Be Brave Be Happy: 5 Tips for an Exiciting Inner Journey
By Josh Langley
It’s time to be brave. It’s time to stop looking ‘out there’ for happiness and start to look inside yourself as that’s where you’ll discover the potential for real peace of mind lies.
It’s about finding happiness in the unconventional, in the bits that we don’t like about ourselves, in the places that scare us and in the realization that we are ultimately responsible for our own happiness, not anyone or anything else.
And the best discovery is that everything you don’t like, don’t want or can’t stand about yourself can be a catalyst for deeper understanding and eventual happiness. You are perfectly poised to be happy, you already have everything you need, you just don’t realise it. We’re too busy living our so called important lives that we miss everything, miss nature’s little gems of wonder and joy, miss the mini personal discoveries, miss those ‘aha’ moments of inspiration and sadly we end up missing ourselves.
However, first you have to be curious enough to want to take a journey like this, to stop and notice what’s going on around you and inside you, to understand the connection between your thoughts and what kind of life you’re living now. There are risks however, say if you suddenly go from being a mildly melancholic introvert to someone who realizes their life is wonderful and walks around with a big smile on their face, they might lose a few friends and might even seem unrecognizable to themselves!
How prepared are you to let go of old negative habits and conditioning? How brave are you to boldly say “I’m going to be happy regardless of what anyone else thinks!”? Could you really look at your overweight body and say ‘I love you’?
The process is easy to start and when done seriously, can be a wildly exciting ride of inner exploration that’s infinitely more interesting than any reality show on TV.
Here’s a way to get started.
- Ask yourself “What’s going on?” This simple question opens up a myriad of other questions and allows space for the Universe to start sending you some incredible answers. Be warned though, you may get some answers you don’t like but that’s a good sign the process is working.
- Notice everything. Walk around with all your senses open and really notice life. You’ll be amazed at the little things that you used to ignore before, like a flower growing in a concrete car park etc.
- Notice the voice in your head (your internal dialogue). Especially notice how you talk about yourself to yourself. It’s amazing how often we put ourselves down just out of pure habit! Just noticing the voice and realising you can change what it says can bring tremendous freedom. Yay!
- Avoid saying ‘I wish this wasn’t happening’ or ‘I wish this was different’. When you wish something to be different than what it is, you actually reinforce it and create more resistance and pain. Let go of the resistance and watch the situation amazingly change.
- Be gentle on yourself and the world around you. You are a wonderful amazing person complete with all your so called faults, insecurities, flaws and defects. You are perfect the way you are where nothing needs to be changed. After gentle observation, you may decide to make changes, but that’ll be your fully conscious choice and no one else’s.
These points are a great start on the journey to happiness and with curiosity and gentleness you can make this a life’s habit and the best aspect is that everyone, even the planet, can enjoy the benefits.
Be brave be happy.
Josh Langley is a freelance writer and author and illustrator of spiritual / inspirational cartoon books for all ages. Josh turned to writing and illustrating while on a search to find personal evidence of the afterlife. He discovered that by investigating death, he learned how to enjoy life. www.frogandthewell.com www.facebook.com/frogandthewell
OM Times Magazine » syndicated
