Chapter 15 Inner Happiness

Welcome RPW, We are continuing on our journey through the book “Fascinating Womanhood.” This was a tough chapter for me. I am summarizing what I can, but some of it was a little cringy. I added lots of content at the end that was just my own compilation. Enjoy.

Happiness

”Inner Happiness can carry you through the turmoil of life with a calm stability. Your life will not necessarily be free of problems and disappointments, but you will have the power to face these problems with a spiritual calm.”

”The Foolish Man Seeks Happiness in the Distance, The Wise Grows it Under His Feet” - James Oppenheim

What Causes Unhappiness

Although the book characterizes unhappiness as failure of the individual, I want to tweak the wording a bit to say that it is a failure of alignment with ourselves and our true purpose. Unhappiness can be caused by finding ourselves in situations that don’t align with our values. Unhappiness can be caused by feeling out of harmony in our environment or relationships. Unhappiness can be caused by addiction, personal stagnation, and lack of meaningful purpose in life. Unhappiness can be caused by mixed up priorities, self-centeredness and perfectionism. It also can be a chemical or hormonal imbalance that would benefit from professional examination.

Happiness versus Pleasure

The word pleasure derives from the word “please” and is a sensual experience. For example, something which pleases the eye, or the palate. There are good and wholesome pleasures such as nature, sunshine, music, fine art, sport and recreation, as well as fashion, architecture, beautiful homes and gardens. These things bring pleasure, but not happiness. There are also unwholesome pleasures, such as sin, pornography, gambling, alcohol, unhealthy foods, etc… although they may feel good, they bring many negative consequences to our body and ultimately our emotional health.

Happiness is much different than pleasure.

”Happiness is a deep feeling of spirit, a combination of peace, joy, and serenity.”

”Dedication to high goals brings struggle and opposition. But with it comes a new found joy, not only the joy of achievement but the joy of newfound strength, a strength gained in conflict and experience.”

Achieving Inner Happiness

Positive thinking is not quite what the author suggests, rather that happiness is something that must be earned. It’s something that must be carefully tended to and grown with patience and courage and effort. One must follow spiritual laws governing happiness, which include:

Fulfill Domestic Role: Happiness starts in the home. Devote yourself to being an excellent wife, mother, and homemaker.

Develop Character: People who are truly happy have noble character traits such as kindness, gratitude, honesty, and responsibility. Overcoming sin or addiction brings inner happiness, not just by ridding ourselves of unwholesome habits, but because of the victory after the conflict.

Give Service: Get involved in something benevolent, worthwhile, and meaningful to you.

Do Creative Work: You can create your own beauty by working with your very own gifts. Whether it’s your hands, your voice, or your heart, spend some time working out your creative muscles. This could include artwork, music, gardening, fashion, even working on your own appearance.

Accept yourself:

”In the process of becoming an Angel you are a Human Being, prone to errors in judgement...It’s not fair or useful to be hard on yourself.”

Appreciate Simple Pleasures: It’s not so much that the simple pleasures bring you happiness, but that you practice your ability to appreciate them. This is a very similar concept to having gratitude.

Seek Knowledge and Wisdom: Ignorance is not bliss. The pursuit of knowledge and wisdom is a wholesome pursuit.

Is Love of Husband Necessary?

”A man’s love is essential to a woman’s happiness in a complete sense, but not to the inner happiness I refer to. In fact, you must first find inner happiness before your husband can really love you.”

Assignment

”Make an evaluation of yourself to determine if you are happy within. If not, in which area of your life are you lacking? Review that part to see how to gain greater inner happiness. Inner happiness is a quality of spirit which must be earned by a victory over our weaknesses and an upward reach for the perfection of our character. It is like swimming upstream. It is found in the great efforts and achievements of life and in faithful devotion to duty.”

Read Chapter 16: A Worthy Character

How to develop Inner Happiness

This is my own list, not from the book

Sleep

I’m starting with sleep for a reason. Sleep is important! You will never be successful at developing your inner light if you don’t refresh your battery first. The national sleep foundation recommends adults age 18-64 to get 7-9 hours of sleep. That’s quite a lot! Are you getting that much? The second part of this equation is that having a consistent sleep and circadian rhythm is also good for you. So you can’t squeeze by on 5 hours a night and then make up for it over the weekend. Try to go to sleep and wake up at the same time each day. Sleep has important implications on our mood, our energy, and even our weight. According to this WebMD article Skipping sleep and being in a state of fatigue sets up your brain to make poor decisions. Including shortcuts in life to save energy, and impulsive behaviors to get a quick fix to feel better such as sugary coffee or procrastination. Sleep deprivation also makes you have less sensitivity to insulin and higher cortisol levels. Both are bad for your waist.

