If you ask me: “Hey Miranda, how are you?”
I'll say, I am well, thank you.
It's not different from what I would say in the past.
However, now when I say I'm well, I'm not just saying it out of politeness, or as an automatic response, I really mean it.
Nowadays, I am truly well, happy, and experiencing an abundance of well-being. I have discovered that happiness is easy to find and that feeling happy is a choice I can make at any moment.
For me, this was a surprise discovery.
Growing up I was surrounded by people who were stoic, capable, and strong, but not happy.
I was never happy for a long period of time.
If I were happy, there usually would be a downturn. Usually, that happiness or joy was triggered by what something or someone, and never lasted long.
The first time I felt happy for a long period of time, more than a few hours, was when I turned 60.
I intended to have an amazing day before I went to sleep the night prior. And the next day, from the time I woke up until about 5 pm I was happy and in a state of well-being.
Since then I had experienced longer and longer periods of happiness and well-being.
But the hard part was still the downturn when the happiness seemed to have run its course, or I simply couldn’t feel joy and the happiness tank seemed to have depleted, and I didn’t know what to do to re-fill it.
I wanted happiness, and I’m sure most people do, but why does it seem so difficult to attain it?
And then I learned through my study of the Abraham Hicks materials, why I couldn’t be happy or feel good when I wanted to.
Have you ever experienced not seeing something that had always been there right in front of you?
That’s how the discovery felt to me.
It’s so simple, so logical, right under my nose, but I was blind to it.
The law of attraction says that which is like unto itself, is drawn.
Basically it means that you attract to you the essence of what you focus your attention on. And as importantly, your feeling indicates whether you’re focusing on what you want or the absence of what you want.
When you feel good, you’re focusing on what you want.
When you don’t feel good, you’re focusing on the absence of what you want, which is something that you don’t want.
All this time I’d been focusing on the absence of what I wanted.
When I wasn’t happy, I dwelled on it, thinking about what made me feel unhappy, trying to change the situation or the person involved, talking about it with others, or envying others who are happy.
My focus, my attention, was on the lack of happiness for the majority of the time. My awareness of it kept my focus on the absence of happiness.
I spend very little time thinking or feeling about happiness.
Therefore, if the universe brings to me what I’m focusing on, regardless of what I say I want, then it’s no wonder I kept experiencing unhappiness.
So with that simple understanding, I started focusing on what I wanted, or more specifically, on how I wanted to feel.
When something bothers me, as soon as I noticed that I don’t feel good, I don’t dwell on it, rather I quickly pivot and ask myself:
How do I want to feel right now?
Usually, the answer is quite simple:
I want to feel peace, harmony, ease, or simply feel good or happy.
Once I identify what I wanted to feel, my focus shifted, and the energy in me shifted also, I instantly felt a little bit better and lighter, not so heavy anymore.
And then some ideas or impulses would come, sometimes seemingly unrelated to what was going on earlier.
I learned to lean on these new thoughts or ideas, and the more time I spent focusing on them, the more they expand and become more specific. I noticed that I feel lighter still, and getting more interested in them.
Sometimes there’s a tendency to return to the source of unhappiness, wanting to fix it or keep hammering on it to find a solution. Eventually, I started noticing that when I did this, the gloomy feeling or heaviness would return.
So the best thing is to keep the focus on the better-feeling thought, and another better-feeling thought, and more better-feeling thought. I notice that the better it gets, the better it feels.
Now being happy is the norm for me.
When life experience causes me to feel dissatisfied, instead of dwelling on negativity, I only need to change my thought to better-feeling thoughts, and I very soon I would start to feel better.
And then I can focus on some constructive actions that may or may not involve the other person.
Here’s an example:
I like a clean and orderly house.
I have a person working for me to do that but often doesn’t clean and tidy my house to my standard.
It used to be a major cause of frustration and annoyance for me. I’d want to lecture her, tell her she should do a better job, etc.
But that just caused more negative feelings for her and me both, and it would affect her mood and the result of the work was worse.
Now as soon as that frustration bubbles up, I look for a better-feeling thought by asking myself how I wanted to feel. As soon as the answer arises, usually very quickly when I don’t overthink it, and seriously just wanting to feel better rather than to be right about my thought, I’d feel relief, lighter, kinder, and the person somehow ended up doing a better job because she wasn’t feeling the weight of my negative feelings towards her.
So it’s a win-win for all.
The best thing about understanding that we get what we think about and when we are aware of what we’re thinking about, we are in a position to exercise absolute control of our own experience.
Therefore being able to choose to be happy any time I want is me controlling my own destiny.
I am the creator of my own experience, and that feels freeing, exciting, and a lot of fun.
I’ve done the same process with other desires, such as wanting more money, wanting to have joyous and meaningful interactions with people, wanting inspiration for something I want to do/be/have, etc. And it works. every. time.
Life is good.
Life is supposed to be good.