Happiness Short Cut

 As a happiness Coach, the most frequent question I hear is: “What is the shortest route to happiness?”

There is only one true short cut to happiness: Gratitude.          The catch is that there is no short cut to gratitude. One actually has to take the time to think and feel gratitude in order to experience the miraculous changes it offers. It has to be real.

         Don't let that scare you off. Every person on the planet has countless blessings for which to be grateful.  In fact, it is the very things we take for granted that most deserve our gratitude: the fact of being alive today, our health, the people who have contributed to our life (so many), the opportunities to learn and grow that arrive daily, the amazing natural world around us, our ability to imagine and create, our ability to change, the magic of love, etc. etc. 

         If you are not regularly generating the magic of gratitude, these areas are good places to start. Choose one at a time. If you cannot immediately access feelings of thankfulness, imagine what your life would be without them.

         Gratitude is not a hit and run activity. It is true that any real experience of gratitude will generate positive feelings, stimulate your immune system, increase creative thought processes, and draw good people and events into your life. And it is equally true that running negative thoughts and emotions will counteract the powerfully positive effects of gratitude. It will not work to generate gratitude and follow it up with doses of negativity (anger, resentment, judgment, complaint, worry).

         The key, in any given moment, is to stay with gratitude. In every moment we have a choice to make. We can focus on whatever negative aspect of a situation our mind brings up, or we can say, no thanks, and consciously choose gratitude. Like everything else in life, it is practice that will make you adept at using gratitude to turn your life into a ceaseless flow of goodness.

        Thank you for reading!