Sunshine on a Rainy Day

I woke up this morning feeling inexplicably sunny.

Now that's nothing unusual for me, because I am usually a happy person, and I like to spread joy to people around me, but why so sunny today in particular?

I decided not to get caught up too much in the whys and just enjoy it instead.

It was tipping down with rain when I woke up, and quite a miserable November day here on the South coast of England, but my inner sun was shining brightly in spite of this, and I've had a big grin on my face all day!

As I wrote this, the sun came out and shone through my window. I'd like to think that I had something to do with that...

Recently, I've been trying a new gratitude technique I came across on the wonderful Leah Shapiro's blog called the Daily Yum. Sounds fun doesn't it?

Well basically, it's a gratitude exercise with a difference; a daily ritual to start the day in the best way possibly and use the law of attraction to make the day as yummy as possible. I've been doing it for about a week now and I love it! I'm definitely feeling less like baked beans and more like ice cream! 

(Soya ice cream for me of course.)

The more I learn about the laws of attraction and about true joy and happiness, the more it all makes sense, and interlinks perfectly.

The root cause of all unhappiness lies in the mind. Your thoughts are ultimately the things that can make you happy or sad, not your external circumstances.  It's how you think about them that counts.

I believe that we are all incredible spiritual beings having a human experience. What I mean by that is that we unlimited souls living in very limited human bodies, living on our little plant called Earth. Most of us don't remember that we are omnipotent spiritual creatures, and that's part of the game. We are here to learn things afresh, to experience new things. It's not supposed to be easy, but it can be wonderful.

Now, surely being happy is something we all know how to do isn't it? Or is it really?

Something I've discovered that most of us aren't very happy at all, because we've forgotten how.

Children are born with this inner happiness, but sadly our narcissistic culture trains it out of us, and the lack of focus on inner peace and joy means that we forget how to be happy in ourselves, and actually unlearn it at some point.

 The capitalist-driven influences in our modern society encourage us to look outside of ourselves for happiness and validation, to acquire possessions, cars, houses, jewellery, trophy partners and other status symbols of "happiness" and "having it all" but, ultimately we all know deep down that none of those things will make us truly happy.

I've said this before but it's worth repeating:

Nothing and no one can "make" you happy - only you can do that.

I've spent many years working on this. I've overcome depression and various difficulties in my own life, all because I was so determined to learn how to be happy again. There are plenty of resources out there to help with this, and I'll be talking about this subject in more detail, in some coming articles.

But for now, please let me reassure you. No matter how unhappy or stuck or just plain dissatisfied you might feel in yourself and your life right now, you can be happy again.  Permanently.

You have an amazing light inside of you, and once you reconnect with your inner sunshine, nothing and no one will be able to keep you down, ever again.

So shine my friends, learn to be a light to yourself and others - lets bring back the joy!

It's going to take more than a little rain to take my sunshine away!