What is Happiness?

What is happiness? How do you know you’re happy? Is the point of life to be happy?

I used to think I had to have it all together to be happy, that I had to be at a certain place in my life or have proved my worthiness to be happy. I thought that if I wasn’t happy, I was failing. But then, when I would feel happy, I thought I didn’t deserve it and that I was failing if I was happy.

So clearly, I just couldn’t let myself off the hook.

But what does happiness even mean? What does it look like? What does it feel like?

I used to think happiness had to look and feel a certain way. That consistent joy and confidence and exuberance around life were the evidence of happiness.

Now I think the point is not to strive for never ending happiness. The point is to be alive and at peace.

I can be sad and at peace. I can be overwhelmed, melancholy, frustrated, anxious… and still at peace, still in love with life. Because I am here to feel it all. Experience it all. And there is a deep unending well of peace within me.

What does happiness mean to you?

Happiness isn’t about how your life looks. And you definitely don’t have to prove you are worthy of being happy.

But striving for never ending happiness has only led me to feel defeated, burnt out and confused ...

Now I strive for peace.

Now I focus on how I feel, where I’m going, what I want. Now I focus on grounding, peace, acceptance. Now I focus on love.

What about you?

Learning how to live in alignment with what makes me feel at peace, what makes me feel grounded and connected, has changed everything for me. If you need help reaching that connection with yourself, please reach out.