292: 7 Truths About Experiencing Happiness
Monday November 2, 2020

This is your last free post view for this month.

Become a Member for as little as $4/mo and enjoy unlimited reading of TSLL blog.

Books about happiness ubiquitously fill the publishing world, but the fundamentals of happiness quite simply are just that, simple. We become overwhelmed, and then it becomes easier to fixate, and often superficially so, which expends our finite energy rather than focusing our attention on the core fundamentals and choices of what happiness requires to be deeply and sincerely felt.

When the directions are wrong you will never see materialize what you desire.

Stop the pursuit. This is something I’ve discussed on the blog before, but I think it is worth exploring again. This time, I am going to explore more concretely the fundamental components of experiences real happiness, and much more of it in our everydays. Let’s get to the seven truths below.

1.Discover a tune that is melodic for you

If you enjoy living your life, your everyday life, happiness is the result. Continually, here on TSLL, I have shared that contentment is the feeling we can have at all times. Happiness cannot be infinite 24-hours a day. Happiness is an outcome. Contentment is a state or way of traveling. I had it entirely wrong when I was younger, doodling “Be Happy” on my high school peechee folder while daydreaming in class. You cannot be happy constantly, but you can be content along the way to happy.

2. Spend time doing tasks that enable you to lose track of time

Getting lost in a project, exploring a new [enter a place/area of curiosity], resting your mind and being in a healthy way, these will divert your attention naturally away from checking the clock. And when you are thinking about what’s next, you are present. And when you are engaged fully in the present moment, you have more chances of being happy.

3. Sharing time with loved ones to simply be in each others’ company.

Giving your life space to be together, even if in silence, can be incredibly peaceful, supportive and loving. A contentment shared is happiness reached.

4. Not having existential worries because consciously you know your health, finances and basic needs are tended to

Through the choices we make, we can build the sound and stable foundation that will enable us to feel content in our everydays. Everyone will make choices which align uniquely with their journey which is why outsiders may define the choices we make to usher in more happiness for ourselves as sacrifices. However, a choice is not a sacrifice if it brings you closer and eventually to a way of living that brings you peace and contentment. It is when we achieve contentment that more happy moments can be experienced and savored.

5. Refraining from thinking at any time “when I achieve [enter goal]” or when [enter aupposed life milestone], then I can be happy.

Focusing only on the outcome and forgetting about how we travel to arrive at the destination is a recipe for unhappiness. However, if the travel does not involve contentment, the outcome you seek is not as likely. Why? It is when you enjoy the journey, when you can be yourself along the way, that the outcome is relinquished, thereby not putting so much pressure on the outcome to hold all the goodness. It is when we expect or assume that we step out of being present along the way, hurting ourselves and others along the way, and thus tainting the outcome so it can never be a source of real happiness if ever it is reached.

6. Find peace in how you travel through life

How you speak and think of yourself, how you engage with others – communication with words, body language, etc. – contentment is felt in our mode of travel, and no matter life’s circumstances, it can be constant. Sleeping well and deep and long is a mode of travel as it allows you to wake up with a clear mind, acting from a place of calm, clarity and full awareness. Taking breaks when our mind needs it, ending the ‘work’ part of our day when we can no longer be productive, eating well and slowing down to savor it, slowing down and refraining from default patterns of speech, being fully aware and listening, then thinking well about what we have heard before responding – each of these ideas and practices of day-to-day living are modes/ways of traveling that cultivate contentment as we move through our days.

~Book to explore: Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life by Marshall Rosenberg

7. Letting go of others’ maps for our lives

Certainly a courageous decision. A decision which is exceedingly difficult during the first and second chapter of our journey, but with time and support, the journey becomes easier and far more rewarding than any other direction would or could have offered.

All of this is to say that the key to happiness is to discover and cultivate contentment in our everydays so that the happiness deepens and more frequently can be fully observed, savored and appreciated.

~Please do tune to the audio version as each point above is discussed in much more depth.

Check out TSLL’s first two books which discover the idea of cultivating a life of contentment that is uniquely your own.

~Book #1 (2014): Choosing The Simply Luxurious Life: A Modern Woman’s Guide

~Book #2 (2018): Living The Simply Luxurious Life: Making Your Everyday Extraordinary and Discovering Your Best Self

Petit Plaisir

~Sunset in the Blue by Melody Gardot (October 2020)

Sponsors for Today’s Episode:

~The Simple Sophisticate, episode #292
~Subscribe to The Simple Sophisticate:  iTunes | Stitcher | iHeartRadio | YouTube | Spotify

[podcast src=”https://html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/16639139/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/d0d4b9;color: #6f7056 !important/” width=”100%” height=”90″ scrolling=”no” class=”podcast-class” frameborder=”0″ placement=”bottom” use_download_link=”” download_link_text=”” primary_content_url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/thesimplesophisticate/292Happiness.mp3″ theme=”custom” custom_color=”d0d4b9;color: #6f7056 !important″ libsyn_item_id=”16639139″ /]

Thesimplyluxuriouslife.com | The Simply Luxurious Life

11 thoughts on “292: 7 Truths About Experiencing Happiness

  1. Shannon, great guideposts and an awfully good reminder that happiness is fleeting, contentment is bone-deep. And a very timely recommendation for Rosenberg’s book. I was familiar with his work long ago, but never read his book. I think it is must-reading at this moment, n’est-ce pas?
    Melody Gardot’s new album is exactly the music I have been searching for, kid you not, if ‘From Paris With Love’ is any indication. Wow. Exquisitely beautiful video.
    And, oh my lord, I just briefly took a wander through Wine.com….all I can say is, BIG thank you for the 30% off code!?

    1. Rona, thank you for checking out this week’s episode. Indeed, this book is more pertinent now than ever, and was and will be helpful always as we teach and build these skills. I only wish I had read it decades ago. I think you will find Gardot’s new album an album of escape and calm. And yes! Wine.com! I am so tickled to have them as a sponsor. The selection is impressive. Enjoy!

  2. I enjoy losing myself in time when playing the piano, and of course, I play melodic tunes. I also like to think that I am dancing through time – the dance of life. Sometimes I lose that thought, especially when I ponder about what happens after the presidential election. None of it seems very “presidential” anymore. But it will pass and things will go back to as normal as we can all muster. I will still be dancing through my life – just with more melodic music rather than all the discord we hear now.

  3. Than you for the reminder on what constitutes real happiness. We don’t need to have everything we want to be happy. Oh my Shannon Melody Gardot’s voice has soothed my senses and I am very happy. A sublime video which resonates with the current times when we are all missing loved ones?

  4. Thank you for the music, my CD is on the way. Her style is absolutely mesmerizing. Happiness is a funny thing, not ha, ha funny, but ironically brief, rare, and often not obvious to me. Contentment for me comes with sparks of creativity, rather few sparks lately. Waiting for the return.

  5. Shannon – Thank you for the Melody Gardot recommendation!! I listened to the whole album last night. It is absolutely wonderful!

Leave a Reply to Kathlee Von Velasco Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

From TSLL Archives
Updated British Week 1.jpg
Updated French Week 2.jpg