Happiness is often considered as our birth right, and we ensure that we die happy and fulfilled. It is often the case that we are continuously bombarded with the idea that happiness is the ultimate, and almost all self-help experts develop, share, and market their tools and techniques to make us happy. The problem with these tools is that they limit our choices in life. Read any self-help book and you will find words like “great vacations, financial freedom, excellent relationships, nice big home, sky jets,” etc. and they are portrayed as the signposts of our happiness. If our neighbor or our friends or the world at large can see those signposts, we are happy and content. Most of us have set standards for happiness and if those standards are not met we feel unhappy and unfulfilled.
Universal truths often don’t have any opposites and they do not change. Luckily, happiness is not considered as one of the universal truths because its opposites are sorrow and sadness. If we seek happiness, we must be prepared to also experience sorrow and sadness. When the external source of our happiness is removed, we often feel badly about ourselves and start even to curse ourselves because subconsciously we believe that we have engaged ourselves into actions that could not bring us happiness.
Joy on the other hand is the universal truth — if you are in joy, you can laugh and laugh on for hours and that too without any reason. The source of our joy is our inner-self because when in joy, we often remain detached from our external environment and just enjoy those blissful moments. We do not need any therapists or experts to make us joyous — to be in joy is the real ultimate for all of us. It is our basic nature to remain happy and blissful.
One of the best ways to experience the joy has been designed and developed by Institute of Heart Math. The technique is really simple and can put you in extreme joy if you continue to practice it, regardless of whether you are poor or rich, satisfied or not. Heart Coherence is based upon the simple principle of using the power of our heart to invoke emotions within us that can us make us happy and joyful. It uses the power of our heart and puts it above our rational and thinking mind to redirect our emotional state to a more positive and optimistic nature.
Here is how to do it:
- Focus on your heart and start to breath in 6 seconds cycles — inhale for 5-6 seconds and exhale for 5-6 seconds. Our heart is in the center of our chest so focus on the center of your chest and imagine your heart expanding with your breathing cycle.
- Continue to do so and when you start to establish this rhythm, shift your focus on your heart in the center of your chest. Imagine as if you are breathing from your heart and synchronize this focus with your breathing.
- When you achieve this, just imagine any happy moment from your life and feel the intense happiness of that moment. Supplement that moment with the joy and allow the joy to be downloaded into your heart — feel that joy is being downloaded into your heart. Allow the joy to naturally fulfill each cell. Don’t force anything. Just focus on and enjoy the subtle happiness in your heart.
- Continue to do it for at least 15 minutes a day, and believe me, you will never be the same person again — you will be free from the false notions of happiness and will continue to experience JOY.
