Soulshine

“You will never be happy until you are happy with yourself.” Robert Holden, Happiness Now    Our personal happiness is not about people, places or things. No one on this earth has true power over our own happiness but us. No one on this earth is responsible for our happiness but us. No thing can make us truly happy. No place will bring us lasting happiness. And no trip or lottery winnings will ever make us happy forever.    Authentic happiness is found only in accepting and loving ourselves unconditionally. It is found in befriending ourselves and becoming the best thing that has ever happened to us. It is found in gratitude for our very lives.    In recovery we learn that no one else can MAKE us happy. And we learn that we cannot MAKE anyone else happy. Happiness is not e arned through caretaking or people-pleasing. We also learn that happiness cannot be achieved through accomplishments, or bestowed upon us as a reward for good behavi...

“The whole point of focusing on ‘the NOW ’ is to end the search for happiness.” Robert Holden, Happiness NOW   Going with the flow of our day means getting out of our heads as much as possible. Sure, we have to be in our heads some. But the average person probably spends 80 percent of their waking day living inside of their head, and they only bother to leave it when the bump into the reality of the outside world. For example, you can be at work, sitting at your desk, fully engaged inside your head until your phone rings or someone knock on your door. These perceived interruptions take you out of your head and lead you back into the real world. They place you back into the flow of life, and yet we are often crusty about the fact that the real world is disturbing our little inner-world. Think of it this way: Our little inner-world is filled with expectations, shoulds and other such happiness-zappers. When we are constantly caught-up in our little worlds of “th...