Happiness and Joy

Feeling sad?  Maybe even really sad?  Then read on my friend, because no matter how much you've learned to identify with your pain, you are not your pain, your illness, or even your emotions. 

Want the  truth? UNHAPPINESS IS NOT THE TRUTH ABOUT YOU.

It's time to stop saying things like: "I am depressed." You may be experiencing depression, but you are not depression; you may be experiencing anger, but you are not anger; you may be experiencing grief, but you are not grief; you may be experiencing fear, but you are not fear.  No matter how much you're learned to identify with these feelings, they do not in truth define you.  Emotions are experiences; they are not who you are.

For centuries the Buddhists have taught followers to say "I am with anger," as opposed to "I am angry"; "I am with sadness," as opposed to "I am sad."  When you practice naming the emotion you are with, you help keep yourself from confusing your identity with the emotions you feel.  

Unhappiness and fear have a way of distorting vision and making false evidence appear real.  In the Taoist Bible, the Tao Te Chin, it explains that when you're unhappy and afraid:

The way that is bright seems dull;

The way that leads forward seems to lead backward;

The way that is even seems rough;

The highest virtue is like the valley;

The sheerest whiteness seems sullied;

Ample virtue seems defective . . .

Unhappiness is not a truthful state. It has nothing to do with your joyous, loving, unconditional self; it has everything to do with the ego--the thoughts in your mind that tell you that you're small, separate, unworthy, in exile, and have every reason to be afraid.  The ego is born of fear, and sees no spirit, no happiness, and no hope.

Unhappiness and fear feel real, but they're not.  Unhappiness happens when you wander away from your true self and "lose spirit"; true healing is simply a return to spirit, a return to love, a return to truth, and a return to joy.  Pain runs deep, but joy runs deeper!

The unconditional you is okay and all is well so give yourself a break.  A break from the incessant self-judgement, and a break from identifying with the pain because . . . (say it with me!) "I am not my pain."