I’ve always cringed when someone asked me, ‘Are you happy?’ I would most likely reply with a smile ‘Yes! I’m happy!’… in-part trying to believe it myself, but also to portray the ‘image’ of someone who ‘had it going on’.
I often wondered why I cringed. Was it because I felt the expectation on me that I should be happy? Yes – definitely. But there was more. There was something about this ‘happy’ that didn’t sit well with me. It was as though I, and many others, placed so much emphasis on attaining happiness that it became our sole purpose in life… so we went about looking for it outside of ourselves in whatever way we thought we could get it.
Happiness felt elusive, unattainable – something just out of arm’s reach.
I felt that I was failing at life if I wasn’t ‘happy’. I chased it – and sometimes I felt it – but I could never hang onto it. It would be there for a moment, sometimes for consecutive moments, sometimes for intermittent moments that spread out over a week or two. But it was neither solid nor constant and when it was time to be on my own, I felt flat, bored, empty – anything but happy.
So how and where could I get this ‘happy’ that everyone was talking about? How could I make it permanent?
I had many ideas of where to find this happiness: a career, lots of friends, frequenting the latest bars, cafes and restaurants, being fit, healthy and active, having the latest clothes, being immaculately put together, having the perfect partner, being the perfect daughter, sister, friend, mother, owning a beautiful home… the list goes on. Yet even when I had all of that going on, happiness was not a constant in my life.
In truth, underneath it all, I felt desperately empty. I often wondered what was wrong with me and what I needed to do to fix myself.
About 4 or 5 years ago, a friend of mine I was seeing for support with women’s health mentioned she had started offering Esoteric Healing sessions. She asked if I would be open to having a session with her. I had heard of Esoteric Healing before and had previously had a couple of sessions with another practitioner. I knew immediately that it felt right for me. What I felt in my first session with her was exactly the same as what I had experienced with the other practitioner some years earlier. There were no bells or whistles, just a gentle loveliness… something full and real. My body rested deeply, it was like I had fallen asleep, but I was still very much there.
I liked what was being presented to me so I continued to have sessions. Each session offered me an opportunity to look at how I was living and how I was supporting myself. I was able to feel more of myself and also able to feel the ideals and beliefs I had taken on that weren’t really true to me – i.e. what success looked like (you can bet happiness was part of that picture!), what it was to be a good mother (think the self-sacrificial type that puts her child’s needs above her own), what it was to be a woman… again the list goes on.
With the support of the esoteric modalities over the years I’ve made gradual changes to the way I live and, most importantly, to how I am with myself. I treat myself with respect and care. I listen to my body and its signals. I take time to connect with myself each day. I’m open to what I feel (the good, the bad, the ugly). I love being with me.
I walk down the street feeling the gorgeousness of myself and I live knowing who I am and I aim to stay connected to that at all times. I feel full. I rarely feel that empty feeling that used to plague me – and, if I do, I know that it is because I have disconnected and all I need to do is be honest about where I’m at and reconnect.
So, there I was, feeling pretty awesome and someone asked me ‘Are you happy?’ Lo & behold – I cringed!
The immediate response was, ‘No’… and then, I reacted inside myself.
‘What? Am I still not happy? Of course I am. I feel amazing! How can I not be happy after all of this time! All of these changes! I don’t feel empty… surely I must be happy?!!’ .
And then it occurred to me.
Is happiness really it? Is it possible that we are asking the wrong question?
I knew that the solidness I felt in me was real. I knew that I didn’t feel like I was lacking anything or needing to fill myself. I knew that what I felt in me was something far grander than anything I had tried to attain outside of myself.
What I was able to then feel was that ‘happiness’ is as I had always felt it to be – it is but a fleeting moment. It comes and goes; it is something that we can’t hang on to. Like any other emotion, it is not solid. It is often attached to an event or a hype of some kind.
It feels good in the moment and then it subsides after the fact.
But JOY on the other hand – this I feel.
Joy needs nothing to evoke it. It lives inside of me.
It is there when I am sleeping and it is there when I wake. It is solid and it is constant. It feels confirming of who I am – and I don’t need to do anything except connect to me and be with me to feel it. It is so much more robust than happiness. It fills my body with warmth and when I am connected to it I feel play-full – like I want to express all of me to the world.
Yes indeed, joy feels to me to be where it’s at!
So then – am I happy? No – not always.
But am I joyful? Very much so.
With deep appreciation to Sara Harris, Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for presenting a way of life that is so simple – yet so grand.
By Brooke Taylor, RTO Academy General Manager, Elwood, Australia
Further Reading:
The Difference Between Happiness and Joy
Sacred Esoteric Healing As A Way Of Life
Hello, is it me I’m looking for…?
762 Comments
It is amazing what words we use… And how these words are so revealing… Take one of my favourites… Bliss… 🙂
“Are you happy?” The question arises “With what?” Happiness is much less than joy.
