September 29, 2016

Being Kind and Being Grateful = Being Happy.

As a girl I thought what I needed to be was smart, and pretty, and thin to be happy. As a young woman I thought I needed to attract a man and be loved by him to be happy. Then I thought I needed to be good at my job, effective, efficient, appreciated and admired to be happy. I left the corporate world to be there for my family and I thought I needed to be an awesome mom and fabulous wife to be happy. And I did find much happiness in my effort to be those important things.

But the truest, deepest place in me remained untouched.

Then I started going within and I decided I needed to be quiet, and spiritual, and enlightened to be happy. Finally, as I started teaching and coaching, I thought I needed to be integrated, inspiring, and helpful, a successful writer, and powerful speaker to be happy.

Now, at nearly 48, I have discovered that the deepest place in me isn’t in need of anything. It doesn’t require that I change a single thing about me, that I look a certain way, that I achieve certain things.

The deepest place in me, at this moment, is telling me that I simply need to be kind and to be grateful – nothing more, nothing less – to allow the happiness that has always been inside me to be unleashed and experienced. It comes from the deepest part of me and moves out into the world, not the other way around.

The deepest part of me is whispering. Urgently:

Choose.
Today.
Now.
To be kind.
To be grateful.
To smile.
To open.
Choose.
Now.
And Now.
And Now.

So deceptively simple.

Be kind. Be grateful. Be happy.

What I am is enough.
What I have is enough.
The world is enough.
My life is enough.
What is is enough.

Be kind. Be grateful. Be happy.

It is enough.