{"id":154,"date":"2011-07-29T15:37:56","date_gmt":"2011-07-29T15:37:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/www.soulmatesecret.com\/wabisabilove\/?p=154"},"modified":"2014-06-22T19:19:04","modified_gmt":"2014-06-22T19:19:04","slug":"wabi-sabi-happiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arielleford.com\/wabisabilove\/2011\/07\/29\/wabi-sabi-happiness\/","title":{"rendered":"Wabi Sabi Happiness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lately, I have been ruminating on the concept of \u201cirreversible happiness.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Photo credit: Sunstar<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019ve been asking myself \u201cwhat does that really mean and is it even possible?\u201d As a child and young adult I suffered from depression and at times was even medicated for it. \u00a0I often felt trapped under a dark, oppressive cloud of dread.<\/p>\n

In my early thirties I decided to do whatever it took to become a happy person and spent a solid ten years focused on this<\/strong>. My journey included therapy (many forms) workshops (from one hour to 8 days in length), a variety of techniques, tools, prayers, processes, nutrition, supplements, and even life coaches. It all worked.<\/p>\n

Baby-step by baby-step I slowly learned to change my thinking<\/strong>, manage my emotions, clear out the anger and resentment and old stories of the past, and ultimately ended up as someone who is happy most of the time.<\/p>\n

And, even when I am stressed, angry, upset, or sad, I now know that I have the tools<\/strong> and experience to return back to my core happy place.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a spiritual by-pass or a sweeping under the rug,<\/strong> it\u2019s a utilization of myriad tools to work through the feelings, solving the issues, or righting the wrongs.<\/p>\n

During one of my darkest periods (my business, health and relationship all failed at the same time), I found a line from A Course In Miracles that changed my life:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this moment I have everything that I need.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

This became my mantra. \u00a0When I would take the time to shift into present moment awareness, I could find the truth in this statement. \u00a0I would think to myself \u201cIn this moment I have enough air to breath, enough water to drink, there are people who love me, I am safe.\u201d \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

And then, rather than try to figure out the rest of my life, I would look for the one next step I needed to take<\/strong> and keep myself as focused as possible on the \u201cnow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along the way I also discovered that the things that I thought would make me happy<\/strong> \u2013 reaching a certain number on the scale, more money in my bank account, or achieving a particular goal, added some momentary \u201cenjoyment\u201d but these things did not become the source of my inner joy.<\/p>\n

Happiness was no longer the opposite of suffering but became a conscious choosing.<\/strong> I began to consciously choose to live in gratitude<\/a>, in a state of trusting and knowing that I was enough and had enough. \u00a0I realized that I was powerful enough to co-create my life with the Universe and also gracefully survive whatever roadblocks might be thrown in my way.<\/p>\n

I found that I did not have to be perfect to be happy. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Life did not have to be perfect for me to be happy. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I began to live in a state of being where I find love and appreciation<\/strong> for me and for my life, exactly as it is showing up.<\/p>\n

This is where my true Irreversible Happiness resides.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Can you relate?\u00a0 How does happiness occur for you?<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lately, I have been ruminating on the concept of \u201cirreversible happiness.\u201d I\u2019ve been asking myself \u201cwhat does that really mean and is it even possible?\u201d As a child and young adult I suffered from depression and at times was even medicated for it. \u00a0I often felt trapped under a dark, oppressive cloud of dread. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,6,5],"class_list":["post-154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-happiness","tag-irreversible-happiness","tag-life-is-not-perfect","tag-wabi-sabi-love"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arielleford.com\/wabisabilove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arielleford.com\/wabisabilove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arielleford.com\/wabisabilove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arielleford.com\/wabisabilove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arielleford.com\/wabisabilove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.arielleford.com\/wabisabilove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":277,"href":"https:\/\/www.arielleford.com\/wabisabilove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions\/277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arielleford.com\/wabisabilove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arielleford.com\/wabisabilove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arielleford.com\/wabisabilove\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}