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Everyday Livingness
Relationships, Self-Relationship 752 Comments on The Illusion of Happiness – Finding the Joy Within

The Illusion of Happiness – Finding the Joy Within

By Brooke Taylor · On July 31, 2015

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…?

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Brooke Taylor

Living in Melbourne with my son. By day an RTO Academy Manager, by night a mother. Somewhere in between completing my counselling studies and volunteering on projects. Esoteric practitioner. Personal Trainer. Always a woman. Dress lover. Classy. Social Media queen. Jokester (I crack myself up). Love to connect with people and explore the great outdoors.

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752 Comments

  • Mary says: January 16, 2020 at 5:35 pm

    Happiness means many things to many people we all have our own versions of it. Whereas for me Joy comes from a one unified truth it is an expansion of space that can be felt by everyone and the sense of being held in that space is so yummy it fills our hearts with joy which is not a heightened experience but a feeling of completeness.

    Reply
  • Mary says: January 16, 2020 at 5:30 pm

    This is the illusion we all fall for
    ‘So how and where could I get this ‘happy’ that everyone was talking about? How could I make it permanent?’
    Happiness is like a carrot at the end of the stick we chase the carrot without the understanding that while we are concentrating on it we have left ourselves. And that’s the whole point to get us to be so distracted we forget that everything we have ever wanted is within us.

    Reply
  • Greg Barnes says: December 29, 2019 at 9:58 am

    Aligning to our Soul, Inner-most-heart / Essence brings a Joy-full-ness that is deeply Stilling and eventually brings an understanding of what True appreciation brings to our life because we have focused on our evolution Joy becomes normal and is nothing like being happy.

    Reply
  • Amparo Lorente Cháfer says: October 26, 2019 at 3:46 pm

    When there is joy, there’s no need to demonstrate it with a smile, as although it obviously can be expressed physically, it’s much more than that. It’s not what we do, but how we live what allows us to feel its deep settlement and lightness in our life.

    Reply
  • Annoymous says: April 12, 2019 at 5:31 am

    Yes what an awesome blog. Happiness is aways a pursuit whist joy – well, joy just is.

    Reply
  • Mary Adler says: February 20, 2019 at 4:06 pm

    ” I love being with me.” The joy you feel in being with you inspires others to reconnect to who they are and feel the joy.

    Reply
  • Caroline Francis says: February 7, 2019 at 4:54 pm

    Joy lies within always – it doesn’t go away and when I meet another it can take me by surprise as the joy is expanded out into the universe.

    Reply
  • Lorraine Wellman says: December 25, 2018 at 4:41 pm

    How we live and how we move has a big impact on how we are, ‘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.’

    Reply
  • Mary Adler says: December 20, 2018 at 4:13 pm

    Happiness is transitory with highs followed by lows, whereas joy does not fluctuate but is a steady flow of celebrating and feeling who you are on the inside, which is there to be shared with others.

    Reply
    • Greg Barnes says: December 29, 2019 at 10:20 am

      Absolutely Mary, Joy abounds and is deeply stilling in that it becomes our normal way of existence, so much so that we then also understand how appreciation truly works.

      Reply
  • Lorraine says: November 10, 2018 at 6:26 pm

    It is always important to feel and nominate what we are feeling, we then with this awareness have the choice to change this by how we are living.

    Reply
  • Liane Mandalis says: November 9, 2018 at 10:16 am

    Happiness is an ideal. Joy is the real deal that comes with living in connection with our Soul and as such cannot be sold, strived for or attained; it can only be lived. Thus the chase for happiness is a game we set up that keeps us in a forever seeking quest that serves to delay that which truly evolves us.

    Reply
    • Greg Barnes says: December 29, 2019 at 10:27 am

      Absoulutely Liane, Joy brings a forever-deepening appreciation of our Soul-full-ness, which is to truly understand Appreciate-ive-ness.

      Reply
  • Ingrid Ward says: November 7, 2018 at 6:06 pm

    If you were to ask a few people what happiness meant to them they would all probably give you a different answer. In fact, they would probably give you a different answer each day depending on what they were hoping for that day. This definitely used to be me, that was until I came to understand true joy, something felt in and through every particle of my body, a constant which is dependent only on me and never from anything outside of me or from anyone else.

    Reply
  • Samantha Davidson says: November 6, 2018 at 4:36 am

    I would say we fool ourselves, and have ourselves falling into disappointment regularly when we seek to be happy, or wait for the next thing to bring us happiness. Being settled in ourselves and connecting with our inner heart, who we are in essence, brings joy and a foundation that cannot be rocked….happiness is seeking moment, joy is a steady pulse of knowing who you are and your purpose in life.

    Reply
    • Lorraine Wellman says: November 11, 2018 at 4:28 pm

      Seeking happiness feels like seeking something transient, whereas when we live in joy we do not have to seek outside ourselves, its like it is part of us, within us. Happiness ‘ 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.’

      Reply
  • Danna Elmalah says: October 19, 2018 at 10:09 pm

    Precision can be very wisely used, if imperfection is accepted and lived with, it is precision that can come alive.

    Reply
  • Annelies van Haastrecht says: September 30, 2018 at 4:13 am

    The magazines and other media are still selling happiness as the solution for all our woes but it is an endless chase and we will never be satisfied, we will have ups and downs and just like you did, wonder what went wrong. How clever to let everyone seek on the outside so the true answer on the inside is harder to find.

    Reply
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