We probably can't be totally Healthy and Well without it!

The subject of happiness is a serious one. Many books have been written about it in the last decade and in the wake of the positive psychology¹ trend, it has become subject matter for a number of universities. Many schools of thought and holistically oriented disciplines emphatically believe we cannot be truly and wholly healthy without having an overriding general sense of happiness.

Of course, the Founding Fathers elevated the subject by enshrining “the pursuit of happiness” in the U.S. Declaration of Independence as a natural objective and fundamental human right, the idea of which is generally ignored throughout history by the ruling class.

It is said that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. The same might apply to happiness.

There are no universal criteria for beauty and likewise happiness is a very individual experience. What makes me happy might not be what makes you happy.

The normal healthy individual would rather be happy then not, yet happiness eludes most people. At best, for most, the state of happiness is spasmodic and rarely sustained as a temporary state of joy or the experience of occasional pleasurable events. Still others seem to be so invested in their unhappiness that one could say they find their relative happiness in their unhappiness.

In general, babies are more often happy than not. Except for some limited periods during their waking time, and unless they are hungry or feel some physical discomfort, their normal state is happiness expressed by smiles and laughter. This is also true of young children.

As a child increases it's interactions with adults, by age five or six, he or she begins to become increasingly less happy. For a majority of children, the resulting unhappiness grows as the child becomes a teenager and young adult. Unfortunately, this is often a time when many teens and young adults experience depression, even suicidal tendencies.

If health requires an absence of disease, happiness requires an absence of unhappiness. Unlike a car that has a neutral position between Drive (forward) and Reverse, the human being only has an On or Off position when it comes to happiness. It is like a room without windows. The light is either on or off. This can be a useful realization.

What if happiness is always present within our being but not necessarily expressed? Even when it is not expressed, could we conceive that happiness is nevertheless latent, that it always exists in its potentiality?

It is just like a lamp in a dark room that waits to be turned on. If happiness is not expressed, it is not because it disappeared. It’s because we have unconsciously given in to some idea of unhappiness.

Conversely, if we can eliminate our unhappiness, wouldn’t it follow that we should naturally and normally express happiness?

Why wouldn’t our emotions behave in the same manner as the functions of our physical body since when the cause of a disease is defeated or removed a state of health returns?

The physical body benefits from self-regulating processes (homeostatic mechanisms) that will return the body to a state of equilibrium after it has been under any destabilizing inner or outer attack. It returns to homeostasis, a state of balance with normal physiological functions.

Experienced happiness is expressed happiness. 

You would have to make an effort to hide your happiness when you experience it. It is like a spring that has been pushed down momentarily and is ready to spring up the moment whatever holds it down is removed. That becomes a clue for achieving greater and more frequent states of happiness, but it has a requirement: the awareness of our state of unhappiness and what is causing it.

Just as our physical attributes can be developed with sports activities or certain manual work, and just as our mental capacity can be increased by intellectual activities, we can learn what makes us happy and how to get there more of the time.

It merely calls for us to develop a greater emotional intelligence when it comes to our own emotions. It demands attention to our state of awareness.

This might not be an easy task for some people because very often many things are not what they appear to be. Who we thought might become a friend might reveal himself or herself to be an adversary. A pleasurable activity might turn out to have significant negative consequences. We must develop a certain degree of discrimination on what we accept as friendly or unfriendly to our innate sense of happiness. This is conscious awareness of who and what we are and consequently, what we will experience as positive or not.

Happiness is what reinforces our innate sense of our true self. It is when life brings to our experience people, things, places, and conditions that resonate with us on a deeper level—the level where there is peace, inner joy, and happiness. Happiness is also felt when the mind is at rest and free of worrying thoughts.

Human beings generally tend to learn in three steps:

• First, an idea comes to our awareness.
• Then we pass a value judgment about it: Is it true, practical, beneficial, and in keeping with our values?
• But when embraced, it is only with the third step that it becomes a factor in our experience: When we make it a part of our lives and living. Then it becomes no longer an idea but a personal ongoing experience.

Happiness is a deeper and more significant emotional state than what is referred to as joy. Joy is generally shorter lived, relying on outer factors such as receiving a gift, having an encounter with a friend, event, or place.

Happiness is more akin to contentment. It is a deeper emotional state that makes a greater beneficial contribution to our physical and mental states of being. Peace of mind accompanies happiness which is not the case with a burst of joy.

Unhappiness is often defined as a disconnection from or a lack of the things that make people happy in general and each one of us in particular. Consequently, moving toward happiness requires an awareness of what as an individual we need to reconnect with. Happy family life and rich friendships tend to promote happiness. The same applies to the presence and experience of beautiful natural scenes.

Conversely, having to experience ugly, polluted, miserable places, and finding ourselves with a lack of friendly human contact are barriers to the experience of happiness. The exception would require an exalted state of spiritual connectedness.

Are their simple ways to promote happiness?

In a recent article from Dr. Mercola’s newsletter of January 11, 2018, we read an attention-getting headline:

“Could Enhanced Wellness and Vitality Be Just a Whiff Away?”

The article states:

Aromatherapy—or the use of essential oils—has been embraced since early times to promote wellness and vitality. With exciting new research exposing its many potential benefits for emotional and spiritual well-being, its time has arrived.

This brings support to PHYTO5’s new “Beauty of Emotions” treatment. This leading edge treatment is intended to restore a state of happiness using the essential oil-rich quantum energetic PHYTO5 skincare products which are formulated according to the Five Element Theory of traditional Chinese medicine and in which both vital energy and emotions become balanced.

The treatment protocol assists the client to become aware of her or his dominating emotion and it helps remove any imbalance.

Freed of negativity, latent happiness is restored.

A series of treatments with home use of the energetic serum (called Phyt’Éther) corresponding to each of the five elements (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water) helps maintain the state of happiness.

Balanced emotions are key to inner health and vitality which reflects outward in the skin. The secret to a high quality of life, living, happiness and beauty is the balance of emotions. When we work with the body’s physical matter, unseen vital energy and emotions, we create a very real and viable holistic strategy for successful beauty, vitality and longevity outcomes all of which are dependent on our ongoing state of emotional being which we hope is one of happiness most of the time.

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 ¹Positive psychology is “the scientific study of what makes life most worth living”,[1] or “the scientific study of positive human functioning and flourishing on multiple levels that include the biological, personal, relational, institutional, cultural, and global dimensions of life”.[2] Positive psychology is concerned with eudaimonia, “the good life,” reflection about what holds the greatest value in life—the factors that contribute the most to a well-lived and fulfilling life.

Positive psychology began as a new domain of psychology in 1998 when Martin Seligman chose it as the theme for his term as president of the American Psychological Association. —Wikipedia reference for “positive psychology”

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