Therapy for Anxiety: Happiness Therapy

I have had enough life experience to be able to know that happiness is a state of mind rather than what you get when you have reached a certain plateau in life. Happiness is not defined by how much ‘stuff’ we have – though this brings pleasant experiences, it is not the sum total of ‘real happiness’.

Happiness is a state of mind. A place we choose to be at or not. Money buys comforts, wonderful experiences, but money does not buy happiness as this is clearly something that comes from within. We are either happy or not.

We musn’t confuse gratifying the ego with things outside of us to create our ‘happiness’. We have all been in that place where we have a new car, new relationship, holiday, , house, jewellery, clothes, and after a while the joy of this new object has dissipated to boredom. This is the ego’s way of saying ” I need something new to entertain me and make me feel better”.

Happiness comes from a place deep inside that permeate your entire being, radiates and extends outward and touches the people around you. True lasting happiness comes from within.

To say that there is a single key element to happiness is incorrect. And for everyone what specifically makes you or causes you to be happy is different. For some it may be to simplify your life and de clutter it of things that are just dragging you down. For some it may be to cut down on spending so you feel like you have more money, thus reducing any stress towards financial issues.

Others may just want to work on thinking and speaking more positively, and then there are those who feel that happiness stems from meditating, getting into a relaxed state regularly. There are numerous ways we can reach this space we call happiness.

When you find yourself in a place where you don’t feel happy do something to make yourself feel happy.

Do simple things like meditating, reading, exercising, or just doing something that brings you much joy and fulfillment. For as long as you stay in a state of unhappiness you will continue to attract more of it. This is the law of attraction in action.

The more miserable you are, the more you dwell on whatever circumstances or situation that you ‘think’ is causing your unhappiness, then the more of the same stuff will show up in your life. Our conditioning has been such from childhood that happiness is something that ‘others’ provide for us. How many relationships suffer because they are dependent on the other person to ‘make then happy’?

How often do you hear others say that this person or that person, or this situation or that situation is directly responsible for their unhappiness?

We place an enormous emphasis on happiness being something that is beyond our reach or ‘out there somewhere’ outside of us.

I found myself in a hospital for many weeks after a serious breakdown some 15 years ago and in my determined effort to change my life, I began my own form of ‘happiness therapy’. I would get up from my bed quite late in the evening, take long baths in the patient bathroom with lavender and bubble bath. Go into the kitchen and make myself my favourite food ( Vegemite sandwich of course), ask the theatre nurses who weren’t busy to take me for a ride on the operating theatre gurneys around the building.

I needed to find ways to create my happiness from a hospital bed. And I did. I just wanted to be happy again and I intuitively knew that this was not going to come from outside of ME.

Begin to find simple things you can do to bring laughter and happiness into your world. As you do, more happiness comes your way without a great deal of effort and you begin to attract into your life more joy, more fulfillment and so much more happiness that you imagined possible.

Dr. M. Joann Wright on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Anxiety – Dr. M. Joann Wright is interviewed by Barry Groetsch of Linden Oaks at Edward’s Mental Health First Aid program on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Anxiety.