So here is a question you’ve likely pondered and perhaps you’ve even turned to another in search of some guidance toward its answer. The question many of us seek to understand is how to live a happy life. The answer is simple. Relax.
Did that annoy you? Being told to relax annoys me. You see, the annoying part is that when someone tells me to relax it is basically saying, “Stop feeling what you’re feeling Aaron”. Which is of course, inherently, an annoying thing to say to anyone.
I am having a feeling that is one of the less comfortable ones and someone tells me to relax, mostly out of self-interest. I’m sure on some level this person wants me to stop experiencing this difficult moment so I, “feel better”. But the reason I’m being told to relax is also for themselves. If I relax, then the difficult feeling disappears, which means they no longer need to feel or be in the vicinity of an emotion that they find stressful or struggle to deal with.
Relax Into The Feeling
This is not the relax of which I speak. The relax of which I speak is relaxing into the feeling. When there is no struggle, there is no fight or avoidance of the feeling or of the moment as it is. There is no hiding from the experience that is actual and true in your body now - so then there is relaxation. When one relaxes and feels what is happening, with the ability to hang out with whatever feeling is in the moment, one is on the road to learning how to live a happy life.
How Is Relaxing The Road To Happiness?
We often associate happiness with external things. Family, the perfect vacation, a new toy, the ideal career, etc. This is not the road. That road is constantly shifting and changing; left turns happening when you want to turn right, veering off the road, stalling. This external world is a constant shifting of sand in which we have no real control. The landscape never stays the same, and just as the desert looks different after the wind blows, our lives look different with any shift in fortune. And when the external world shifts with the loss of a job for example, the happiness disappears with it.
Some people look to sex or drugs or shopping or TV or any variety of addictive past-times to find happiness. But we know this is even more fleeting than our family or job. All these things outside only bring happiness for a moment and then it fades. Some moments faster than others, but eventually they all fade.
So How Do We Live A Happy Life?
The only way to live a happy life is to relax. The more one slows down and feels into the experience in the moment, the more one accepts what is. Jeff Adler writes about this in his post “Why Am I Never Satisfied.” When one relaxes into the moment, the easier the experience flows through. There is no more grasping to hold on to the “good” feelings - just relaxation into the enjoyment of the fleeting moment. And there is also no more revulsion or avoidance of the “bad” feelings - just relaxation, watching and curiosity as it moves through and out, quicker and easier because of the relaxation and acceptance.
Living a happy life becomes more and more attainable because you are more and more present to life as is. This presence combined with acceptance leads you towards realising how to live a happy life and toward greater joy. There is no impulse to control and keep it the same, there is only acceptance.
Accept That No Feeling Is Constant
Rabbi Nachman of Breslov said long ago “It is a great mitzvah (good deed) to be happy always”. The thing is that Nachman was a bit of a depressive himself. He was this great rabbi and spoke of it being a great deed to be happy always, and yet he wasn’t. How does this work?
Happiness is not a constant state, yet we can live a happy life. Reb Nachman knew that no feeling is a constant state. Not on this plane of existence. However, from his perspective happiness was based on the belief in God and knowing. So even when the external world didn’t seem ok and the internal feelings didn’t feel great, everything was ultimately in its place and was ok. This feeling of trust in God, of trust in the larger picture, created an overarching happiness that infused even the darkest times.
I am saying a similar thing. The access point not being belief in God (though that may be for some) but the acceptance of feeling within the self. Happiness comes from the connection to and acceptance of the feeling in the moment, with the full knowledge and awareness that it is fleeting. The experience of the feeling in the moment is connection to life. Life as is. And this ever-changing internal landscape that is lived and experienced even in the dark times, with the full understanding that everything passes, leads one to greater and greater happiness. Happiness encompasses all the feelings. By experiencing our fear, sadness, rage, confusion, joy and whatever else appears, knowing they are transitory, we end up experiencing them all; living life as is and living it happily.