We all know we can’t buy love and the same is true for finding inner happiness, but that doesn’t stop people from trying. Many view money as the key to happiness and their focus revolves around relieving stress and suffering with more money or more things that they can buy with money, like vacations or new cars.
Studies show that although poverty can make people unhappy (not having one’s basic needs met), wealth doesn’t guarantee more happiness. The unlikely prospect of winning the lottery doesn’t help. Winning generally produces a temporary shift in a person’s happiness meter, but within a short period of time, they usually return to the way they felt before winning. Some even feel worse.
Where Finding Inner Happiness Fits in the Big Picture
Anyone can save a lot of stress and suffering by going directly to our true source of wealth – our ability to change the way we think, feel, and respond to the world around us. We can find happiness on our own, because we are our own sources of inner happiness. Both are qualities of an open heart.
What might happen if you chose to find/create more happiness to feel good or even great every day?
You could call feelings of love and happiness the ultimate high, generating wonderful feelings that light up your life. Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert says that we have a “psychological immune system” that can shift our capacity for experiencing inner happiness, and it is this capacity that we want to focus on, filling each day with doses of love, happiness, fulfillment, and excitement.
Without a full understanding of the human mind, many people don’t understand that they have a choice. Until recently, it was thought that the adult brain and DNA were relatively fixed. Most people who experience regular stress and suffering believe this, repeating statements like “This is just the way it is” and “this is just the way I am.”
What Science is Finding About Inner Happiness
Limiting statements like the ones above are not objectively true. Recent discoveries of what’s called “neuroplasticity” are showing that the adult brain can change its structures and functions in fundamental ways. And changes in the brain generate changes that go all the way into the DNA in every cell of the body.
Neuroscientists and others’ discoveries are pointing to an extraordinary potential we have to transform ourselves. In Sharon Begley’s book Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain, she reports that the brain can be rewired, forging new connections, repairing damage, growing new neurons, and changing its circuitry. All of this “neuroplasticity” bodes well for those of us who want to create joyous lives fulfilling our dreams and goals. As Abraham Lincoln noted:
“Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
Down With the Old Model
The old model where our brains were set by genes that were also set is now being viewed as obsolete. Where science used to state that we have a fixed capacity for happiness, neuroscientists are now discovering that any of us can expand this capacity and even change our DNA.
Daily focus on finding/creating more love and inner happiness can literally reshape the brain, and you can “sculpt the brain’s emotional circuitry as powerfully as your pectoral muscles.” Indeed, just as physical training is an accepted way to improve the body, recent science is discovering that we can develop new mental and emotional perspectives that can transform our lives.
For those who want to reach out and help to create a more loving world, please join us at “The Heart Campaign” on facebook. Every vote counts and the world could definitely use yours. You can also find out more about The Heart Campaign on our blog. Love and happiness go hand-in-hand.
An Example of Finding More Inner Happiness
Take a nice deep breath now and maybe close your eyes for a moment as you imagine soaring like a bird and feeling completely free. Notice that you can only soar in your mind or in your life if you believe you can. It’s freeing and empowering! Metaphorically, imagining yourself in flight is a way of taking charge of your thinking, believing that you can be totally free.
This sends a positive message to your brain. Take another breath now as you feel the exhilaration of taking flight and focus on the feeling of being free as a bird. As you do this, you may notice that you feel happier and more loving, too.
The human spirit is has a greater capacity to soar than any of us can imagine. Marcus Aurelius once said,
“To live happily is an inward power of the soul.”
On a larger scale, imagine how the world would change if everyone was more happy and loving? It’s like the ultimate solution to most of the challenges we face in this world.
Learn Some Simple Ways to Find More Love and Inner Happiness
Maybe you’d like help with finding more love and happiness. Maybe you have tips you use to lift your spirits that you’d like to share with others.
Either way, just follow this link now to claim your free copy of Ten Powerful Doses of Love and Happiness.
Imagine what a difference finding more love and inner happiness can make for you and those you love!
