The Goal of Perpetual Happiness- Guest Post By MARY CLISTA DAHL

 

                I love this blog because I feel at home whenever I read an entry.  It is a welcome addition to my daily incoming messages, tucked between my inspirational quotes.  Those messages all are a perfect fit to how I have come to see only the good always.

 

 

                I have come to believe that we are born into the world to experience only joy, to celebrate while we are here.  I felt that as a little girl, yet time, circumstances and poor decisions made from my non-authentic self, deviated me away from that perspective as I grew into an adult.

 

                I entitled my first book Giddy as Charged because so many people have described me as upbeat, optimistic, positive and happy as if that were an unusual thing.  It took me years to write that book because I was borrowing from my Father’s wisdom (he passed away when I was seventeen) and adding some of my understanding.  It wasn’t until I reached my fifties and I had faced my emotional and mental demons and suffered my deepest heartaches that I believed every word I had written. Now I am proud to be giddy as charged, and better yet, perpetually happy.

 

It took considerable skill and mental reprogramming to get there.  Also a belief that it could be done and discipline to find a way to do it.  For me this took a conscious awareness of what brings me joy, willingness to bring more of that into my life, changing my language patterns and attitude and reversing negative thoughts.  This last one was the most difficult since I’ve heard that we can have more than 70,000 a day.  Yet when I learned to slow them down through meditation and what I call Myfi (purposefully unplugging), with practice I got there.  Scientists call this brain mapping or neuroplasticity.  I am satisfied to consider it peace.  And it’s awesome.  Being perpetually happy is so easy.  It’s the getting there that can be complicated.

 

 

Here’s the thing. I believe that each of us not only has the capacity to discover their own formula to perpetual happiness, it is also our birthright.  My years between little girl and fifty-something were my learning years.  I’ve remapped my brain to weed out any sadness and hardships from my past to make room for pleasant memories and room in my heart for love.  And that, my friends, is how I manage to see only the good in my life and the world.  It’s not a secret, it’s a process; a goal worth striving for and achieving.

 

 

 

People still tell me I see the world through rose-colored glasses or say that I am in denial of my true feelings. I politely accept these comments believing that we all are born wearing those glasses and knowing that I have learned to embrace and cherish all of my feelings in the moment.  That is how I learned how wonderful it is to feel (not just to think) and to live.  To be.

 

 

My wish to all of my fellow human beings is to constantly keep your eyes wide open for the good and like what you see enough to discover your own process and find the path to perpetual happiness.

 

 

 

From her National Wildlife Federation Certified Wildlife Habitat sanctuary in Western New York Mary shares emotional and mental wellness through the power of words, love, human connection and nature.  She lives the quote from Hafez of Shiraz, “I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of your own being.” Mary is a writer, founder and emotional and mental health wellness practitioner. She can be contacted via her website Capture Life Writing.

 

See The Good would like to thank Mary for this very insightful post and for her continued support of this website. We hope that Mary will continue to contribute posts and to help See The Good reach as many readers as possible.