What do you do when you realise that, even though you have everything you've always wanted, you're still unhappy? How do you stop your eternal search for happiness? How do you find lifelong bliss, love, and joy, and move your life beyond happiness too? In Beyond Happiness, author and master healer Marnie McDermott reveals the answers to these questions and more. In this deeply personal account, she shares lessons, wisdom, and insight that touches the heart and inspires the spirit with the twelve principles of enduring bliss. For ten years, she searched in vain for happiness, only to find that the more successful she was, the more money she earned, the more things she had (and the more she strived to have), the more miserable she grew. She was a successful corporate communication specialist who had the world at her feet. But when she lost everything-except her life-in a devastating house fire, her priorities shifted. Now, in Beyond Happiness, she demonstrates that what we all really crave is lasting happiness of the soul. Driven to rediscover happiness and find enduring bliss, she studied alternative health and mind-body principles, immersing herself in esoteric wisdom. By following what she calls "the gentle knowing in her heart", she left the corporate world behind for the mysterious world of healers, mystics, and angels. Within Beyond Happiness, the keys to lifelong bliss, love, happiness, and joy for all who wish to move their lives beyond happiness await.
beyond happiness
THE 12 PRINCIPLES of ENDURING BLISSBy Marnie McDermottBALBOA PRESS
Copyright © 2012 Marnie McDermott
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4525-0604-3Contents
To Begin..............................................................xiiiPart I Happiness and You.............................................1Chapter 1 Happiness explored.........................................3Chapter 2 Limiting happiness.........................................13Chapter 3 Choose happiness...........................................25Part II: Mind Your Beautiful World...................................37Chapter 4 Principle 1: Create perfect order..........................39Chapter 5 Principle 2: Choose beautiful thoughts.....................51Chapter 6 Principle 3: Express your gratitude........................63Part III: Body Your soul sanctuary...................................75Chapter 7 Principle 4: Love the physical you.........................77Chapter 8 Principle 5: Nourish yourself well.........................89Chapter 9 Principle 6: Rejuvenate your energy........................103Part IV: Emotion Your Loving Heart...................................119Chapter 10 Principle 7: Free yourself from hurt......................121Chapter 11 Principle 8: Choose to be love............................137Chapter 12 Principle 9: Make today beautiful.........................149Part V: Spirit Your shining true self................................163Chapter 13 Principle 10: Cherish your peace..........................165Chapter 14 Principle 11: Be true, be you.............................177Chapter 15 Principle 12: Live with purpose...........................191To end................................................................20515 simple promises....................................................207Bibliography..........................................................209About the author......................................................211
Chapter One
Happiness explored
So many people talk about happiness. There are books, projects, websites, and even entire national policies on happiness. But if things like divorce statistics, the nightly news, and even the glum faces of people you pass in the street are anything to go by, few people experience true happiness in their days or their lives.
The United states General social survey, which has been conducted annually or biannually since 1972, shows two key findings relating to women and happiness:
• Over the last few decades, women, in comparison to men, have become less happy with their lives
• As women get older, they get sadder
But the findings aren't just unique to this particular survey, or to the United States. The results from six major studies of happiness have been released in the last decade, collectively representing more than 1.3 million men and women who have been surveyed over the last forty years.
"Wherever researchers have been able to collect reliable data on happiness, the finding is always the same. Greater educational, political, and employment opportunities have corresponded to decreases in life happiness for women, as compared to men."
Happiness is a new science and, globally, happiness is a hot topic. Developed countries are following the lead of countries like Bhutan, which has been measuring gross national happiness for decades
Research suggests that levels of happiness in Britain, the United states, and other countries remained the same even when other factors like disposable income and financial security increased Happiness research like the Global national Happiness survey and the Better Life Index by the organisation for economic Co-operation and Development, which measures well-being in thirty countries, shows that happiness is higher in countries like Bangladesh and Nigeria, ahead of European and north American nations.