Set a bedtime and stick to it. If you need to make drastic changes in this area, start by going to sleep 15 minutes earlier that usual each week until you’ve built the habit to get to bed earlier.

Have a bedtime routine. This could be stretching, skin care, journaling, reading.

Avoid caffeine , alcohol, and any other substance that could affect your sleep.

Keep the lights off. Avoid screen time before bed, and don’t look at your phone if you wake in the middle of the night.

Make your bedroom a place for sleeping and intimacy. Not a place for work, television, or lounging about.

Journaling

This is a powerful habit to help you actualize your goals, and it is great for stress, anxiety, depression, overall mental health, and producing inner happiness. It can help you to focus on meaningful tasks that you can accomplish. It is a reminder to be using your creative brain power to make progress. And it can also keep you away from “all or nothing” thoughts, or negative self talk such as, “I never…” or “I totally failed.” Journaling gives you organization and clarity about many things in your daily life and can be a part of your routine to reflect, and have gratitude. I also found a cool subreddit that you could channel even more of your creative energy into.

r/ bulletjournal

Exercise.

I love to exercise. And it’s not just good for your body, it’s good for your brain too. Exercise can reduce stress, release feel-good chemicals, and also keeps our bodies healthy and beautiful. If you like to read, I highly recommend the book, “Spark, the Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain” It’s kind of a nerdy read that breaks down all the benefits of exercise. It breaks down sevel topic points into chapters. If you have depression but you don’t have ADHD, you can just read through the sections that pertain to you.

Here is a huge infographic about Happiness and Exercise

And another Article by How Stuff Works

And if you just stick to Reddit there’s a sub about exercising your way out of depression R/ EOOD

Define Your Values

Do you ever feel like you are doing things because you suppose you should? Do you know what values define you, and where you want your life to take you? Or is that picture vague?Even though we feel like we may be in the best position to “Know ourselves” that’s still a skill that takes time and effort. I think that a very important way for us to seek our own inner happiness is to know what that would be. I also think it can help to shape our actions if we had a better definition of what we are trying to achieve.

I found a website that has a few exercises to clarify your values if you need more direction. Life Values Inventory

Seek Professional Help

Therapy can be a positive tool to help you with issues that range from literal medical diagnoses to just trying to get ahead in life. I think that being proactive about your mental health is a key piece of being truly internally joyful. I was in therapy many many years ago, and I know it was beneficial in helping me move on to bigger and brighter parts of my life. There might be a bit of nuance involved in therapy, such as dealing with the limitations or availability of insurance, to finding the right professional who can be of the most benefit to you, but therapy is an important tool in achieving inner happiness.

Create your own fun

It’s not a secret that I’m obsessed with Rachel Hart. Episode #25 of her podcast talks about Creating your own fun instead of just consuming it. She starts of with anecdotes about her childhood and some of the games that her an her friends used to play at, creating obstacle courses and creating fun with their own imagination. We are living in a world where being entertained is as easy as picking up your phone, or a drink, or a donut. You have constant, on-demand entertainment available to you at every turn, even if you are just living vicariously through “following” someone on social media. So I would like to challenge you to explore and create your own enjoyment, not just by sitting back and being passively entertained. What do you like? What do you enjoy? How would you define something fun? When you sit back and are passively entertained, it’s “easy” and it’s a nice shortcut for your brain. But there are usually consequences. You spent money, you sat on the couch too long, you ate too much, you drank too much. But when you create your own fun it takes more energy. It’s harder. You have to be more active, and engaged, but there aren’t the same negative consequences. Some of these ways to make your own fun could be playing games, exploring, using creative energy to write poetry or play music. It could be dancing, or singing. All very feminine ways to express joy and light.

Surrender

That’s right. If you can Let Go, Trust, and Surrender, you will find the peace that you are seeking.