"You cannot struggle your way to joy. You have to joy your way to joy".
Teachings of Abraham
I find the teachings of Abraham, courtesy of Esther and Jerry Hicks, scintilatingly true. They reflect with blinding accuracy the nature of my own experiences. Each time I read or listen to their teachings, I feel empowered to keep going, keep experimenting, keep paying attention to how my thoughts, and particularly my emotions, govern the way I create and respond to situations in life.
I have developed the habit of maintaining an inner vigilance on my emotional and mental states through meditation practice including mindfulness. This does not mean that I am always fully present, fully awake in the now but I am generally not too far from it either! It therefore means that I am quicker to become aware of being in reactive, history driven mode and thus quicker to return to responsive, real-time mode.
Many times throughout the day, I pause to ask myself: How are you feeling? Often, I discover that I have slipped into a less than joyous state brought about by old thought patterns. I then ask myself, How would you like to feel? What do you want? The answer is usually the same: I want to be happy.
Sometimes, just the recognition of my desire to be happy shifts the emotional landscape so that I am almost instantly feeling happy again, pleasantly aware of my power to choose and direct my life. At other times, however, I remain stuck in despondency, regret, guilt or whatever else may have been pulling me into lower energy states. These are the times when Abraham’s teachings have a powerful effect: You cannot struggle your way to joy. You have to joy your way to joy.
Encountering this truth in the current moment is like a fresh shot of insight. Of course you can’t struggle your way to joy! Now that often brings on a smile. It also reminds me that I have been stuck in the past, replaying old, painful scenarios and imagining future tragedies!
I am then able to say to myself: That’s the past, this may never happen and here I am right here and now with the power to choose where I next go, what I next do, how I next feel. My goodness, that is a powerful realization! That realization comes as a fresh experience rather than a retrieval of old information that we all have stored in our memories. That realization is what makes the difference between knowing something intellectually and knowing something experientially. The former is useful as a reminder, the latter is powerful as the very change that we need to move towards happiness!
Lately, I have found myself sighing a little more than usual, as if relieving myself of the emotional burdens I am carrying. Quite spontaneously, I have found myself thinking: You can’t sigh your way to joy!
What about you? How do you get through your low energy states? Do you find yourself ’struggling your way to joy’? Or are you able to ‘joy your way to joy’?
Lucy Lopez mentors and writes in the area of Personal and Spiritual Development with a focus on Happiness and Success through Self-Awareness. Key themes in her work are Beliefs, Consciousness, The Nature of Mind, Meditation and Relationships.
Lucy Lopez
Lucy's Planet Happiness
www.lucylopez.net/planethappiness/
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