The feeling of ‘feeling alive’ is different for everyone. With that, the trigger can also be different. Ironically, feeling alive (for me) has nothing to do with my physical self. Of course, there are moments of great happiness that relate to my physical being, like after a big laugh, enjoying time with my friends, or the serotonin boost after a successful workout session. But those are feelings of happiness, which I can merely describe as a boost of the 'happy emotion'.
Moments when I feel alive can be different from when I feel happy.
The 4 Stages:
I view happiness as the ‘boosts’ we get in life. They can often be influenced by external factors like events, careers, relationships, travel, food, hobbies, etc. I think in the age of social media omnipresence, everyone seems to be chasing happiness or seems to be portraying ‘the happy life'. From popular bloggers to the ordinary Joe, we all seem to search for this idea of happiness when in fact that may be temporal. Happiness isn't a constant. As the feeling of happiness wears off, the 'happiness high' disappears and we often start to believe that we are unhappy because of that contrast. Contentment and bliss on the other hand are altogether different; they are ethereal. This concept could be described as the 4 stages of
happiness, or perhaps what we should be working towards.
Level 1: Excitement. Excitement can often be mistaken for happiness.
Excitement is merely a temporary burst of joy or a physical symptom of happiness. It can be acquired by material and physical achievements, such as a new car, or designer handbag, or by attaining that ‘perfect beach body’ (whatever that means). I think it is common practice to dwell on this ability to acquire in order to feel that temporary episode of excitement. Then, in turn, believing this to be what happiness is. Here is where things get problematic. When people start to believe that this feeling of temporary excitement is true happiness. We start to associate our sense of success with material things.
I still do think we all need excitement in our lives. We shouldn't feel guilty when we enjoy those temporal moments of joy and/or invest our time in adding more excitement to our lives. I love the satisfaction of saving money, and finally buying that thing I've wanted. The important thing to remember is that the buzz is nice, but it's not everything. We all get so caught up with this dopamine rush, that we forget what's ultimately important, which is to detach our sense of happiness from material assets. This requires effort because you are going against potentially what is human nature. It requires us to think and understand, and teach ourselves to detach. However, when this becomes common practice, we can achieve peace.
Level 2: Peace. Peace is about accepting. Peace is being.
It's the 'Goldilocks Stage' where everything feels just right. Not because everything is actually right, but because your perspective paints everything that way. This is easy to practice when things are good, and almost impossible to feel when things go south. It's easy to feel irritated and restless. Achieving peace is all about reframing. Reframe how you are sat with your own feelings. The best way to practice this is to meditate. Meditation can help you sit in the traffic of your own mind and just observe. Not to change or control the traffic but to understand.
Meditation is a practice that is so fundamentally human. The act of closing your eyes and focusing on your breath, something so simple can reintroduce peace into your life. I try to practice meditating on a regular basis (when things are good or bad), and it has helped me realise how normal my emotions are. How it is all part of this great experience of being a human. Finding peace is finding comfort in the discomfort. It sounds contradictory but to simplify - we are engineered to feel sadness, anxiety, depression and fear. In healthy doses, these feelings protect us and guide us, and meditation has helped me recognise this. It has helped me to observe my feelings and normalise them. All in order to feel more alive.
Level 3: Contentment. This one I believe every human struggles with, even those who supposedly have the ‘happiest life’. Contentment is finding peace and experiencing life as it comes, and experiencing all its colours. Yet, finding joy in all given circumstances. It’s accepting the spectrum of human emotion. Ironically, that means in order to be ‘happy’ you have to feel sadness, anxiety, depression and uncertainty. To achieve contentment, we have participate in the continued practice of peace (level 2) alongside consistent gratitude. To be content is to accept the way you feel and find ways to be grateful for those experiences, both good and bad. It’s when you experience the downs can then you experience the ups. The reason this stage of being happy is so difficult is that you can't just learn it. You have to keep practising. You may have the perfect job, relationship and social life, and still, feel unhappy.
Achieving contentment is in many ways like having a bird's eye view of your own life. It’s not about resisting your feelings but observing them and processing them. It is in those tough situations when you are re-evaluating aspects of your life is when you need to take a step back to find contentment.
Let’s say you hate your job. It is bringing you a great sense of unhappiness and anxiety. Sometimes, life isn’t as easy as ‘I am going to quit tomorrow’. You have bills to pay and a life to afford. You can’t leave your job until you find the next suitable thing. In this situation, it’s ok to take some time to sit and sulk in it. It’s ok to feel sorry for yourself. After a certain point, you have to find some middle ground. You have to find contentment. This could be finding moments at work that are good, whether a meeting that went well, a piece of work you feel proud of or even your coffee breaks in the office kitchen. It could be outside of work, maybe you work on your hobbies, or find joy in finding good books. It could be something big or small, but recognise that regardless of this thing that you may hate, there are good things, and all the bad stuff is always temporary. To feel alive, you have to find moments of contentment.
Level 4: Bliss. Last but not least, realising your own space in the world is both significant and interconnected. When we think about happiness, we often think about how to make ourselves feel better, how to feel good. But maybe, we need to see ourselves as a unit that is part of a big web.
The way we are, behave and feel inevitably ripple out. Bliss is all about harmony, about tying excitement with peace to achieve contentment. Bliss is about the continued practice of gratitude. It's about feeling alive! It’s about knowing that we are powerful beings and that we can affect the happiness of others and our own. It’s about recognising that ‘achieving bliss’ is about doing good. Start to see yourself as a part of the world, and do good for others. Be kind, and generous and see others as a piece of yourself (a.k.a if you want something for yourself, do something good for others). Inevitably, it will come back to you. The goodwill reaches you, and you will achieve a sense of bliss.
Practising kindness is hard. Not because the act itself is hard, but because I think we forget about it. We are so consumed in ourselves in this fast-paced life. We are racing through our routines. We are looking for ways to make our own lives better and more fulfilled so that the key actors around us can become invisible.
Both people we know and love and strangers alike, I think we are all a little guilty of ignorance. It's this tunnel vision syndrome that wrote a book called 'Me, myself and I'. The feeling of a kind gesture goes both ways. Both the receiver and the giver get something from the interaction. In order to feel alive, work towards this sense of bliss, the feeling of knowing that the world is more than you.
This article was featured in the latest issue of Ensemble Magazine. To view the whole issue, filled with free and fun content, read the issue here.
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