I feel like there is one word that sums up each persons individual goals in this life.

One word that gets us out of bed in the morning, and puts us back in bed at night.

One word that we allow to determine if we have found success, accomplishment, or freedom.

That one word is…

HAPPY

Think about it… what motivates you?

Yeah you might say, money, success, love, friendship, relationships, etc. etc. but if you get to the root of what motivates you to have those things, it all comes back to your desire to be happy.

We all want it. Period.

We all want to be happy, to feel happy, to live happily.

If you know someone who says otherwise, they haven’t thought about it deeply enough.

But what is this word that we all strive to have so desperately?

What defines the word happy?

What does it actually mean to really be happy? To have true happiness? To live happily ever after?

It has been evident in my life that true real happiness comes from living a good Christ centered life. Sometimes even though we are doing our best to do that it can feel hard to recognize happiness in our everyday lives. Especially when you are struggling in one way or another.

Ironically this whole thought process and random group of questions came to me as I was working out a few weeks ago in my basement.

I was dripping in sweat and punching the air in front of me, doing a kickboxing cardio workout.

As I was beating the tar out of absolutely nothing, I felt something inside me,

it felt good,

it felt inspiring,

it felt freeing,

it felt motivating.

I had felt this feeling many times before but never thought to analyze it so deeply, or in such an awkward random moment.

What was I feeling inside you ask?

I FELT HAPPY!

And it felt so DARN good.

So good that it threw me off guard.(literally)

“Wait,” I thought to myself, “happiness doesn’t come from kickboxing, or does it?”

Then I started thinking about all my previous Kickboxing training sessions and how I had felt while doing those, the same feelings came flooding back to me.

I had been exhausted, sweaty, and in pain but somehow through all of that I was still feeling happy.

This acknowledgement of unexplained happiness led me to think of all the other times I had felt the same way or had similar feelings.

(living with depression I sometimes forget what it feels like to feel. Emotions can seem all rolled into one big blur of nothingness.)

The answers of ways I had felt happiness that came to me after that were a lot of different recent memories, and I was able to recall a lot more than I had expected I would.

Some other random recent times I had felt flickers of happy…

Immediately I thought of weeding my garden, planting flowers, push-mowing my lawn, and laying in the hot sun.

I thought of a long steep hike, talking for hours with my husband while on it, and the excitement of reaching the pinnacle.

I thought of cleaning my house even the dirty bathrooms.

I thought of sitting next to my child while helping them with homework. Figuring out a tough math problem with them, and saying I’m sorry when I had lost my cool.

I thought of racing my kids to check the mailbox for the daily mail.

Hearing my child practicing the same song on the piano 500 times until he finally figured out how to play it just right.

I thought of making my sons birthday cake, staying up too late trying to think of some special way to celebrate him and prepare for the next day as we did just that.

I thought of helping my toddler put on his shoes for the umpteenth time in the last 20 minutes.

Listening to the tiny details of the dream my daughter had the night before.

Watching a good romantic comedy with my husband and the spark it rekindled of our love we have for each other.

I thought of countless conversations I have had with my sisters who have made me feel validated and loved and made me machine-gun laugh like no one else can (if you know me and my sisters laugh you will know what I am talking about).

I thought of the arguments I have had with my husband and how it feels when we both say sorry and try harder to be more understanding of the other.

I thought of endless prayers and time I have spent on my knees pleading for answers that sometimes I feel have been left unanswered, but at the same time feeling close to a God who I know loves me regardless of my imperfections and struggles.

I thought of walking behind my kids on family walks and noticing them holding hands with each other and talking about their dreams and adventures together.

I thought of sporadic dance parties held in my kitchen and dining room with my kids where I made an absolute fool out of myself with the most ridiculous dance moves ever imagined.

I thought of seeing the buds on my peony, and strawberry plants each spring.

I thought of waiting to get to see my parents, my siblings, my cousins, my nieces and nephews after not having seeing them for several months because of the many miles between us.

