Happiness: A Difficult Choice (Part Two)

Happiness: A Difficult Choice (Part Two)

It all about alignment.

We now know what the problem is, what happiness is and now we must go about achieving, attaining, experiencing happiness.

One of my favourite sayings, by philosopher Chardin, “We are spiritual beings having human experience”, gets to the heart of the matter. As earlier mentioned we are spiritual beings yet we exist in a material reality. Both realities must be taken into account. To go through life as a so-called spiritualist without taking into account the reality us would cause much distress both to ourselves and loved. To be solely and exclusively absorbed in our material reality we leave us feeling empty and unfulfilled.

Now what?

In order to strike this balance we must, believe it or not, begin on the spiritual level.

I tell my coaching clients, (http://www.coachgray.net/), to do two things:

1) Know yourself
2) Do something about it

Know Your True Self

Twice a day, once in the morning before they get out of bed and in the evening before they close their eyes for the final, to take stock of themselves. This means to ask oneself what do you truly want in your life. Are you in the right career? Is your personal life the life you want it to be? What do you want to change, regardless of whether or not you think it is possible?

This is not merely to ask ourselves these questions, become discouraged and then slip into depression. That is the negative side of this practice. The proactive aspect is to mentally create the life, career, relationship we want right there in bed, in our mind’s eye. This is what it is to recognize, acknowledge and allow our true spiritual nature to be validated. Remember, the soul, if it weren’t for the body of matter, would be free. Think in those terms. If you were uninhibited by financial, societal or other restraint what would your life be like? That is what it means to begin to give voice to our spiritual nature.

This should be done, ideally, twice a day, certainly no less than every morning. Engaging in this practice for five minutes each morning creates a powerful driving force over time.

Now let’s tackle our material reality.

Do Something About It!

We want to experience happiness, which can only truly be achieved when there is spiritual validation, yet our material reality is in upheaval. Bills are piling up, the car has broken down, and our spouse wants a divorce. How, in this situation, can we possibly experience happiness?

The book “In Search of Meaning”, by renowned psychologist Victor Frankl, is one I highly recommend. A Nazi death camp survivor, Victor Frankl describes how he was able to find a level of serenity and freedom that even the guards did not possess. He describes that he did not of course “find” this level of personal freedom in the camps. He was able to come to the realization that the freedom, serenity and joy he wanted he brought to the camps with him! I do no justice to his book, in my description, but I figure that if he is able to experience, “serenity, freedom and joy”, in the situation into which he was cast, then we should certainly be able to do so in our lives.

While we must deal the bills, the car and our wayward spouse, the key is to also do something about making your spiritual reality your material reality. This is not new information and because it is not new, or the latest in popular psychology, we do not take this to heart. Simply developing these two practices into a habit will profoundly change our lives and increase our experience of happiness.

There are never enough hours in a day, we know that, but whatever action you can take to align your spiritual reality with your material reality, no matter how small, will enable you to experience happiness. This the very definition of happiness; when there is an alignment between our spiritual selves and our material reality. More than an alignment there is a seamless connection between, our material reality is the manifestation of our spiritual selves.

Why Courage?

Yes, it takes courage to choose happiness. It takes courage to follow your heart. It takes courage to stand up for yourself and who you are. It takes courage to live your life as you see fit. It takes courage throw off the shackles that are that society, religion, family and friends would have us wear. This courage is only possible when we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, who we are on a spiritual level. The power and subsequent courage obtain with self-knowledge enables us to align our spiritual self with our material reality.

The choice of happiness is a difficult choice but it is yours to make and yours alone; choose well.

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