Happiness is a choice

I always thought happiness was a state of being. That happiness comprised of moments that brought you joy. Which is why I frequently wondered – in the rare moments that I was sad – why I wasn’t being “given” happiness, why I wasn’t deserving of happiness.

Sidenote – If family, friends and coworkers had to describe me, they’d say: passionate, contagiously enthusiastic, energetic, dedicated, fun, outgoing, theatrical, and other good stuff. I’m not a sad person on the regular but I do have my moments of sadness, and when they hit, they hit hard. Hard to the point where I can legitimately question where the F is my “owed” happiness because “good people deserve happiness,” right?

I returned to hot yoga this January and my yogis ends every class with a passage. The first piece she ever read still resonates with me and it has majorly changed my feelings and perspective on happiness.

Happiness is a choice.

What?! It is?! That means any time I want to be happy, I can simply just be happy? This sounded too good to be true. But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to try it out. So during moments that I felt sad or upset, I started to reframe the situation to see a silver lining. More importantly, I began to change my perspective and started to view life as a collection of moments not one long moment. We are allowed sad moments, and happy ones, and tearful ones and ecstatic ones. But what makes all of these moments – even the ones that don’t seem so great – turn into happy ones, is that they all teach us something, they all add to our experience in this thing called “life.”

Reframe.

A heartbreak becomes an experience – one that taught us about ourselves and one that gave us many great moments to cherish.

An overlooked promotion becomes a motivating lesson – one that teaches us to ‘up our game’ and re-evaluate our skills to better fit the profession.

Everything becomes an experience once our mind is allowed to lead us. Therefore, happiness is a state of mind. We can choose to be happy – and grateful – whenever we want. I can be happy right now that I finished another post, rather than simply shutting down my computer, I can choose to take a moment to appreciate what I’ve accomplished and be happy. Taking this moment helps me practice my happiness.

This gives us more control over our emotions and our mental well being. And sometimes reframing the situation means asking someone for answers to questions that will give us closure and help us better reframe the experience. Of course, there are instances of devastating grief, such as the loss of a loved one, being let go at your dream job, infidelity, etc. And while it’s easy to say that as time passes we can learn to reframe these experiences, and learn to enjoy the good experiences they brought and the lessons they taught, grief is grief and I believe it’s owed its time.

I’m an ‘express-er’ of emotions and bottling any such grief would be detrimental to my well being. So while my heart feels these emotions, I let my mind take control and begin a process of gratitude where it processes my situation into an experience or lesson and creates space for me to be happy.

Reposted on this final madder and shade site in 2018