Happiness

I know what happiness is. It is a feeling deep down inside that bubbles out when I look at a magpie perching on the topmost branch of a willow tree that is bent with the first snow of the year. It is a feeling of contentment when I sit in my house and watch flickering fire light and am grateful for all that I have. It is going to yoga class and being with myself. Happiness is driving home after rock climbing knowing that I have stretched physically and emotionally. Happiness is loving and being loved, in all of love's incarnations.

Some write that being happy is a conscious decision. I agree that we choose happiness but my experience is that I needed to clear a path in my life and my thoughts that would enable me to be happy. The readers of this blog have witnessed some of the barrier falling as I mused upon my fear of falling, my fear of not falling, my pre-occupation with trying and my thoughts. Over the past months, I have written far less than I have in years. Prior to this blog, I kept a journal, writing in it regularly for about seven years.

Through writing both in my journal and blog, I have cleared out my thoughts. There is still plenty of underbrush but the pathways to happiness are more clear than they have ever been. I suspect that I have written little over the past months - one or two entries here a month, one or two entries in my journal - because I was in the process of checking that new barriers would not emerge. I recall that one of my fears was that "the other shoe would drop".

The shoe has not dropped and I am confident that even if it does, I can navigate the way barefoot or with one shoe or new shoes. I am writing again because that is one of the things that makes me happy. This entry feels good.

Namaste,
Ginny