Woke up with an inspiration to write. Didn’t know about what, but it was my set intention. Funny enough, I came across an article by Dr. John Izzo, and it was the inspiration behind this one- so here I am. Writing.
One of the strongest ways for me to understand (my) feelings and emotions is to literally materialize, magnify and humanize them. For example, I imagine sadness and pain as people instead of emotions. If these ‘individuals’ showed up, will probably and instantly make me move away from them, or avoid them altogether. Now let’s imagine something like happiness embodied as a person, how do you think we’re going to react differently?
Oftentimes, these embodied ‘persona’s’ creep up on us, like unwanted companions, and if we aren’t really aware on how to redirect our actions and thoughts to “move away” from them, we will find ourselves being hijacked. As if these persona’s are stealing something from us.
This is not a new concept, as many religions and scholars talked about such similar ‘thieves’. Sikhism for one, talks about the 5 thieves of common sense. Dr. John Izzo, on the other hand, mentions and teaches about 5 thieves of happiness. He believes that happiness is being stolen by certain mental patterns, oftentimes, our own doing. He describes them in the following forms: 1.Control, 2.Conceit, 3.Coveting, 4.Consumption, 5.Comfort. These thieves (or mental patterns), if not recognized and were allowed to wonder, will in a way work to almost destroy our happiness. Think of it.
Having said all that, i trust that we are all capable of recognizing and learning the multitude of ways on how to block them out of our lives. I’ll be sharing my thoughts on how I personally try to overcome these unwanted visitors.
Step 1 (were I feel is the most important) is to be able to recognize these patterns. how?- Oh we know how; it is that small voice/feeling that rushes over our body and quenches our stomach when the very thought of ‘going outside our comfort zone’ for example comes to us. Or when we wonder how that friend of our achieved something ‘we didn’t/couldn’t’. Not to confuse this with the feeling of constructive self criticism, as that can do wonders, but I’m talking about a feeling that is mostly masked by an egotistic scent.
So upon recognizing and “accepting” that we in fact have one of those thieves among us, we move onto step 2, that is creating balancing thoughts and/or actions that immediately neutralize whatever thieve we’ve encountered. Take control for example, if for just one minute we counterbalance that with something like: ‘Surrender’, meaning surrendering to what we are trying to control (without resisting of course) – then that may well be an immediate fix. Granted this may not work with some of the cases, but for the most part, it would be a definite antidote.
Conceit (sometimes referred to as our egotism, and oftentimes fuelled by comparison) can be balanced out by ‘Service’ for example. Focusing on being of service or serving others, will surely get us out of our heads and into a grander image. A grander cause. A grander expression of self.
Coveting can easily be neutralized by gratitude. I personally find this the easiest to spot and overcome, as Gratitude is so profound that most of the time humbles me to my knees. No number of thieves can withstand the amplitude of being in grace.
Consumption can be translated into many things, but what is meant here is the need of something external to fulfill something internal —whether they are possessions, people, or accomplishments. Oftentimes recognized by the infamous phrase: “I will be happy if or I will be happy when,”. Contentment is the opposite of this external and endless search, and this can only be practiced by being grateful, while accepting what IS right now and trusting that you will be able to achieve whatever it is you want. This might take some training to our minds, but know and believe that anything is possible if it is really what you want.
Finally we come to comfort, a thief that I find very sneaky and almost ambiguous. We may easily mistake comfort for happiness; do not get me wrong, sometimes it is happiness and that is glorious!, but what I am talking about here is the comfort that doesn’t serve us, the one that pulls us away from moving forward and achieving something- things like: ‘playing it safe’ or ’not taking risks’. This ‘comfort’ is in fact what keeps us stuck. I always believed that life happens outside my comfort zone, to be honest, it really does- at least for me. I like to think of comfort as one’s home, its great!, but there’s not much happening inside. Going out of the house is what allows us to experience life, experience interaction, and most importantly experience ourselves. I personally try my best to break the routine, challenge my comfort zone and push myself to explore things outside my bubble. Not going to lie, some experiences turned out great, while others, not so much- either case, I learned great things along the way.
I guess what I am trying to say is that we can really attain happiness much easier than we anticipate. We don’t require endless hours of training, a psychology degree, nor hundreds of self-help books to read. We can start today by firstly making a choice to change, an intention to push through and achieve, and finally a willingness to accept. Always remember to challenge your thoughts, question them, interrogate their origins, and counterbalance them with a thought, or better yet, an action- that’s ALL the ‘training’ you need. And before you know it, you’ll be able to snag these thieves before they do, and take back what’s yours.
BRILLIANT!