So,  how to we attain happiness anyway?  Does everything in our lives need to be “perfect” before we let in the joy!!?  The reality is that there are not may of us that have the so called “perfect life”.   While having all the circumstances in our lives exactly as we would like them to be would be ideal,  it just isn’t the case.  Most of us have a picture of what we would like to experience and are either working towards it or have given up or haven’t even started as we don’t believe its possible.  Ok so I will get to the point.  The usual formulae we all unconsciously adhere to is this…Identify what we want and be happy once we get there.  Here is a different approach,  identify what you want, and then do whatever you need to do to “raise you vibration”.  In short this means to elevate your mood.  There are many ways to do this and her are a few:

1-  Imagine yourself right now as having already achieved the goal and allow yourself to feel how that would be.

2- Have gratitude/appreciation for what you already have in your life

3-  Do what is fun for you or makes you happier or more relaxed (run, watch a film, meet a good friend)

4-  Meditate

5- Remember what you have already achieved in your past and relive this in your mind until you feel your mood improve.

 

We are going to focus on No2, Gratitude.  If you are aware of the rule, as you sew so shall ye reap.  Or you get what you give out, or you attract what you are.  In essence, whatever you are feeling as true, life gives you more of.  So we are going to use gratitude as a means to not only lift our mood but also to attract more things into our life that we appreciate.  So look around you, what is there that you could appreciate.  I will give you a bit of help with this because we have become so accustomed to the abundance of luxuries that we have that we almost don’t notice them any more.  Take my computer for instance.  I could easily not feel anything about it as I use it almost every day and it can become just “part of the furniture” very quickly. I could think about it in 2 different ways:

1-  The “regular” view… everybody has a computer, its no big deal really,  this one is 5 years old, i bet there are newer faster models than this one, its a bit grubby now, etc etc etc.  You can feel the dull emotional vibe from those statements.

or 2- the appreciation view…. This computer can connect me to the whole world through the internet,  even though its 5 years old, is still working great.  I’ve never had any problems with this one,  I am so grateful for all the knowledge, entertainment and different applications that are now available on the internet. I love that I can call people AND see them on the computer screen.  Technology really has improved amazingly in recent years.  You can feel the upliftment in the above appreciation statements.

You can have an appreciation view with anything in you life, or event anything you observe or even just imagine.  The point is that you can consciously “craft” you mood.  If you play this game even once per day for a fews days (you need to do it until you feel an improved mood) you will notice your mind will start to automatically “give” you more things to appreciate, firstly it will be more appreciative thoughts, then outer experiences like fun interactions and then even material goods.  Remember… you reap what you sew, so! whatever you deposit into your mind as appreciation, life then says “ok so here is more to appreciate”.  Give it a go for a while and see the difference!