Why don’t we live a joyful, peaceful, harmonious, and loving life?
Over the centuries many have not only pondered upon this, but many have also written about the so called ‘secrets’ out there of being able to do so.
The majority firmly believed their writings could attain this.
None were ‘wrong’ they have written exactly what they believed to be true from their own perspective.
Some have given their interpretation of joy and happiness in a way of a materialistic. ‘Manifest your dream life, become financially rich’ etc. This is a headline which the writer has perceived to be, what humans want. So, those who follow it will be those who want just that, in that they believe that financial wealth will give them joy, love, happiness and peace.
I’ve met many of these humans who have gained ‘financial freedom’ and they have an abundance of cars, houses across the world and only fine dining will suffice yet, I’ve not met one of them, who is truly happy, and their life is full of that next million to make, or the next big thing they’ll buy or do.
You see, the exterior of our world, the materialistic in our life is not actually what creates happiness for us and in us. Yes your new car or new house or even your bank balance may give you a sense of happiness, for a short time and as ever it will not last, it will pave way for the wanting of another new car, house, phone, and any other materials you ‘want’.
It makes for you always reaching and searching for your wants, yet them wants never actually making you truly joyful and happy for long.
There is an old saying which springs to mind. ‘If you keep doing the same thing, you’ll keep gaining the same results.’
So, if you keep wanting for that next big thing, car, house, money, tv, holiday etc… They will always make you feel the same. Happy you have it, and that happiness subsides as soon as you want for the next big thing, and you’re left with the anxiety which always comes with wants.
So, if this is the case why do we humans ‘want’ to create anxiety and unhappiness in ourselves for the sake of material possessions?
Why would we choose to feel that enough is not enough?
The simple answer is that we’ve been taught that enough is not enough and that we should always strive for more possessions because after all, we are only an upstanding member of ‘society’ if we have a good job, a nice house, all the new tech which comes out, aren’t we?
Why?
Why is it we are only decent members of ‘society’ by keeping stress and anxiety alive within ourselves?
One can speculate that this is the way, just because humans want to create financial wealth for themselves, what a never-ending circle society has created in us.
‘The all-new improved phone will be released in 3 months, it’s a must have.’
Even though you only bought the all-new improved phone 6 months ago.
‘The next generation in motoring, early bird offer save thousands’
Even though the car you have is perfectly good and was the next generation of motoring a year ago when you bought it.
‘We’ve just bought one of them new executive houses in the development out of town, it’s got everything for the kids nearby and even a gym.’
Even though where they are living, has everything they need around them, and when they bought it, it was a new executive house. But then you say to your partner, ‘I wish we could buy one of them.’
It is even pushed and pushed ready for our kids going back to school, the huge advertising showing kids in new clothes and slogans like, ‘your children will be the envy of their friends’, So we anxiously feel we don’t want to send our kids to school in older clothes. (This one is on the fence though as our kids grow so damn quickly nowadays. Haha, but I am sure you get it.)
Can you see where I’m going with this?
It is everywhere and we see it in everything, the new improved washing liquid, the all-new tech etc etc…
We even see it in our schools and workplaces… School tables of how the school is performing, ‘sorry little David is not hitting his targets in maths, he is falling behind the ‘norm’. Rather than just supporting little David if he requires it, but without ‘labels’.
Working conditions are geared towards targets and you reach targets and then it’s not enough, you have new targets to reach.
Now I’m not saying that it is ‘wrong’ to have healthy targets in schools and workplaces, what I am saying is that there is a continuation of ‘society’ creating wants for us and in doing so from an early age right through our lives we have stress and anxiety because of these wants.
I’m also not saying that it’s not a good thing to have material possessions, I am saying that the kind of wants of material possessions are not actually our own wants, but they are manipulated into us by ‘society’.
Because if the material possessions we gained from a want made us truly happy, then why would we want for more, and why would it cause us to create stress and anxiety within and make us ill?
It seems to me that ‘gratefulness’ has been wiped out of society, or rather been turned into a manipulation factor also. ‘be grateful you have a job and stop complaining’ Yes, be grateful but if you’re not happy in your job, create the steps required to either be happy in it or to find a job you are happy in.
Gratefulness is one of the human basic needs, not something to stay stuck in something which makes you unhappy.
Hopefully you’re still with me and can see how ‘society’ over many, many, many, many years has created these ‘wants’ in order to gain financial wealth and ultimately control of what we all want and in fact do.
So, how do we actually create long-term sustainable joy, peace and love in our lives in this ‘modern society’?
How can we break chains with the anxiety and stress we allow ourselves to be in?
There is a word in the previous question which is within the answer… ‘Allow’
Humans are creatures of habit, this has been shown psychologically many times over and simply put, ‘society’ has created a habit in us from childhood and continues to reiterate that habit throughout our lives.
From childhood it teaches us nonstop that we ‘should’ be like this, we ‘should’ attain this, we ‘have’ to be like this, we ‘have’ to have this.
This teaches us to always want, to always be stressed and live in anxiety because of fear, fear of failure, fear of not being ‘good enough’ fear of letting ‘others’ down, fear of rejection, fear of everything except the one and only thing we ‘should’ fear and that is fear itself.
Okay I’ve waffled on now so to the burning question.
How do we live a joyful, peaceful, calm, and loving life.
