Choose happiness | Pure Living Nashville | Health

So many people pursue genuine happiness, but very few may actually attain it. In my book Choosing Happiness, I explore the concept of happiness and how with a few simple tools, anyone can choose to find joy in their life. As an intuitive healer and certified holistic therapist, I use these tools to help my clients and myself attain a happier state of being.

1. Follow your energy and trust it

Your body innately knows what will make it happy. So tap into that and it won’t let you down. Ask your body, if we choose this, will it make us happy? See what it shows you. Trust that what may make you happy may not be true for anyone else. For me, if thinking about something makes my body dance on the inside and feel light (some people call this “feeling excited”), I figure my body knows something. I trust that energy and I move towards it. On the other hand, if thinking about doing something makes me feel heavy, that’s not an energy I want to follow. It may be subtle at first but stick with it.

2. Don’t focus on what others define as happiness

If you made a choice based on what your parents, teachers, friends, and TV told you would be the key to your happiness, you are basing your future happiness on other people’s ideas of happiness in their reality, not yours. So you end up making happiness a by-product only available when you obtain these things. This will lead to the feeling that happiness is always just out of reach. What if instead, you asked yourself: “What is it that makes me happy that I haven’t even acknowledged?” When you can tap into what it is that truly makes your whole body smile, things begin to shift as if by magic. Ever notice that when you are truly joyful, everything just seems to work out? Just the act of smiling shifts the endorphins in the brain and creates a sense of well-being that can be physically measured.

Just the act of smiling shifts the endorphins in the brain and creates a sense of well-being that can be physically measured.

3. Do more of what you love

The world often tells us that doing more for yourself is selfish, so you should put others first. This does not fit everyone’s life. Consider this: isn’t contributing to yourself a way of honoring you? Whether it be self-care or buying something nice regardless of need, you may feel your body begin to smile. If doing things you love makes you happy, consider this as well: can you contribute more to your loved ones, to your community, to your world when you’re happy, or when you are unhappy?

4. Everything is just an interesting point of view

Everyone has their own reality, and from their reality, they construct their own point of view. If you didn’t place significance on how you think things should be or look like, what could that possibly create for you? Consider all the people you know that can’t get over a certain time or event in their life. When you can’t get past a point of view about something, you are sentencing yourself to a no-choice reality of unhappiness.

What if instead of seeing things as right or wrong, or good or bad, you could simply see them as an interesting point of view? One tool to untangle yourself from the fact-based reality of a point of view goes like this: “That’s an interesting point of view you have.” If you remove the actuality from a point of view, you reduce its significance in your life. Using this simple tool can unwind you from the heaviness of buying into the absolutism of a point of view. Can you perceive the shift in energy and lightness that it brings?

5) Do not listen to, buy, or tell the story

Your point of view creates your reality; your reality does not create your point of view. Stories are simply justifications for the interesting points of view someone made to prove they were right. You might hear things like, “Because this happened, I had to do this. I had no other choice. They were testing me.” But, what if the story didn’t really mean anything? If you choose to see the story as simply a story, its significance decreases. There’s no more energy and something else gets created. Can you see how making that choice could unwind you from much self-induced unhappiness? Remember that you are keeping yourself stuck in the story by continuing to sell it. Acknowledgement of what you already have can bring much joy and dare I say, happiness.

Acknowledgement of what you already have can bring much joy and dare I say, happiness.

Rudrani Devi is a best-selling author, intuitive healer, authentic Shaman and the owner of The Devi Clinic here in Nashville. For more information about her latest book, please visit choosing-happiness-book.com.