Happiness is often an elation from a more mundane moment, yet joy can be experienced in the mundane, in the ordinary parts of life. I was listening to a presentation the other day about how settled we feel, now this was interesting- do we feel content with ourselves or are we constantly seeking stimulation and distraction. This gave me a lot to reflect on.
Happiness feels temporary, transient and small compared to joy. Joy on the other hand feels expansive, steady, consistent and deep. I agree that joy isn’t loud and brash in its expression: there is a quiet gentleness, and a stillness, to joy.
I must admit I don’t wake up in the morning feeling completely joy-full but when I reflect on how my life was ten years ago, I was mostly miserable and I’m certainly not that now. I do feel sad from time to time and I feel a little low on occasions, but a lot of the time I feel a calm stillness that feels good inside. I am being more of me, no longer playing any roles, and that feels so much more natural than how I was before.
Happiness is something like a drug that has to be peddled by the local dealer who is just getting us into a nothing state. So like a drug you “chased it – and sometimes I felt it – but I could never hang onto it. Happi-ness seems to be the opposite to joy, which comes from our Livingness and can always be held onto with no rollercoaster ride.
It’s a beautiful description of the difference between happiness and joy, and how we chase pictures of what happiness is, but when we get there it turns out to be temporary if not completely elusive. All along we have joy within ourselves and it’s just waiting for us to reconnect to it. I liked the bit about joy being there even as we sleep, it’s part of our soul and needs no outer events to produce it.
Once the feeling of joy is experienced we realise that to attain happiness requires such an effort to firstly achieve and then to maintain, in contrast to joy that effortlessly emanates from the loving connection felt from within or with others, the universe and God. The beautiful thing is that we naturally feel joy whenever we are connected to ourselves, and the potential of that is offered in every moment.
“I live knowing who I am and I aim to stay connected to that at all times.” If you’re not connected and living from your innermost truth you will find yourself looking outside of your self and when that is the case “all I need to do is be honest about where I’m at and reconnect.”
Yes, no mention of happiness is needed.
It makes sense that we seek happiness, because in happiness we can still have sadness. Sadness unhealed buried inside that is. Sadness and happiness are the same energy. Joy on the other hand has not an ounce of sadness in it. Hence if we have not dealt with or are not willing to deal with our sadness we cannot feel true joy.
Great observation Joshua. As soon as we recognise sadness to be a reaction to a feeling, a state that is offered to us and we take on, the sooner we can step back and see things for how they truly are; we understand the outplay and no longer feel a victim but empower ourselves to deal with life situations
I find it interesting that 7 billion of us are pursuing happiness when it is clearly a temporary thing and when the option to instead have the permanence of joy has always been with us as brought to us throughout the ages by the many messengers. As Serge Benhayon shares, once you have experienced joy you will never want happiness again. I can personally vouch for the truth of this.
Often we can go from one moment to the next seeking the next ‘happy’ point and often these events are when something different to our every day experiences happens, like going on a holiday, going out for dinner etc. I find that in my life now, there is much joy in the every day things I do.
“So, there I was, feeling pretty awesome and someone asked me ‘Are you happy?’ Lo & behold – I cringed!” I so know this feeling. When people ask me if I am happy it is like I have to prove I am happy, like they don’t feel the amazingness I feel in my body and I have to show it. This comes from the way we see life collectively as a society where happiness is something that is expressed enthusiastically and loudly which is so different from joy that can be expressed in so many ways, but never is there that drive or push, so we often don’t understand someone really gentle and quiet can be very joyful.
I have experienced this too and agree with you Lieke – happy is like having to prove something to others.
Attending a public event about a year ago and quietly appreciating the inner warmth being felt from being deeply re-connected to the innermost stillness and filled with joy from feeling a connection with other people in the room (without a word being spoken). Out of the blue an inebriated stranger staggered up to me and blurted out ‘are you happy?’
I was amazed to feel the effect of the word in a very different way from the extreme highs (distractions and external excitement) and lows (cold, hollow emptiness) that ‘happy’ used to mean to me. My whole body felt contracted as if recoiling from a bucket of ice cold water being thrown over me. My body showed me very clearly – an instant knowing and awareness of the energetic effect of words upon our system.
It is like the whole of humanity has been sold something that at its core is simply not true and yet it has been promulgated for so long that it has become a part of our lives. Humanity needs to understand the redefinition that is there being offered.
Yes I agree and what better way to understand the true meanings of words than the incomparable Unimedpedia. This is its take on Joy – http://www.unimedliving.com/unimedpedia/word-index/unimedpedia-joy.html
I just read the meaning of joy and the the recordings made by Serge, it becomes obvious that we have been sold a lie, searching for something that is just an emotion, here today gone tomorrow. When joy is something that is innately divine living within everyone of us, a confirmation that developed our trust and does away with self doubt.