The answer is pretty simple, but it’s difficult to attain.
To ‘allow’ yourself to do so. How?
By living in this present moment rather than living in our mind where the past and the future (which we all know doesn’t actually exist) and stop basing our choices and decisions on the past and future, which are both only stories in our mind, and are only our unique perspectives on them stories.
When we ‘think’ of a past event it is only a memory, and next time we think of it, we are thinking of the memory of that event, next time we think of it, we are incorporating thinking of the memory of the memory of the event. Heard of Chinese whispers? This is your memory of an event in your past.
When we think of the future it is and can only be based on our memory of our memories in our past, so we base our future choices on a form Chinese whisper.
Our past is a story we tell ourselves from our own unique perspective. Have you ever chatted with someone about something that happened to you both, only to find that their story is different from yours, even though you were both there at the event which occurred.
It’s a story we tell ourselves and we create this story in our thoughts based on our unique perspective and based on all our other thoughts.
So, when it comes to a choice about our future, the choices we make are based on this story of Chinese whispers. This is why the recall of an event for us is different for someone who was there also. When you find one thing which resonates with you in their story, it reiterates in your thoughts that it actual happened that way, or it didn’t, so your reiteration and their reiteration from your story creates a whole new story altogether.
Habits are created in all of us by upholding these stories and society continually pushes these stories it has given us since childhood.
They are mere thoughts in our unconscious mind, and it has the effect that our thoughts run and rule our lives. Thoughts which are only stories we continually keep telling ourselves.
If you work in the same place and drive the same time, the same route every day… Have you ever arrived, and not actually remembered how you got there. This is your unconscious mind taking over with the habit that you have allowed to be created.
The unconscious mind is also known as the habitual mind, the preprogramed mind and the egoic mind. It’s all the same, and the fundamentals of it were created before you were 7 or 8 years old, then reiterated right through your life.
This is why it is difficult stop your thoughts running your life!
Simple, as all that is required is to come into your conscious mind, so you are in control of your thoughts and your thoughts are not in control of you.
Difficult because these thoughts have formed a habit, and the habit has been set and reiterated over and over and over again since we were children.
For thousands of years, it has actually been known how to stop our thoughts being in charge of us, and many throughout these years have tried to show us how to be in control of our thoughts. Our modern society over hundreds of years has done its best to push it away by creating this, fear of being in control of our own thoughts in many ways, one of which in more recent times is to call it ‘mumbo jumbo’ and its only for hippies.
Well it’s not, it is the only way we can be in control of our thoughts and not allow our thoughts to control us which keep the habits going which no longer serve us and allow us to create fear, anxiety, pain, and unhappiness within ourselves.
As I said it’s simple to do and the simplicity of it is, we just breath. Yep, we just do what we do every day, we breath.
But we focus on our breath, and in doing so when we focus on our breath we don’t ‘think’ while focused. Thoughts will pop up, and as soon as we realise our focus has changed from our breath, we merely turn our focus back to our breath.
Carrying this out you’ll find the length of time you are focused on your breath will become longer, and every time a thought pops in, you just turn your focus back to your breath, each time you turn your focus back to your breath without thinking of the thought that popped in and in doing so creating new thoughts on top of the thought, you are forming, no creating a new habit. This habit is one of being in control of your thoughts and not your thoughts being in control of you.
You can carry this out anywhere, while stood in a queue, while doing the dishes etc… But also, at the beginning of you practicing, sit in a quiet place to carry it out. Don’t set a time aside, just decide to do it if you have a moment to do so. Even if it’s only for a few seconds each time it is working.
This is what has been known as basic meditation for thousands of years.
Go figure eh, that mumbo jumbo stuff is actually real and good for us by having control of our thoughts and not allowing us to live in fear, anxiety and unhappiness.
But the effects are profound once we are in control of our thoughts. Once we are we begin living in this present moment and all our choices are based on the facts in this present moment and not on a story in our mind. You also begin to talk and do from the present moment taking action based on love, happiness, joy, and peace. Doing so changes your future and creates the knowing, that no matter what happens in your life, it is okay at this present moment, so decisions and choices in problematic times are only in this moment, and just as seasons pass, so will the problem with decisions and choices based on reality and not a story we tell ourselves.
This is how we live with joy, love, harmony and peace in our lives, by being present in this moment and giving ourselves control over our thoughts and not our thoughts controlling our lives as they do.
We become more aware of everything in life, from within ourselves, seeing the world differently through pure unconditional gratefulness of and in every moment and everything in and around us. We become more aware of others and more aware of our actions and reactions before we actual act and react.
The one and only condition to being in control of our thoughts and all the beautiful things which come with it is…. Not to ‘want’ for anything but to do it just to be in stillness within our minds! But, once we have this stillness of mind and are in control of our thoughts, we focus more clearly, we think more clearly and we will begin to feel Joy. Be grateful of and for that, it is enough!
It is a profound state compared to the unconscious living we do on a daily basis, and it is where we find unconditional love, joy, peace and harmony not only within ourselves but, for ourselves and in everything and everyone else, the whole universe.
There are many obstacles we as humans have before us, for us to be the presence, living in our conscious mind with pure unconditional love and joy. But once we live in the awareness of the present moment, the ball has begun rolling and we can begin to live in and with pure joy.
Breath focus my friends and much love from me to you all.
JT Noor