Have you ever though about happiness. I have not been truly happy for a long time. I am one of those people that have to have everything in place to be happy. Something is always out of place……but most people see me as a cheerful happy bubbly person. Really I am not. I am afraid of crowds, afraid to speak in public, and I am incredibly shy. Most people don’t even know I am shy. In high school they just thought I was stuck up or someone to be picked on. In college, it was just so big that you were never with the same people often. I am old now and I think I need to aim at content. I need to find content(ness).
One of the things I do is collect little magazine articles on subjects and store them. I have to stop doing that. Anyway I found one on HAPPINESS IS…..Good Housekeeping 1994. See I told you I have been thinking about this awhile….it’s for an author who wrote a book called Real Moments….moments are what makes your life matter. It is about experiencing fulfillment and meaning in your life now. Not waiting for the perfect circumstance, or relationship or weight….but in this moment and every moment.
She says:
Look honestly at yourself
Look deeply I to your own heart
Look closely at the values of your spirit
Pay attention to moments of your life as they unfold
Real moments means you are fully experiencing life as it unfolds feeling fully present, fully feeling and fully alive.
Happy moments, sad moments, scared moments..but always when you are paying attention to where you are and what is going on, right now you will experience a real moment. Mindfulness. I talked about that before in another blog I wrote. Mindfulness. Allow your mind to be full of the experience. Real moments are consciousness, connection, and surrender.
Happiness is not an acquisition it’s a skill.
Here’s the problem I like being in control. I was an inner city school teacher with tough tough kids and you have to be in control 110% of the time. You even have to be in control when your are sick and when a substitute is there. Control is all encompassing. I really hated that but I was good at it and in a classroom if people see you in control they think your a good teacher.
My other problem is I am an escapist. I can escape in my head whenever I want to. I am good at it. I grew up in a violent situation and escaping in your head is something your can do anywhere and anytime. Leave your body here and go anywhere, become anyone, have any life you want, except it not real it’s in your head. But small children use this as a form of protection, just like if they are in grave situation of stress or harm, their mind will go blank and they won’t remember the trauma. It a their mind’s way of protecting them from emotional and psychological harm. My mind protected me a lot growing up on the farm.
Control and escapism totally stand in my way of mindfulness.
I love the yellow mini chair from the top, looking down
