Practicing Happiness

www.SharonBallantine.com
Practicing Happiness:
Developing the skills to have a happier life.

We are all endowed with gifts in life.
Your gifts may be similar to those of your
children or siblings, or they might be
different. Each of us has a variety of gifts.

Our gifts, the things
that we excel at, can be
more commonly
referred to as our skills.

The word “skill” by definition
refers to the cultivated ability to do
something well through practice.

Whether we are conscious of it or not,
our skills develop as results of what
we have chosen to be good at.

We might consider first, what
motivates us. What inspires us in such
a way that we are impelled to practice
it again and again until we’ve achieved
a level of mastery. This is how we
develop our skills.

We can guide our children to tune
into what inspires them as well.
This will be our first conscious
step on guiding them toward the
development of their own personal
skills.

It can be helpful to reflect on why you
want to develop certain skills for
yourself.

One of the greatest
common reasons to
develop a skill is
because it gives you
joy. There is great
gratification in
practicing a skill that
simply makes you
happy.

Happiness is a mental state
and as such, it is actually one of
the few things in the world that
we can possibly be in control
of. Being happy is, in all
actuality a skill unto itself that
we can develop, cultivate, and
master.

Not only can we develop
and potentially master the
skill of happiness, but we
can also teach our children
to do so as well.

What happens to us in the world will
often dictate what emotions we feel. The
reality is, although we can not control all
the things that happen to us in the world,
we can control how we receive and react
to those things.

Happiness is expansive. It opens up the
door to possibility in our life. Happiness
is empowering and life affirming and it is
always an option that we should choose
to move toward.

Unhappiness on the contrary, is a
contractive force. It is a feeling of
loss and lacking. We can never
create our best possible lives from a
place of unhappiness.

Practicing the skill of happiness requires
us first to recognize that happiness is a
choice.

When you are unable to look around and
see evidence of things in your life that are
contributing to your happiness, you need
to make new choices. Practice choosing
to feel better about where you are and
find gratitude in what you have.

Choose to be happy. Go toward
happiness in your life. This simple
re-direct is the first step in
developing your happiness skills.

The way anyone gets better at
anything is through practice,
over time. By practicing being
happy you will naturally
develop that skill, too.

Observe your mind, and when you
notice thoughts arising that are
threatening to hijack your sense of
well-being, deliberately choose
another train of thought. You can
model this for your children, too,
and they will learn to develop their
happiness skills.

If your life circumstances are
threatening your state of happiness,
change them or remove yourself from
them. If you can’t remove yourself
from your circumstances, you can
practice removing judgment from
them.

By clarifying the things in your life
that bring you happiness and guiding
yourself mentally and physically
toward them, you will find over time
that you are residing in deeper and
more extended states of happiness.

Our happiness levels determine the
quality of what we live. If you make
happiness a priority and teach your
children how to prioritize happiness
as well, you will add value to your
life and everyone's life around you.

Practicing Happiness

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