The Key to Happiness

Though it may seem very easy, finding the key to happiness can be one of life’s most difficult tasks; yet it is possible.

First you have to find what makes you suffer- and stop. Whether you are suffering out loud or inside your mind, find the source whether it’s mental, physical or spiritual. I work with a lot of people who have a similar struggle, their weight. As if it’s the biggest source of their unhappiness. But really, it’s not the weight. Something is inside of their mind that is causing the unhappiness and the weight gain is just a symptom.

Same story goes for me. Not with weight, but gastrointestinal issues. I realized a lot about myself when I started my Warrior training through YogaFIT to become a Trauma Sensitive Yoga Therapist. We had an opening ice breaker to explain why we were there - everyone shared stories of their own trauma. While all this time I’m listening, I’m thinking to share a story of my life-long history of stomach pain, how it plagued my childhood and how it resulted in numerous hospitalizations. I thought this was my greatest struggle. But after I heard each person introduce themselves, I realized I had a lot of the same stories but they were repressed. By the time it was my turn to speak, I was about to curl up in a ball and have a complete full-blown panic attack. Having a realization in front of 50 people that wow, my trauma is not my stomach, it is my mind. My stomach is just the resulting symptom. The surgeries and diagnosis, all resulting from the mind body connection.

It’s easy to show a scar, say that’s my trauma and pretend to get over it. But the healing occurs when you have the realization that the trauma remains inside your head and you just need to let it go. The scar is healed- the mind is suffering.

This is the key to happiness. Let go of your suffering. It’s just like muscles. You have agonists and antagonists. If you cannot relax one you can activate another and indirectly with that activation, you deactivate the antagonizing muscle.

So, if you are constantly searching through happiness by dieting, dating, and searching anywhere and everywhere...find a new way. Reflect on your past year, the struggles and the sorrows. Let them go!!!! Surround yourself with good like-minded people. Ignore the wicked. This is my best lesson to give anyone and it took me 33 years to learn it. Yes, we have painful experiences, but there’s a difference between suffering from the stories in our head and real pain. Pain is an output of the brain. Pain is a physical or emotional sensation that we feel immediately, and then it passes. Suffering is the story and the dialogue that accompanies the pain, the thoughts we play over and over in our mind: “This is terrible. This hurts. Is this going to last forever? Whyyyyyyyy!!! Oh no, oh no, oh no!” That is suffering. Suffering is the mental problem that we create. When we stop the negative thoughts and we just be, then all is well.

Stop searching for happiness in someone or something. Find it within yourself in 2020 by letting go of all that baggage. No more suffering in 2020.

The two keys to letting go -

1. Being present- staying in the here and now.

2. Quiet the mind

The ExerScience Center wishes you peace & happiness for the New Year. Enjoy 2020!

If you do not move it, you will lose it…Don’t Give Up! Get moving today with The ExerScience Center.

To schedule an appointment, please call us at 813.803.7070