Happiness

I just returned from yoga class tonight, where the teacher spoke about happiness, a food-for-thought topic that's been making its way into my life as a common thread recently.

I heard a review of a book called "Shift Happens" that sounded interesting, so I downloaded the audio book.  To summarize, it's about how we all start life as perfect, innocent, unscarred souls, but as our lives progress, we inevitably experience negative experiences and emotions such as rejection, disappointment, heartache, anger, or feeling unworthy or unloved.  We develop mental and emotional wounds and scars, some that we are aware of and some that lie deep in our unconscious minds.  These  drive our emotions and our behavior, and mold our self-concept and our self-confidence.  We create a list of limiting beliefs that will be used to tell ourselves what we can and cannot do.  This list usually lasts for life.  

No one is immune to the bumps and bruises of life.  We all struggle with managing our ego that emerges to try to protect us from further pain.  But that ego often works against you.

The "shift" described in the book is about letting all that emotional and mental stuff be in the past - and really living in the present.   Can one really do this?  He presents a good logical and practical argument around the fact that thoughts aren't real.  They are electrical impulses in our heads; they come and go; and that they don't have to define us.  You can learn to recognize negative thoughts, see them for what they are, then choose new ones.   

It's also about choosing happiness, for no good reason. Most of us have conditions in our heads that we will be happy when we...

• a) find our perfect partner
• b) get that perfect job
• c) lose those last 10 pounds
• d) finally get that dream house or car
• e) win our age group in a race, or score that Kona slot
• f) .....fill in the blank....

And of course there's nothing wrong with striving for goals or focusing on excellence in your life.  The fallacy comes when you think that these things are the key to making you happy.  Once you achieve the goal, you enjoy it for a little while, then that emptiness that made you want it in the first place creeps back and you start focusing on the next thing to make you happy.  It's a vicious circle that can follow you your whole life, and make you wonder why you never feel completely whole or satisfied.  The truth is, real and long-term happiness is found inside yourself, not from an external source. 

People who are "achievers" often enjoy the experience of being very independent and self-reliant.  Yet, as humans, we are all connected  on a spiritual level, and share a collective consciousness.  Nothing happens in the world that is in isolation - the Butterfly Effect if you will.  Humans are wired to need each other, though our egos are quick to step in to encourage us to judge and compete with our fellow man.  That independent achiever personality mentioned above may fail to recognize his innate connection with other humans and cut himself off from meaningful relationships in his life, sadly never figuring out what was really standing between him and true happiness in his life.

Just like everyone in the world, I have negative stuff in my head I need to let go.  I'm sure it's an ongoing life-long process of reminding oneself what's important and what's not.  But I definitely see the power in the process.

As an athlete, it's helped me shift my attitude of doing workouts because they were on the schedule and I needed to "get them done" to really trying to be present in the workout and finding joy in the movement and the water/road/trail.   Thoughts are in my head.  They aren't all going to be great, but the ones that aren't, I can choose to let them go and try to find some better ones.   

As a competitive athlete, this perspective leads me to a place of wanting to do my best, but wanting my competition to do their best as well. I understand the common bond of a kindred spirit that I have with every triathlete who shows up on race day, and that they have worked hard to prepare as have I.   I know that the energy you send out to others comes back to you at some point.  I have so many examples of this in my life. It's also about letting go of the limiting beliefs that I have held about myself. In racing, I have learned that my mind will try to give up before my body must give up.  So, the power is in managing those rogue thoughts.

Our Team focus is on giving back at Ironman races, and the Hawaiian word "Kokua" reflects this concept for our Team.  So far, I have only met a few of the 43 athletes on our Team, but I do know that the Kokua spirit runs deep.  The commitment I see in their training and racing this year, the passion they bring to our online conversations, and the stories which have brought us all together tell me a lot about each of them as a person.  

Wishing you happiness.