The multiplicity of happiness
Happiness, like so many things in life, is subjective no two people will give the same response to this question: "How do you define happiness?"
We are all unique, and you will create your own meaning of happiness and of bliss You may even rediscover and recreate your definitions of both throughout your life, perhaps even as you read this book.
As an experiment, I asked people to share with me via my Facebook page how they define happiness You can see how varied people's views are with just this small selection of responses:
• "To me, it means just being in the moment"
• "For me, happiness is a mental state where you are comfortable with who you are, where you are, and what you're doing"
• "Family, friends, sunshine, and good wine!"
I also received this one, which I love:
• "Happiness is that indescribable feeling of joy and contentment, hard to explain but unmistakable when you feel it A soul smile, so to speak."
The multiplicity of happiness lies in the subtle experience of the word itself. On the one hand, the word happiness conjures feelings of joy, visual images of gleeful smiles, or contented moments of idyllic bliss on a tropical beach. Whatever happiness feels like for you, it fills you up inside. Everyone wants to be happy.
On the other hand, striving to be happy sees most people trying to change everything and everyone around them, dictated by some deep-seated belief that happiness is an external experience. The oversight of the happiness seekers is not realising that happiness is a state of being rather than an external experience. When people realise that they need to look within, and connect to themselves, happiness becomes a much more challenging concept and an even more challenging experience to find.
My role in writing this book is not to tell you what happiness is. My role is to help you rediscover it for yourself. However, just as I'm sure you have, I have experienced happiness in so many forms. Yet no matter the variation, the result was always the same for me: fleeting. It has led me to believe that there are five common kinds of happiness: storybook happiness, surprise happiness, surrogate happiness, someday happiness, and soul happiness. The first four result in fleeting happiness, but the fifth transforms it into enduring bliss
Storybook happiness
We frequently compare ourselves and our lives to others. We strive to have the storybook-perfect life we perceive some others having. Because they appear happy, we believe they are happy and make all kinds of wild assumptions as to the reasons for their happiness. We believe they must have found the key, that they must have all the right happiness ingredients. We want their "happily ever after," so we seek to emulate what they have. Sadly, we believe that whatever they have is better than our own lives.
This stems from not truly accepting who you are. When you don't love and cherish yourself, it is easy to compare yourself, often less than kindly, with someone else's life. You may perceive others to be more beautiful or successful than you, to have more thoughtful partners than you, or to have nicer homes than you sometimes you may go a step further, comparing yourself to people you don't even know, like the airbrushed gorgeous celebrity on the front of your favourite magazine or even fictional characters in television shows.
We judge all these people based on what we see—without any true insight into their lives. If what we see mirrors our perception of happiness, often we will go to extreme lengths to create our storybook happiness.
Surprise happiness
Happiness has been defined as an emotional state characterised by feelings of enjoyment, pleasure, and satisfaction. Enjoyment, pleasure, and satisfaction ... In my view, these are all the result of doing something—cause and effect, if you like. Depending on who we are with, what we are doing, and how we are feeling (the cause), we can dip in and out of the effect of happiness on a daily or even an hourly basis It's almost as if happiness is a surprise we are looking for and even trying to make happen, but we never quite know when it will appear.
We can all think of moments or events that have made us happy and put smiles on our faces. Perhaps for you, it came from receiving unexpected flowers from your husband, hearing a sincere and heartfelt thank you from a colleague, or even enjoying the simple pleasure of a sunny day. It might even be the way you feel when you buy something new or receive a gift. Perhaps you even base how loved you feel in a relationship on the number and size of loving gestures and gifts. Or you try to create surprise happiness for others by lavishing them with gifts rather than seeing that the best gift is your time and unconditional love.
The feelings of happiness associated with these things may last a while, but eventually the feelings fade and we wait for the next moment to be happy because of something or someone It is no wonder that although we strive for more and more, we're constantly left feeling unfulfilled.
