Happiness is the absence of striving for happiness.

But still… something was missing.

It can be frustrating when we know we should be happy and yet… something just isn’t right. Just because I look cool and collected on the outside does not mean I feel that way on the inside.

I knew I had my issues. I had my issues around eating, around my body image, and my tendency to isolate myself from others. The more I isolated myself, the more I lived inside my head, and the more I beat myself up over the fact that I’m “making up problems that shouldn’t actually be there.”

But that feeling is real.

The feeling that something isn’t quite right is real.

A huge chunk of my life was missing.

Happiness.

I realized I wasn’t happy. It wasn’t an easy realization to make. It isn’t something we want to admit to ourselves. It sounds so grim. “I’m not happy” – it sounds so final and depressing. I wasn’t depressed but that statement just sounded so… sad.

So I decided to go on a quest to become happier. I read books, articles, and blogs about the topic. I watched documentaries. I put more and more on my plate, thinking that all of these “happiness resources” have got to help me become a happier person.

I had the resources right there in front of me. But still… I wasn’t happy.

That’s when I realized something.

Just because I have the resources…

Just because I have the information right there in front of me…

It doesn’t mean that I’m actually taking action inside of myself to change.

We do this with many issues. We drown ourselves in resources with the hopes of finding not just one solution, but finding multiple. We want to try them all – and many times, WE DO.

Or so we think… but that’s why it doesn’t work. Piling these things on just doesn’t work. That’s not how change happens. Reading book after book and educating myself on happiness without any real action will not make me a happier person. It will simply make me a person who’s more educated on happiness. But not necessarily happier.

So I decided to stop.

I decided to stop searching for happiness and focus on FEELING happiness.

I remembered certain things that were reiterated from the articles and so I created simple action steps for myself that would allow me to focus more on MYSELF rather than continuing this quest.

I stopped searching for happiness because I wanted happiness to find me.

Better yet, I wanted to find joy.

I left behind my anxieties about finding the solution (although it wasn’t easy) and I began to just LIVE. I began to learn myself all over again. What is it that makes me happy? What is it that brings me joy? What sensations and activities bring me pleasure?

We have evolved into a society that shames pleasure even though it is the very core of our existence. We crave pleasure and we deserve to feel pleasure. We were made to feel pleasure. That’s why it exists.

That’s when the change happened.

I left behind what I felt I ought to do and started doing what my body and mind wanted to do.

I call this practice “sensual living” because it requires you to be more sensual in your daily life – to be more mindful of what you’re doing; to take time for yourself; to notice and take in your surroundings with all your senses. The very act of living a more mindful life can be transformational on your quality of life.

I believe that turning to mindfulness can really help us learn what we really need to do in order to feel that inner joy and peace we so desire. Once you stop and blatantly ask yourself “what do I really WANT?” the answer might surprise you.

It’s important to live accordingly with what your body and mind are telling you. Your body never wants to do you harm. So why not just surrender to its well wishes?

I needed some context for such a bold statement, so I flipped to the introduction and found the actual quote.  The full paragraph reads:

“Never do I fish as attentively as when I’m on the North Umpqua. I feel I owe the river the very best I have to offer, after all, the river has given its very best to me.  The North Umpqua makes me want to be a better fly fisherman.”

Have you ever felt this way about anything? Do you have any things in your life that make you want to be a better person?

Does the special person in your life make you want to be a better partner?
Does your job make you want to be a better employee or your company make you want to be a better entrepreneur?
What about your car? Does it make you want to be a better driver?
Is there anything in your life that would make you say: “I owe this the very best that I have to offer!”

In my role as a life coach for personal development, I frequently meet people who think they are “stuck”.  Often, the truth of the matter isn’t that they’re stuck, it’s that they just haven’t found something that demands the very best they have to offer – something that makes them want to be a better person.

Well, what if the answer isn’t something outside of yourself?  What if it’s not a person or a thing?

What about your life itself?

Please humor me for a minute… just for fun – imagine that you woke up tomorrow with the feeling that you owe your life the very best you have to offer!

What would that day look like to you?

What would it sound like?

Imagine living like that for just one day! How would that feel?

