Weekly Journal
Transformatio #16
23 April 2021
We do things because we want to be happy. We go to school, take a higher grade, find a good job, build own business, have a spouse, have friends, building a family and on and on, all of it are just to have a happiness in our life. What is happiness? The world happiness index report said that people who ranked themselves as happy people experienced a balance life, laugh a lot and didn’t experience much sadness and despair. If that’s the case, what can we do to experience more balance life, laugh a lot and don’t feel sadness and despair?
It seems just natural that we started from fulfilling our basic needs because it’s pre-requirement to survive before we talk about happiness. How can we feel happy if we are hungry, have no clothes and have a no roof to protect us from rain? So, we climbed the ladder of Maslow hierarchy of needs because we believe that on the tip of the hierarchy there is an ultimate happiness. Apparently, incapability to fulfil the basic needs from the lower ladder to the higher ladder related to unhappiness.
In world happiness index city list, it’s shown that people who were living in war or conflict were at the lower, if not the bottom, of the list. Their unhappiness could be from the fact that they barely fulfilled their physical needs, they didn’t have enough food to eat, no proper homes or shelter to live in, let alone their needs to fulfill their psychological needs of security and esteem for they life was in constant fear and unsettled feelings.
Yet, life has full of paradoxes, people who have fulfilled their needs to the top of the ladder could also experience deep unhappiness and unbearable sorrow, to the point they just ended their lives. Namely Robin William, Marilyn Monroe and many others which you could goggle it and would find quite long list.
Happiness is like a myth that required whole human history to crack it. While people who were living in recent generations were much happier than people who were living in in ancient years. Because civilization did create the basis for much happier life simply because people are safer and wealthier compare to uncivilized era. Yet, the sad truth is many people these days are still in deep sorrow and unhappiness amidst their abundance material possession and high achievements. In modern days, depression has became a number one disease and it’s is a true sign of unhappy life.
“I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.”
Jim Carrey
The question is where the happiness actually lies? If the lack of needs fulfilments could create unhappiness BUT the fulfilment of the needs couldn’t make people automatically happy. What actually made people have a happy feeling for a basis of happy life?
Speaking about happiness is speaking about “Being”, not “Having”. Having couldn’t fulfill our deep desire to have a settled feeling and peace of mind in our life. In fact, the more we have, the more we could experience fear of losing or simply a feeling it wouldn’t be enough. While Being is a state of happiness regardless of what you have.
In neuro-semantics we have a way to help people access their whole being called meta stating self. Meta stating self will help us to experience our being with the acceptance, appreciation and awe to our own self.
While we may hear it often enough, but sometimes it could sound like just another cliché. Nevertheless, from so many studies about happiness, from spiritual path to logical path, it is known that the capability to be happy with ourselves is the only gate to open our happiness in life. Without our capability to accept, appreciate and feel an awe with ourselves, we will be stuck in a despair feeling.
Then, how we can we meta-stating our self? Here are some steps of realization that help me build my state of happiness:
1. Acceptance: Live more with our experienced self rather than our narrative self. Whatever story we tell about ourselves and what we remember about ourself might not represent the exact situation we experience now. So, acceptance means, we experience life as it is . Not good or bad. Just the way it is. Being here and now means we use our senses to see, hear and feel what happening without any judgement. Rain is neither good nor bad. Rain is just rain. Once we could accept life as it, we could let it go. Because, while we can’t control what happened outside, but we can control what we think, feel, speak and behave inside. But to able to control what inside you just need to need to be aware what is inside and accept it as it is. Interestingly any feeling and emotion that we have accepted it will be dissolved by itself.
2. Appreciation: Our pains were made for us. Not to us. It is not strange if all world giants had tremendous stories of pain that they had to go through, like , Oprah Winfrey, Anthony Robbin, Nelson Mandela and so on. Even all of prophet stories told us about the pains they need to bear. Prophet Muhammad lose his parents when he was kid. Prophet Noah invited his people to follow him to worship God for more than 900 years and only few followed him, even his family refused to follow him. Their pains actually build them to be able to achieve their life purpose, so do yours. some of your pians is to prepare you to live your life purpose. So, connect with your pains and you would be able to appreciate your life experience and outgrow your pain.
3. Awe: We tended to wait for big things and big achievements to feel an awe. But there were many things around us that could make us feel an awe. Beautiful sunrise, the warmth of the sunset, the laugh of the little kids, the blue sky, the blooming flowers and many other things happened around us could give us a sense of awe. Now, see the blue sky and say, “God is great!”. Feel an awe in your senses.
So, to be happy, you don’t need to pursuing it. You just need to able to accept things in your life as it is, be the witness of your life not the judger. Be appreciative with all hurdles and hardship which came along for it will prepare you for something big in your life. Then, see, hear and feel the greatness in your life from any little moments happening here and there. Happiness is not about climb to the top ladder of the hierarchy of the needs, but it is about experiencing every step of your life by acceptance, appreciation and feel an awe about the journey of your life.
Vibra Bihara
HR Leader, Mindful Leadership Coach, ACMC and certified NLP Neurosemantic Trainer