Surrogate happiness
Surrogate happiness comes in three forms: when you base your happiness on someone else's expectations of how your life should be lived, when you put all your energy into making someone else happy because you believe that will make you happy, and when you expect someone else to make you happy through his behaviour and actions.
Happiness by expectation: too many people are living lives that are not theirs to live. They live their lives according to what others think is best for them. Foremost, our parents shape us. Sometimes we are so desperate for their approval and love that we live our lives the way we believe they think we should. What our friends, colleagues, and even the media think is best for us also influences us sometimes we are so busy pleasing people that we give away ownership of our lives. We ignore our inner voices and let others' opinions divert us from our paths. Now is the time to give up living your life according to other people's expectations.
Happiness by sacrifice: For many of us, it is easier to give love than to receive love. Some people ignore their own needs, preferring to focus all their energy on making someone else happy sometimes this is shaped by our upbringings. In my own life, I have been used to putting others before myself since an early age. The eldest of four children, I was a second mum to my youngest sister before I had reached the age of ten she would choose to come to me with her hurts, climb into my bed for reassurance if she had a nightmare, and confide her fears and dreams to me. I love my two sisters and my brother dearly, but being the responsible-before-my-time older sister shaped my belief that my role in life was to nurture others and put their needs before my own. That continued well into adulthood. I believed my role and my happiness stemmed from making others happy. The truth is, you can't make anyone else happy. Others are in charge of choosing to be happy all by themselves. Of course, we are here to love, nurture, and care for and share our lives with other people, but not to the point of sacrificing our own needs to meet theirs. There is a lot of literature around about the benefits of doing good for others ... and how doing so makes you feel happy A compassionate and generous heart is a wonderful gift. But the happiness that comes from doing good for others will only be fleeting unless you first bestow yourself with gentle compassion.
Happiness by delegation: You can no more make another person happy than that person can make you happy. True happiness comes from within When you delegate your responsibility for your own happiness to someone else, you unfairly tip the scales in your life. You unwittingly create a situation where neither of you will be happy because of the expectation of being made to feel happy. Often we look to our partners in our relationships to make us happy, as if it is their job. Yet we become more and more miserable when they don't live up to our expectations of making us happy, particularly if we believe that we are experts at doing it for them. Other people enrich our lives, they support us, they treasure us, and they love us. But happiness is your choice. No one can create it for you.
If you are searching for happiness in an external source or from another person, you hide your true self. You forget what makes you happy, what you want, what you need. Eventually, you no longer remember who you are, and soul sadness is inevitable.
Someday happiness
Someday happiness is having a happiness plan. It's when we plan to be happy ... someday, when all the stars in our lives come into alignment and create a cosmic burst of happiness. A happiness plan is believing that happiness is all about having the right ingredients in one's life. Much like following the recipe for your favourite cake, when you have all the right ingredients, the oven turned to just the right temperature, the perfect baking time, and a beautiful platter to serve it on to someone special in your life, that's when happiness will be created. Of course, this is all at such a deep subconscious level that we don't really ever realise we even have a happiness plan. But most of us are putting off happiness, telling ourselves we'll be happy when we are mortgage-free, happy when we lose five kilos, or happy when we take a well-deserved holiday. We're putting off happiness today, tomorrow, and even next week or next year, until our storybook lives are perfect, rather than focusing on being happy now.
Soul happiness
Can you remember the last time you were deeply, blissfully happy, when you were so happy that you felt you were beaming with joy ... so happy that you felt lovingly content with yourself ... so happy that you wanted to break into song ... so happy that everywhere you looked, everything and everyone had a golden glow ... so happy that you felt indescribably beyond happy? For a moment, hold that feeling of deep, blissful happiness in your heart. Imagine if you could feel that way for more than just a day, a week, or even a month or a year. Imagine if you could feel deep, blissful happiness all the time. When you do, that is what I call enduring bliss.
For me, enduring bliss is feelings of pure, unburdened joy. It is when you connect so strongly to your light and your happiness within that it becomes an infinite source of joy in your life. In some ways, enduring bliss is impossible to truly define It is beyond happiness.
