1. Start Within…….
It’s a cliché but honestly, happiness really does come from within. Not from anything external, or from acquiring any material possessions, status, or relationships.
So start WITHIN to find your own happiness. You can begin with prayer, contemplation, listening to peaceful music, finding inner stillness to create balance and harmony in your life.
2. Visualise your day
Early in the morning, first thing, take precious time for yourself – to set up your own day. Take 5 minutes every day to visualise only good things happening in your thoughts and in your actions that day. Every day we create our own world, and thus our true sense of happiness.
3. Be Healthy……
Your body is a temple and your soul is the shrine inside it. Happiness is then the fragrance emanating from within. Use dynamic exercise and healthy nutritional diet to keep the body a beautiful, fit and shining temple, in great working order.
4. Compassion and Kindness……
Practice kindness. Acts of self-giving become more frequent in your day-to-day life’s activities. Karma Yoga is a branch of Yoga which is spirituality in action. Through self-offering your heart widens, the ego diminishes and your sense of oneness expands.
5. Gratitude……
Gratitude is your secret strength. It is one of the most important spiritual qualities to cultivate, to increase your own feeling of lasting happiness. In The Jewels of Happiness Sri Chinmoy gives the following aphorism:
“You want to know
How to express your gratitude?
It is quite easy.
Just smile your soulful smile.
Your soulful smile
Embodies gratitude
In its purest fragrance.”
6. Simplicity……
Simplicity is a secret to bring happiness that comes through having less. Happiness means the simplicity of life. Try to feel that all you have is the simple simplicity of a child, and you will be able to stay happy and make progress faster.
7. Heart, Not Mind…..
Be determined to feel your life’s direction, rather than using the calculating mind to try and plan and change it. Listen to your heart’s wisdom, through the silence and stillness within you. Use your heart to guide you in life. Stop to smell the roses, you will feel happy.
8. Have a Sense of Humour…..
Try not to be so hard on yourself and others, and not to judge with the critical mind. Endeavour to have a light touch in your interactions. We are all characters in a play. Like actors, we all have a role to play and go about our parts in life with a smile in our hearts and a sense of humour. Try to feel detached from so called failures and think of them from a higher view point, until you can laugh at them and learn for the future.
9. Try Meditation…….
One day you may realise that in your search for happiness, you begin asking the big questions in life: Why am I here? What is the meaning of life? What is my Soul’s Purpose or Mission? When you are sincerely willing to try and gain happiness through change and making inner progress, you may discover the art of meditation. By calming and stilling the mind, you find yourself momentarily suspended above and beyond the world of everyday events and mundane thoughts. Create a place of Light and stillness inside your spiritual heart every day – where happiness and true inner joy can grow and expand. Test out meditation for yourself in your own life, and see the happy place it leads you to.
10. Smile!!
Need I say more? Smile at people you love, smile at people you like, smile at people you don’t like, smile at workmates, smile at strangers. Spend your life smiling at others and not only do you personally begin to feel happier, but you are creating a self-giving act that multiplies and expands throughout the universe, of love, peace and understanding. Smile! ☺