I thought of the moments I have had with dear friends when we have been able to connect on a deep level.

This was a lot of deep thoughts to have as I tried to stay focused and motivated during my TV workout.

As I thought about all the times I had been happy or felt happy there were a few consistent things I recognized.

1. These moments I felt happy were usually unexpected. They came at times when I was not searching for it. They came in the mundane everyday events that surround me. They usually came DURING a situation not after.
   
2. Most of the times I felt happy was when I was exerting some type of effort. Work on my end, I would even say some of them came at times of pain, physical and/or emotional.
   

The times I felt happy generally had nothing to do with objects, quite the opposite. It seems most of them came when I was with other people or trying to better myself.

At what point in our lives do we start believing that we need to “feel” happy all the time to “be happy”?

We all know this is just a lie, it’s impossible to attain. Happiness is not obtained by winning a perfect life, like the lottery is won. Happiness can be found in a collection of (maybe short) moments.
Happiness can only be ours by having the opportunity to feel it’s opposite, which is sadness, pain, trial, defeat, etc.

Am I happy?

Its easy to get carried away in life always looking around us and consistently comparing our situation to someone else’s.

How we recognize feelings of happiness can be totaly different from how the next person feels happiness.

Happiness can be fleeting, and just because it is, doesn’t mean that you aren’t happy in life.

This may sound totally contradictory to what I am writing, but I consider myself a happy person even though I suffer from major depression, anxiety, and others metal struggles.

I have long periods where the fog in my mind is thick and happiness seems worlds away, but I know that just like everything in life nothing last forever.

The happy moments though they feel distant will eventually return.

Gratitude

I get a little annoyed when I hear people tell me to write my blessings down so that I can be grateful and focus on what I do have instead of what I don’t have. Most likely the real reason I get irritated at this is because I know I have to make the time to do it, even though deep down I know it works.

Have you ever written down what you are thankful for consistently, and daily?

Try it!

Sit and write down only the good things in your life? The little tiny blessings that when you are feeling down can easily be overlooked?

Things like the full roll of extra toilet paper you have in your bathroom during a crazy pandemic where all the shelves are fresh out of Charmin.

Or the clear sky outside causing the sun to shine bright through your window even if it is only for an hour, when the rain starts pouring down again?

How about the air conditioning you have in your car that you get to enjoy while you drive to work on a day where the temperature is 90 and the humidity fells like its 99%.

These things can seem minuscule compared to the post you just saw on Instagram. Someone who just posted a pic of their big beautiful house they just purchased, or a what looks like the picture perfect families all your friends have when you feel like your family life is less than ideal.

STOP COMPARING & START LIVING!

Even if you experience depression and anxiety, and happiness feels as though it might never be in your future again, the reality of it is that we are here to experience it all, the sad, the hard, the pain, the mundane, and with that we are definitely here to be and feel

HAPPY!

If you are not feeling any sort of happy no matter what your efforts are, try a little harder to recognize it. Your mind might try to stop you because it can take some extensive focus but push through.
Make sure you are looking in the right places for it. (Bad moral choices will never help you feel deep real happiness.)

Look up first- Pray that you can feel the love God has for you individually.

After all you can do if you still don’t seem to be able to feel it from God, recognize it’s not your fault. Even though you might not feel His love doesn’t mean its not there.

His love is always there. ALWAYS.

Seek help.

Always be willing to seek the extra help you need if your sadness is constant and you can’t seem to overcome it. There is no shame in getting help.

Seeking extra help shows strength not weakness.

Find your happy

I would be a fraud to say that kickboxing is the source of all true happiness in my life but I would be in denial to not admit that doing it sometimes for me brings flickers of what happy can feel like.

I would like to keep writing about this forever but I gotta get up and workout! I could use a little happy at this moment;)

How about you? What are some unconventional ways you feel happiness? Leave a comment below with any tips or tricks that have helped you recognize happy in your life.

xoxo,

Sara