How To Be A Better Person – An Experiment

Now I’d like to propose something.  I’d like to propose that you make up your mind, right here and now, to actually do this tomorrow – just as an experiment.  You don’t have to tell anyone what you’re up to, you don’t have to recruit others to do it with you and you don’t need to make a big deal out of it.  Just wake up with the attitude that no matter what happens throughout the day, you are going to give your life the very best you have to offer! You are going to live your life in a way that makes you want to be a better person.

Be forewarned, this new approach could change everything!

Kefi is a Greek word that can be described as a feeling of pure exhilaration where you have bliss, excitement, and euphoria. During moments of Kefi your entire being experiences a rush that you want to share with others. You smile, laugh, dance, or sing. You do whatever it takes to release this joy. Hard to translate since words cannot completely explain the feeling when one does experience it. While Greek dancing at the full moon party in Folegandros’ port, I had it, and this is when my friend explained the word to me. It was beautiful. My journey is about finding Kefi and I know that all of us can find it if we just let it in.

My life prior to May was not about living Kefi.  It was about achieving, climbing corporate ladders, making more money, getting more degrees, working long hours, thriving on stress, buying homes, saving for retirement, etc.  You get the picture.  I was doing everything right; the way society accepts and defines ‘how to live a successful life’.  I am very gracious for the abundance that 11 years of working brought me and the experience gained while working in top consulting firms, travelling the world, and engaging with some of the world’s largest corporations. For me, it became a living nightmare as I dragged myself out of bed each morning to go into the office and sit in my dark cubicle.
I was not living my life; I was only existing in this life.  Actually, looking back, I really did not know how to live life, how to do nothing, how to have hobbies. I buried myself in work to avoid figuring out what made me happy. I sat in my backyard and realized I had no idea what I liked to do and what made me happy.  To avoid this dreadful feeling, I started to run again and searched for projects overseas. I was on my way to Afghanistan. The universe intervened.   Since I kept repeating the same things over and over, the lessons got harder and harder.   I was forced to sit alone with myself and begin the journey to transform my life and to create the life I wanted to live.  It was painful, but looking back, I would not change any of my life experiences.  They all weave together to create the amazing life that I am living.

I started to experience and feel ‘deep down’ truly blissful moments while away from work and on vacation.  I started to travel alone to remote places, met wonderful people along the way, sat in the park with Ingrid, did a lot of yoga, learned tango, opened up to the flow of life.  Time and time again, I experienced that when one slows down then situations are presented and we have what we need if we just listen and see the signs.

Dear life….where are you taking me next?  I am on a journey.  Destination unknown and I don’t need to know.  As long as I am on the path that feels right then my journey will be more worthwhile than the destination.  I know it will not always be easy, but I am prepared to welcome the experiences – good and bad.  My life is now about letting go of the control, letting go of the plan and just being open to people, places, and events.  I want to see what happens when I let go of the control.  I lived a structured life, used my logical left brain, did everything by the books and now I am free to do the exact opposite.  That is what I am doing now.

I am allowing myself to not plan and to travel to places where I have never been and to have an open mind.  I don’t make decisions as fast as I used to, I use my intuition to decide where to go next, book plans a few days before and try to do what feels right.  TRY…since I cannot rewire myself in a few months.  My logic kicks in all the time, I lose living in the present moment, I bring in past stories, I worry about what I will do when I get back to NYC, I worry I am spending too much money, I don’t always follow my heart and intuition and I end up back to square one- stressed, frantically running around.  I pull myself out of that frenzy and am back again on track.

“When the bird and the book disagree, always believe the bird.”   The bird is my heart and the book my logic.  Know your mind. Know your heart.  Know your courage.  My purpose now is to learn to always follow my heart.  If one lives with an open heart and follows it, then one can never go wrong. Following my heart fills me with joy and by doing things each day that make me laugh and bring joy, only then can I give that joy back to others.

The more we live our Kefi the more Kefi we attract into our lives.  My life is uncertain now, but I embrace the unknown and trust that if I create and live the life I want then all will be well.  I have no fear.  Since I left ‘corporate america’ and started my journey, I have felt so free.  I am free as a bird and I am able to see a happiness that I never really knew.   It is my Kefi.