Happiness

What does it mean to be truly happy? Our experience of happiness can often vary from moment to moment and day to day. It can even sometimes feel elusive, like we cannot find or keep hold of happiness. Why is this and how can we hold onto happiness?

We can get pleasure and a sense of accomplishment from events such as work promotions and pay rises and material acquisition.  Social activities can also make us feel good, as can eating good food and drinking alcohol.  However the joy, pleasure and sense of accomplishment that we get from achieving these type of goals is often fleeting and short lived.

The reason for this is, that whilst it is good to have enjoyable activities and  work goals to achieve, once we have completed that activity or achieved those goals, then we will be constantly seeking the next goal or the next pleasurable experience.

True happiness is often seen as a state of long lasting deep contentment and wellbeing where life has purpose, is worthwhile and meaningful.

Your purpose in life is to find your purpose and give your whole heart and soul to it

Buddha

This sense of purpose can come when our choices and activities in life are matched with our values and beliefs. This has a name in Sanskrit and is called “Dharma”

Discovering what our own personal Dharma is, and living our Dharma can be a rocky road of self discovery. Because – life happens!  Life can  knock us off course and we loose sight of our values and beliefs. The starting point to finding and then living your Dharma can be to open our hearts to our passions and interests and to rediscover our values and beliefs.

Luckily there are some areas that we can pay attention to that will help us find and live our Dharma and then live a happier and more fulfilled life.

These areas come under the general headings of; our bodies, our minds, our relationships, our emotions and our spirituality and will be looked at one by one in the next few blogs.

Yoga can offer a route to any of these areas that we need to pay attention to. Yoga can help you to identify any of these areas that are missing, or that you need to focus on more in your life. A balanced approach and paying attention to all of these areas in our lives will lead to a sense of increased happiness and wellbeing.