Are you happy?

In Part One we took a look at the two happiest places on earth lists (one named Costa Rica, the other named Denmark), saw where they differ, and here in Part Two we shall discover how happiness impacts a healthy life.

True health is not the absence of disease but a balance of life's forces.  You are in a constant state of flux, experiencing elation, despair, and everything in between - all the while trying to attain pleasure or avoid pain.  When your life becomes unbalanced, it is within your nature to strive for balance, to avoid or deny the unpleasantness.  While doing this, you draw from various sources such as the foods you eat and the people with whom you associate. How successful you are in attaining that balance depends on the quality of the sources.  Pure, whole, clean food can only help to support a body and associating with non-supportive, pessimistic, negative people would be a burden on an already stressed life.

The pathway to illness

...envy, hate and fear; when these sentiments are habitual, are capable of starting organic changes and genuine disease...
Alexis Carrel

Illness can be a way of adding interest to a bland, meaningless existence. The individual gets attention, special food, people making a fuss over them, etc., and the comfort achieved can bring about thought patterns that ensure the opportunity to achieve the state of helpless victim who needs emotional and physical support. 

It then falls to each person, the responsibility to nurture and celebrate him or herself as integral members of not only their immediate community, but of the world itself.  A key to a successful outcome on this is a shift in perception toward understanding that challenges are ordinary and so is emotional pain.  All of life, be it a rock (even inanimate objects have a life-span) on the ocean floor or a gestating infant is always and constantly changing - some more quickly than others - but basically not remaining static.  Those who judge circumstances as good or bad find themselves always at the mercy of their own perception. Those who accept that life happens around and with a person but not to a person enables that individual to pass through challenges without being taken down by them.

Avoiding is not overcoming

Judging yourself against the prosperity of others becomes a never-ending life challenge that only becomes worse over time and brings about emotional pain.  For some, medicating or dulling the pain becomes a means of dealing with a life challenge.  Unfortunately this does not address the actual problem and can actually make it worse.  The American consumer culture would lead you to believe that happiness is just a purchase away and all of life's ills are solved with a pill.  As it turns out, Americans have become the worlds leading pill consumers.

Some pathways to happiness:

• Take a look at your possessions.  Did you buy them to impress someone or because they brought you joy?  Think of that the next time you go shopping.
• Surround yourself with people who appreciate you - who will tell you the truth even when you don't want to hear it.
• Find an altruistic outlet like volunteering at a shelter or becoming involved in a community project; not to be noticed, but to genuinely do good for someone or something.
• Find a place for spiritual development.  People who are connected to a place of worship are generally happier and feel less isolated when challenges arise.
• Talking about things that are bothering you will help relieve stress.  Counselors and support groups offer non-judgmental help while meditation; guided imagery and hypnotherapy are also options.