Note: The wisdoms shared from this blog are from Ilchi Lee's new book, "I've Decided to Live 120 Years," available for pre-order on ChangeYourEnergy.com
At a certain point in life, you may have felt an unexplainable sense of unhappiness or unfulfillment. Maybe what you envisioned hasn’t come true, or things just don’t seem to be “going right”. This can be because you feel you’re lacking something, or simply because you’re stuck in a rut of all that’s happening around you. Maybe your health has declined so you attribute your unhappiness to not physically being well. Or perhaps your finances aren’t in the shape you’d like them to be. Maybe the friendships you have aren’t fulfilling, or you haven’t found a romantic partner with whom to enjoy the sensation of love and sharing a life together. There are a million reasons why someone would be unhappy, but how would you like to master your circumstances and become the owner of your own happiness?
Don’t be a slave of your environment
The external state of things, whether it’s our body, our living situation, our love life, or otherwise, can be described as our “physical environment”.
Physical health is one of the most present factors of our physical environment. Our bodies will change as time goes on—that’s something beyond our control. We may grow to be weaker, more out of shape compared to our younger selves and even less attractive than we once were. You may only have limited control over the changes your body makes, but what you do have total control over is the placement of your awareness. We can move it at any time. Rather than focusing on the shortcomings of our physical body, transition your awareness to that of your spiritual self that accepts everything as natural phenomena. Now, your eyes will start to open, and the earthly body you have, along with its aging, causes less strife.
Sometimes even more powerful than the physical environment is our emotional environment. Almost never a constant, our emotions rise and fall at all times. But, since it is also an environment, you have the ability to change it. You must redefine your relationship with emotions in order to gain ground and stop being the victim. In other words, don’t let emotions happen to you; rather, let yourself hold the emotions you choose. They don’t define you—you are in control of them completely. Negative emotions will arise no matter what, it is yet again another unavoidable circumstance in life. However, if we develop a centeredness within ourselves by taking ownership of the emotions we allow into us, we will be stabilized in a way which external situations cannot sway our peace. We must build a defense to guard ourselves from being stuck in a dark spot or being led by such feelings of negativity. A strengthened soul will calm the storm of emotions.
New sources of happiness
While our environment will often bring unhappiness and darkness to our lives, it can also be the main source of happiness. There are a few problems with it being your primary source of joy, though. First, if that environment is changed or taken away, your happiness is depleted, since it was dependent on that factor. Second, there may come a time when the environment seems to have everything one would need, but isn’t producing the happiness one would expect. You’ll reach a point of crisis eventually if you’ve placed this much dependency on your environment for happiness. It’s not easy to recognize the need for a shift, and many end up victims to their environment as a result. If you happen to realize it, you have a chance to take hold and find new sources of happiness. At the later stages of life, shifting to new sources of happiness is especially important. In our youth and primes of health, many of our pursuits for joy revolve around sex, money, power and other material things. Such pursuits will reveal themselves to be more fleeting and empty as time passes. When faced with the realization that you can no longer acquire these sources, or perhaps they’re not fulfilling any longer, you need an alternative. Otherwise, you will feel rather hopeless.
Shift away from your old pursuits and things of your environment to find new sources of happiness. You’ll come to find that the purest and most stable forms of joy can be found in yourself. Indulgence cannot be leaned on any longer. Finding joy within yourself is possible at all times, but takes getting away from the noise of your surroundings. Be alone in your thoughts at times and find a peace there. Learn how to gain a deep connection with yourself. Oneness with yourself is a source of happiness that is never ending, not of the earth and can be accessed no matter what your situation is. Don’t wait until it’s too late, take the time to find this valuable peace within yourself so that the importance of your environment is far less significant.
If we can part ways with our environment having power over us, we can be closer to true joy within ourselves. We should never let our environment govern our well being. The environment will change and it will affect us, but we can have a hold on how it affects us. Don’t let the fear of obstacles in your physical or emotional environment keep you from moving forward. We have the power over them, despite how intimidating they may seem. We needn’t be slaves to our environment and can always find new sources of happiness that are more sustainable and lasting.