Happiness takes work, and it’s worth it

Happiness is something I always thought was never going to be available to me. This is based on my trauma, negative past experiences, and a chemical imbalance. My default is more than melancholy, it’s a prison of unhealthy beliefs about myself, life, people, and the world. 

Tackling the chemical part of depression is just one part of it. Sure, things improved dramatically when I started taking loads of probiotics (unfortunately all the antidepressants I tried had bad reactions, so I had to try alternative methods of generating sufficient serotonin). But even then, there were still a lot of core beliefs and habits that kept me going back to the same way of thinking about myself and my life. Even traditional talk therapy couldn’t break the glass and get me out of such a prison. 

What I found is that happiness takes hard work and lifestyle changes. Chris Hall’s courses break down how to implement these changes step by step in an unintimidating way to guide us in self-care, whether it’s simply getting outdoors more, exercising, self-love, adequate sleep, being aware of our alcohol consumption and how that affects us, and processing and communicating negative emotions (as opposed to pretending we aren’t bothered and clogging ourselves up with these feelings) and challenging our beliefs that hold us back. 

In addition to self-care, Mr. Hall’s tracks are broken down into other topics such as relationships, perspectives, and pursuits. The progression from self-care into these topics is really helpful in having a fully rounded happiness practice. The best thing we can do is understand and share this happiness, to help others on their own path.

For me, cultivating my own happiness has felt like battling an illness in that it’s a daily effort to manage my own thoughts and feelings and understand them. Recovery is forever, but that doesn’t mean it’s always going to be an uphill struggle. It gets easier, it really does. You start to develop skills and toolsets to tackle these programs that pop up to keep us from being truly happy. 

Listen to Discovering Your Path To Happiness – How To Be Happy and more self-improvement audio programs on Audiojoy — download free on iOS or Android.