Q&A 14 – Searching for Happiness is BS. (And some follow-ups.)

Is happiness something we need to create in our lives? Or does it occur naturally? And does searching for it actually get it the way of experiencing it?

You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. 

Show Notes

* A status update on my low mood (‘depression light’)

* Experiencing the inside-out nature of life due to a challenging situation

* Letting wisdom lead the way out of difficulty

* How our feelings, even scary ones, pass through us and move on

* Why happiness is not something we need to chase or create

Transcript of episode

Hello explorers and welcome to Q&A; Episode number 14 of Unbroken podcast. I’m your host Alexandra Amor.

I’m here today to talk about happiness.

The first thing I want to do actually is do a couple of follow ups quickly on a couple of previous episodes.

A couple of q&a; episodes ago, I talked about the low mood that I was in. And the experiences that I’ve had in the past with low moods being a precursor to some sort of shift or insight or transformation, that kind of thing.

My low mood is still around, I can definitely feel it.

I’ve been a little bit distracted by some life things that have been going on. But today, I’m very settled, and I can definitely tell it’s still there. In fact, I’m recording this episode on the day that it’s supposed to go out on, the Monday. And that’s really unlike me. I tend to do things in advance, but it was a bit of…I don’t want to say a chore. But it was a bit of an effort to get myself into the chair today and record this episode. To me, that’s an indicator that my mood is low.

I’ve been describing it to myself as ‘depression light’. On the scale of depression with 10 being the worst, it’s really definitely very low on that scale, like a one or a two. But I do notice it. So like I said in the previous episode, I’ll just carry on and take everything as it comes.

As ever, with these situations, it changes.

I was planting flowers on the weekend, it’s spring here now. And I went to the garden center, got some flowers came home, put them all on their little pots, so that I could put them out on my balcony. And, for example, during that experience, I was really content and really happy and distracted, I think, from my low mood. So I just wanted to point that out as well. We’re having a very changeable experience, which is something I’m going to talk about in just a second as well related to happiness.

Then the second thing I wanted to follow up on was I mentioned that there’s this uncertainty going on with my living situation.

And what’s been really interesting to note is that though it can be really scary I can really see my experience coming from the inside out. Sometimes I’m worried about what might happen in the future. Sometimes it’s not on my mind at all, and I’m very content or peaceful or just not thinking about it. And to me, that just points to the nature of our experience and how we think that our circumstances is our what create our experience of life.