THE
BEST OF ME
Thursday, November 5, 2015
How to Be Happy?
Who am I?
You will ask me what the
relationship between happiness and self awareness is. Happiness and self
awareness are interrelated........
I've been asking these
questions for a long time, and I'm still in the process of finding the right
answers.
Let's answer
the second question, who am I?
I'm a a young lady, a
mother for three kids, a teacher and a writer who has all the means of
happiness, but believes that happiness is beyond what she has.. How is that?
I know, I
know.... I will be exaggerating if I say, I'm miserable, because I'm not.
But I always feel that there's a secret ingredient missing in my life. This
ingredient will bring me the required happiness, and I have to find it. It
might be adventure, self love or gratitude....I'm just confused to find the
right answer.
First of all, let's
share the means of happiness and try together to find the secret ingredient
that is missing.
Needless to say, I'm
really grateful for what I already have, I just know there is more...
I'm grateful to
have:
1. love
2. family
3. job
4. money ( enough)
What else would I
possibly need to be happy? Is it fame, success, or power?
Though I'm a
successful teacher, I always miss the sense of accomplishment. I don't know if
the profession itself is not that rewarding in our countries,( but this is
something else I will talk about later)
I have a special
relation with my students, they love me a lot and I really love them and care
about them, In class, I try my best to be the best role model for my students.
I motivate them to become the best versions of themselves without imposing my
ideas. I encourage them to have the grit, and teach them not to give up on
their dreams. I show them that they always have the choice and they can choose
the best. I even guide them to learn from their mistakes and never consider
mistakes as failures.
And because our
society is based on judgments, I persuade them not to consider people's
negative opinions about them as facts. I say: “Others’ bad opinions of you,
don't make you who you are. They aren't facts. They are what others think and
believe of you. Don't believe...”
Sometimes, I even
overreact with my advice and lectures, in a way that makes me wonder, who am I
trying to communicate with? My students? or my inner self?
In the process of
looking for the secret ingredient of happiness, I couldn't stop myself from
asking this important question: What is happiness to me?
One of the articles I
read mentioned that everyone defines happiness in his own terms. Money, fame
and success can be happiness for some while others define it by being love and
family.
So...I needed to
define happiness in my own terms.
This process wasn't as
easy as you might think, especially for a person -like me- who was not that
good with the term self awareness or emotional intelligence.
For this reason, I had
to read many books about happiness, emotional intelligence, and controlling
thoughts. YES, I had to read a book about controlling thoughts, because I would
have a hurricane of thoughts in my mind when I'm annoyed that would turn
me into a real mess.
In fact, I thought I
needed to control my thoughts and my emotions to maintain inner
peace. The thing I was deprived of, and turned my world into fog.....
Everything in my life
was vague, and unclear, as if I was walking in a foggy place.
After this all, what
was the result?
Well, after the hard
work of writing so many journals about self observation. And after
reading many books, in addition to the beneficial course, I realized that happiness
to me was represented in power.
Following the tips I
learned from many different sources, I discovered what energizes me and puts me
in the state of flow: It is the art of writing. That is why I'm writing this
post now.
All that alone, wasn't
as encouraging as you might think.......Deep deep inside me, there were still
unhealed wounds from a hard childhood and disappointing breakups of a teenager.
This all made me feel, rejected, broken and unlovable, which wasn't true at
all.
How can I heal a
bleeding wound?
I always pretended that
I was strong and was wounds free. I also lied about overcoming the
disappointments, the sad memories, and the feeling of loss and self
despise.
Why would I despise myself
anyway?
I don't even know
myself very well to decide whether to love it or despise it.
I have to teach the
impatient person inside me to:
·
Wait, because everything happens at the right time.
·
accept the fact that she can't control everything around
her
I also had to remind
her that there were many people in the world who are praying to have the things
she took for granted.
Well, I have many
other lessons to teach her, and I still have time.
At least we discovered
the secret ingredient of her happiness, writing. That's why I will do my best
to write at any time and all times.
So, even if we are not
as happy as we want to be yet, we will be happy sooner than we think as long as
we are committed to writing.
In conclusion, if you
want to be happy you have to:
1. Know yourself
2. Love yourself and
accept yourself fully
3. Do what energizes
you and fill you with enthusiasm
4. Be grateful for
what you have
5. Laugh at your
mistakes, don't be drama queens as I used to be.
Emotional
intelligence 2.0
A Life of Happiness
and Fulfillment
Thanks for reading. If
you like my post, please like it or leave a comment.
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