To me happiness is something that you can bring to yourself every day by showing up and taking action each time you feel something isn't sitting right with you. It took me quite some time to understand this, but I believe it all depends on how you show up for yourself.
Have you ever wondered if you could practice something to increase your happiness? Or do you feel it's mainly depending on your location, the weather, the people or other external circumstances?
A couple of days ago I've received some feedback from my followers who shared that their location did have an influence on their happiness. This made me wonder: is it necessary to change your location to improve your happiness or do you accept you're not completely happy with the location you're at?
And what happens when you get married and have kids? What about the happiness of your partner and your kids?
My husband is French, I'm Dutch, he grew up in the Mediterranean and I grew up in a small village far away from the sea. We definitely have completely different backgrounds in terms of family and work experience, but somehow we managed to align our happiness as a couple.
That was quite the journey in itself, but it got even trickier when we became parents...
All of a sudden you need to know what you can do to help your child feel happy instead of just taking care of your own happiness!
The responsibility of this wonderful little girl, who is still too small to really express what she wants and needs, is a whole different practice for us as a couple. This truly is one of the most challenging tasks I've had to take on in my life to be honest...
Happiness is something you feel inside of you, but it's also something you can notice on the outside. You can see someone glow and radiate when they're happy, so you can definitely also notice happiness in someone else. Most of the time I'm trying to focus on how my daughter looks and feels, but it sure isn't an easy task to figure out what works and what doesn't work for her. It can get stressful and I for sure have felt a lot of anxiety while she went through health issues, but over time I've learnt how to calm myself down.
So what is it that makes it more difficult to feel complete happiness when you see your child is not happy? Is there something you can do? Or do you just let it go and accept she's not happy all the time?
I believe for me personally it's been a journey to understand it's OK to feel miserable at times, it's OK to feel sad sometimes and it's for sure OK to not know how you feel as well. Happiness is just something you can choose more often when you're aware of what you think and do, which is only something you'll learn over time. So my worries and stress about my child struggling at times are completely chosen and is something I've had to learn to let go.
Is this easy? NOT AT ALL! But as I've come to understand with most of the things in my life; it gets easier when you start to trust that each and everyone of us has a life purpose and knows what's best for them. We all have the ability to really show up for ourselves and to really focus on what's best for us, even small kids have this instinct, so that's how I've started to make it a bit more accepted for myself.
I've learnt to trust that inner guidance we all have and slowly start to embrace the journey that life is for me...
What about you?
I'd love to read and hear what happiness means to you and how you manage it in your life! Please send me a message or leave a comment so we can all learn from each other's challenges in life.