Do we have the right recipe for happiness?
Recipes for Happiness
There comes a moment in our life when we realize the world doesn’t need to change, our relationship to it does. That’s when the door to freedom opens. We start to ask ourselves, is our recipe for happiness the right recipe?
Most of us have inherited recipes for happiness. We think happiness comes to us when we get married to the right person, when we have the right type of education, the right type of job, living in the right type of neighborhood, having the right type of car, the right type of retirement, and even the right type of grave site! Sounds crazy, but really, we go to ridiculous lengths to grasp for happiness externally. We want it all to pan out a certain way and even with the perfect headstone, the perfect words on the headstone, and usually a nice tree over top, and a view of the ocean.
Eventually it becomes very obvious to us, that these recipes for happiness that we have inherited from our parents and our cultures expectations - don’t work! As Michael Singer once said, a ‘midlife crisis is the most rational thing he had ever heard of!’ It’s clear to many of us through our own personal experiences, that you can have a wonderful relationship, and not be happy. You can be very wealthy, and not be satisfied. You can be respected by thousands of people around the world and still feel insecure, and not feel whole.
We spend half our life trying to achieve what we think we wanted - to feel joy and fulfillment - only to realize that we have all this stuff, we thought would get us there, and for some reason, we still don’t feel whole. In fact, we feel more anxious than ever, we are flooded with insecurities, we feel battered by others harsh words, and end up sleepless and depressed. We have it all, and we still feel like crap!
Surely there must be another recipe for happiness? We all come to the edge point of our ability to keep making things happen.
A different recipe for happiness
There is another recipe for happiness, but most people never consider it. In fact, it’s less about learning a new recipe, and more about unlearning. Unlearning means getting curious about all the roles, and identities, and beliefs you have taken on to ‘fit in’ and start to question who you are beyond these superficial identities.
Unlearning involves a lot of compassionate inquiry to get clarity on how we have become ‘caged’ in the first place. Most people never do this, instead living their whole life based on what others have prescribed to them as the recipe for happiness.
Unlearning involves a process of both ‘letting go’, and finding authenticity, including:
Noticing the patterns of social conditioning. The consumerist, competitive culture around us wants us to stay caged. Professor Paul Dolan from the London School of Economics says the social norms are prescribed by others and taken on by us. They are not based on our true nature.
Transcending the constraints of our upbringing. Our job as an adult is not to stay stuck in the victimhood of our past and blame every dysfunctional pattern in our present life on our upbringing. Rather, our job as an adult is to notice the conditioning, and transcend it, rewrite the story. We notice the dysfunctional patterns, so they no longer rule our everyday lives.
Becoming less attached to our identities. A good question to ask is ‘Who am I?’ This helps us understand that the ‘real me’ is not the teacher, executive, or the parent. These are all roles and identities we have taken on. we have gathered wants beliefs, and labels that seek to describe who we are. Like a script in a movie, we have found comfort in this character, and we connect deeply with the narrative believing it to be the defining essence of our being.
The beginning of breaking free of these old ways, is to notice the patterns, to connect to our wise inner self (more on this next time) and begin to shine our light of awareness on these old stories and notice how they’ve kept us caged. Most people are far too afraid to examine their life in this way because letting go is frightening. However, what we find is that it’s been us creating the stories all along. Which means we also have power to rewrite them.
The cage door has been unlocked all along, can you see the illusion of the prison walls?
“Maybe the journey isn’t about becoming anything. Maybe it’s about unbecoming everything that isn’t really you, so that you can be who you were meant to be in the first place – Paulo Coelho
Many people have reached a point in their life that feels like they have achieved a lot. They have education and skills, they may have a high-level job, a family, and home, and have done everything society tells them will bring them the ‘good life’.
And, yet there’s still a feeling of unfulfillment. They don’t feel like they are living a life of their own, but rather, a life based on how others have told them they should live.
If this feels like you, or you are caught in habits and life situations that don’t serve you, or just curious about how to live in more alignment with your potential, then invite you to stay curious about this content.
Breaking free of the life you never signed up to, but kind of just happened to you, is possible. In the next few weeks I will share inspiration for how to live a more fulfilling, healthy and meaningful life. I will share practical insights based on the ancient wisdom, the wellbeing science and my own experience of ‘breaking free’ from social expectations that didn’t serve me.
Jo Jarden is a personal trainer, yoga teacher, and the founder of Heart and Mind Yoga studio 54 Holmwood Road, Merivale, Christchurch. She has 12 year's experience as personal trainer, yoga teacher, and workshop facilitator including working with:
Business executives
Gyms, group yoga & fitness classes
Farmers and rural settings
Workplace retreats, events, and conferences