Happiness, Allowing and Peace - Day 21 Blog Challenge

I was reading a quote on happiness just now and thinking I could explore that topic here.  Some like to debate whether happiness is a choice or not.  To go down that rabbit hole feels too mind centered for me.  After all, isn't happiness pretty fleeting?   Ever try to hold on to a sense of happiness as a constant state?

I understand a little about brain chemistry and research on how meditation, and even the practice of gratitude, can increase our sense of well being and happiness.  I find that temporary though, especially if we have a lot of unprocessed 'stuff" we are not choosing to look at.   Happiness is fleeting when we haven't brought to light our core beliefs.

In our journey here on earth, are we really looking for happiness or could it be, on a deeper level, we long for peace.  

I prefer to reflect on allowing and see happiness as more a by product of our allowing what is.  Most times when I sense myself tightening up, if I am able to bring conscious awareness to this tension, most surely I will see I am resisting something.  Somehow fighting against what appears to be presenting in the moment.  

I say appears because even that is defined by the story we give to it.  This is where life becomes a meditation of bringing conscious awareness into the present.   Every single interaction we have during the day holds potential to reveal to ourselves our inner world of how we perceive life.

How we perceive life is certainly going to flavor our experiences.  In that regard we are like an artist.  What shall we paint on our canvas?  What song do we choose to sing?  What dance does our soul long to express?

Perhaps indeed our choices are colored by our life experiences, the traumas we have endured and have yet to heal.  There are seasons when we need to go deep into them, especially if their memories have become hardened over time.  It helps to soften them up by breathing some life and compassion into them.  It can sometimes take decades before one is able to begin this softening process and that is okay.

There does, or will, come a day when it becomes possible to watch the stories surface and we no longer feel the need to attach to them as much.  They may still come and visit from time to time but these visits don't carry the drawn out heaviness like in the earlier days.  It becomes easier to allow them to pass on through and the urge to cling and relive the story lessens.  As we make peace with our past, peace in the present becomes more accessible. 

Peace

It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work.  

It means to be in the midst of these things and still be calm in your heart.