The Key to Happiness

Does it actually exist the key to a life in happiness and fulfillment? Can joy be at the base of my experience? Why are pain and heaviness so prevalent in our lives, even though everybody in essence wants nothing else but happiness?

Joy, bliss and fulfillment are expressions of your true nature, your unlimited being that you are at your core. There is not a single moment in your life in which they are not available for you. Still we do not experience fulfillment at each moment. Why?

Because we have developed thoughts and beliefs about ourselves that are born out of fear, scarcity and limitedness instead of the truth of our being. Fear is nothing but an emotion – but if we give it more significance than it truly has, it can dominate our reality.

At each moment we see and experience life either through the veil of fear or in the light of love and awareness. Or put differently: We experience each moment either through the lense of limitation and imperfection or through the lense of fulfillment.

Whenever I feel unhappy, I experience immense relief in reminding myself that from my soul´s perspective no such thing as an unhappy feeling exists. No separation between good and bad, desired and undesired feelings exists unless I take ownership of my experience as part of my personal story. Sadness, anger, also fear are part of the human experience and do require nothing else than to be felt, welcomed and expressed as the messengers they truly are. It´s our way of denying and suppressing our feelings and attributing meanings to them that they don´t have which turns them into issues. And the more we hold on to these meanings, the more we are tied to them and the harder it is for us to let them go once felt and experienced.

However, the more you are in alignment with your source, the less you will feel inclined to judge and label your emotions and give them meanings that they don´t have. You will realize that every painful emotion only ever comes from the past – from situations in which you didn´t have the conscious awareness yet to see your emotions for what they truly are and shut down from feeling and experiencing them. And you realize that all the pain needs from you now is to be honoured and welcomed by your presence, love and undivided attention. This is all that is required for a deep shift to occur within your being, from the pain and suffering of stuck, suppressed emotions to the infinite joy of pure love and acceptance.

Our first reflex with every intense emotion we encounter is to blame other people and circumstances for what we feel. In a flash, our mind constructs a victim story to tell ourselves why what we feel right now only depends on factors outside of us and not from our internal state of being. Analysis and judgement gets between us and our experience and as long as we hold on to our victim consciousness we cannot really feel our feelings and then let go of them. We have to keep them as prisoners within us in order to show to ourselves and to the world how much we suffer. There is something we get from this behavior and that is why we often have a hard time to allow for the joy and the love that we truly are deep inside. What we get out of it is to feel justified in our suffering. Often, we also win the pity and regret of other people, thus attention, albeit negative attention. We feel fortified in our victim identity and even though this identity is built on suffering, it gives us a sense of belonging and security. Renouncing it triggers fear – fear that need to be recognized and felt as fear in order to be allowed the space to dissolve.

The most essential key to happiness is willingness: willingness to allow for the happiness you truly are at your core. Willingness to feel whatever you feel without losing yourself in thoughts about your feelings. And the willingness to let go of suffering.

As paradox as it may sound, for many of us it is the final point that we have most difficulties with, as we are particularly attached to our painful experiences. In each and everyone of us there is a part that feels non-understood and not good enough and that loves to call attention through drama, conflict and terror. The less we acknowledge this part of us, the more it controls us. The more we try to fight and suppress it, the more power it has over us.

So, what to do? Accept this part of you and be very consciously aware of it. At each time heavy anger or fear, deep sorrow, sadness, resentment or irritation seizes you, simply let these energies be there and move through you like a raging river. Your first reflex will be to immediately turn back this accumulated pain to your surroundings, in the form of judgment, attacks, maybe even physical violence. But your pain is not rooted outside of yourself and every attempt to locate it there will only increase it within you. The root of your pain lies within you – in the meanings and judgments you have labeled your own feelings and experiences in the past. Each time they arise inside of you, you are being invited to let them go and to transform them in peace. How? Through the simple power of your presence and love. Simply be there, feel, feel fully whatever there is and as soon as you are back into peace and inner balance, become aware of the shift, the true shift, you´ve just experienced. You have become aware of the complete and utter illusion that suffering really is by doing nothing else than opening your heart to your feelings and allowing love and divine presence to flow through you. Each key that opens your heart to love and compassion is a key to ultimate happiness.