Happiness Is an Inside Job

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In other words, my happiness had to come from being in a relationship, from having good things happen, and from having control over the good things happening. But like really, your love should be conditional and there isn't anything wrong or unromantic about having conditions for the people who love you and for your love for other people.

As Boorstein has discovered in more than three decades of practice as a professional psychotherapist, the secret to happiness lies in actively cultivating our capacity to connect with with ourselves; with friends, family, colleagues; with those we may not know well; and even with those we may not like.And it also explains why you hear about studies that show people who live in slums in third world counties are just as happy as we are – they don’t think they have another choice in life. With her encouragement to breathe deeply dispersed through the book, the reading process becomes relaxing and joyful. this book seemed just the right amount of deep understanding, insightful teaching, in-the-trenches feel with enough fluff to make it readable and relatable. I can list a lot of things that make me happy: the ocean, kitesurfing, potluck dinners with my friends, coffee, puppies,… I’m sure you can easily list a few things that make you happy. Sure, we need to look both ways before we cross the road, and a healthy respect, even fear, can assist in that habit.

This might not feel natural to you at first, to be conscious to be in your happy zone but like all of us, we are stuck inside patterns, behaviours and auto-pilots. I’ll describe how I’m able to make spontaneous choices around the things that I want to pursue, like yoga training in India.

It’s draining having to work at convincing those around me that I am not soft, weak or in need of parenting changes – and that the approach I use is effective because it takes time, effort and meticulous planning.