Happiness transforms from fleeting to enduring the moment you really embrace and love the brilliance of you. I believe that happiness and a life with purpose are intrinsically linked. I also believe there is a difference between happiness and enduring bliss. We often settle for fleeting happiness without realising that we have the power to move beyond happiness to enduring bliss. Enduring bliss is part of who we are. Enduring bliss comes from happiness of the soul rather than happiness of the mind.
Soul happiness is a trinity within; I believe we can't truly be happy in a lifelong way unless we love ourselves, honour ourselves, and authentically live our soul purpose. We are limiting happiness because we are limiting love. By loving yourself unconditionally, you give your true self a stage When you love yourself, your spirit shines. You have purpose. You have peace of heart. You move from doing things you think you have to do to be happy, to finding joy and abundance in doing what you love. You change your vibration from one of seeking, striving, and pursuing to one of peaceful contentment. Happiness of the soul is when we become love and when we become happiness. That is enduring bliss soul happiness transforms our daily experience of fleeting happiness into lifelong enduring bliss.
• Simple reflection •
As you start taking steps to rediscover your enduring bliss, it is important to truly explore your thoughts, feelings, and views on happiness.
Ponder the following questions and spend time recording your thoughts in your bliss journal.
• What does happiness mean to you? How do you describe or define it?
• Right now, above all else, what is the most happy aspect of your life, and why?
• Regarding someday happiness, think about what might be in your happiness plan. Start each sentence with. "I'll be happy when ..." and then fill in the blank. Don't think too much about it. Just let your thoughts flow. When you're finished, go back over your list and write beside each statement the time frame within which you've allowed yourself to achieve this happiness goal. See page 19 for an example.
• Return to that moment when you recalled a time of deep, blissful happiness. What were you doing? Do you remember how long those feelings lasted?
Simple promise
Make this simple promise to yourself now. Remind yourself of this promise throughout your day or write it down where you will see it.
I am willing to rediscover my happiness within.
Chapter Two
Limiting happiness
We limit happiness in our lives in so many ways every day. At a deep level of our beings, we approach our days with a set of beliefs that shape how we view and experience our world, unaware that happiness is the essential building block of our souls. You are here to experience love and happiness fully. At a deep soul level, you are already blissfully content. So what is stopping that reflecting in your life? Quite simply, the answer is you.
The layers that shape us
There is a force within that gives you life. In your body, there is a priceless jewel. If you are in search of the greatest treasure, look within. ~ Rumi
At the core of your being is a bright, shining soul that only knows love, happiness, and joy. These qualities are so deeply ingrained they are like part of your soul DNA. You are love. You are joy. You are happiness.
Consider for a moment that you are a bright shining being; imagine you glow brighter than the sun. See yourself as that bright light. Now consider all the negative words, people, places, events and situations you have experienced in your life so far. Consider all the things that have upset you in the past and all the things you're worried about in the future. These form what I call the "layers of life". These life layers wrap around you like the layers of an onion or the delicate web of a chrysalis. They create such an opaque shell that it's likely you can't even see your shining true self inside. Life has hidden from you your pure light, your true self, and your happiness within.
Without even being aware, our experience of life has shaped our perception of our own happiness. Think about the moment we are born We are born pure, whole, and new. We are deeply connected to who we are, what we feel, and what we need. A baby is not reserved about sharing its needs; be it food, sleep, nappy changing, love, and attention, it knows what it feels and lets you know too. A baby is not fearful of new experiences or timid about life; everything is a wonder for it to behold, and it strives to experience the world through all its senses. A baby is blessed with the ability to be completely present, here and now, to experience every emotion with every ounce of its being. A baby is love. A baby is joy. A baby is happiness. With such pure feeling, babies also bless the lives of those around them.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from beyond happinessby Marnie McDermott Copyright © 2012 by Marnie McDermott. Excerpted by permission of BALBOA PRESS. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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