JOY AND HAPPINESS – SUFFERING 

 SORROW AND GRIEF #4

“One of life’s most sacred duties is a duty to delight.” John Ruskin           

More Tools for Maintaining Joy and Happiness

Remember that you are made not for brokenness and sorrow but for wholeness and for joy.

Paying forward

Paying forward often is a byproduct of a gratitude practice and can enhance our happiness factor. 

Give without remembering. Take without forgetting. Give freely. Receive openly. Do all with gratitude. It is the way of love. 

It is the way of joy.

This is also good karma - doing it for its own sake.

 

We think that in the natural way of things what we give lessens our supply. The soul does not work that way – with the soul, giving increases.

 

Giving opens, withholding closes. In giving, is to receive and to welcome the other.

It is also important that we receive graciously when we are given something no matter how trivial it may seem to us and to assume it is given with good intention. To receive well is also a giving response.

A reluctant receiver

prompts caution in the giver!

 

Any who bring joy to another, give God joy. 

 

 “Wherever you turn you can find someone who needs you. Even if it is a little thing, do something for which there is no pay but the privilidge of doing it. Remember you do not live in a world all of your own.” A. Schweitzer

 

“If I am not for myself, who will be for me?

If I am only for myself, then what am I?

And if not now, then when?” Hillel

 

Moreover, in those instances when we cannot pay things forward we can always express love, compassion and empathy in the way we behave.

 

“The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become.” Goethe

We create coherence within us and around us by spreading positive intentions to others. Paying forward supports the Law of Attraction - do well to other and good will return to you. However, it is also true that sometimes "no good deed goes unpunished." This could be because all the variables concerned with the action have their own free will which we cannot control. Thomas Merton urges us not to rely on the hope of results. Also sometimes our tricksters may be at the root of this paradox. 

Forgiveness

 

“When a deep injury is done to us we never recover until we forgive.” Alan Paton

 

It is all about cosmic union. Go forward with forgiveness which is essential for substance and joy.

 

For well-being we need to forgive ourselves, others and ask forgiveness of others where necessary. We need to look deeply inward and examine how well we have handled forgiveness. Forgiveness is key to helping relieve grief and sorrow. It is often more important for the one that is doing the forgiving than the other, who is being forgiven. Forgiveness lightens our load, by getting rid of a subtle or real "heaviness," that then allows us to move on in a better way. Moreover, asking forgiveness from someone we have wronged helps to clean our karmic slate. We should also forgive ourselves for what we have done to our higher Self which is pure and made in the image of the Creator and ask for forgiveness from the Infinite One for the sins we have done to that part of us made in His image. Forgiveness requires the energy of love, empathy, compassion.

"To err is human to forgive Divine."

 

Our soul is made for joy and the more we truly love, the more we will experience it and become its very essence.

Forgiveness allows us the "Return" to our Selves - our Higher Selves.

 

Laughter

Performing random acts of kindness and the three L's - Love, Light and Laughter - can help dispel sorrow.

 Love, laughter and song chase away the dark forces and all that is dreaded from our nights and days.

A sense of humor goes a long way when things do not work out quite like they should.

 

 “Humor is a prelude to faith and laughter is the beginning of prayer.” Reinhold Niebuhr 

 

“Then I commended mirth because a human hath no better thing under the sun than to eat, and to drink and to be merry: for that shall abide with him of his labor the days of his life, which God giveth him under the sun.” Ecclesiastes

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy They are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” Marcel Proust

 

Laughter, especially a good belly laugh, releases endorphins. The belly moving so vigorously is thought to stimulate the parasympathetic vagus nerve leading to a relaxation response. Norman Cousins cured himself of debilitating ankylosing spondylitis by watching funny movies. He wrote the book, Anatomy of an Illness, describing his journey. The exact mechanism of how laughter boosts immunity remains unclear. A hearty laugh especially appears to release locked in holding patterns, stimulate endorphins and is in a sense good somatic or bioenergetic psychotherapy. We need to avoid too much negative press, toxic T.V. and violent movies and look for the things that make us laugh.

 

 “Since everything is but an apparition, perfect in being what it is, having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection, you may as well burst out laughing.” Lonchenpa

 

Other Factors that increase happiness and balance:

“A merry heart is life to a human. Joy gives him length of days.” Ecclesiastes

Exercise (especially when inwardly directed,) sunlight, gifting (paying forward,) comfort food (especially chocolate and spicy food,)  touch (including hugs,) breast feeding, orgasm, aroma therapy, lighting incense (sometimes called a spiritual shower,) nature, sacred sounds, chanting, music, body work, acupressure or acupuncture can all help  in stimulating one or more of these molecules; serotonin (mood), dopamine (pleasure) and endorphins (pain relief.)

Special techniques like E.M.D.R., "Tapping" and anti-depressants may be required in more serious situations.