When I was 25, I made a decision. I was going to pursue happiness, because that was the point of life, right?

Since I felt happiest when I was climbing, I moved to Bend, Oregon, took a job as a server, and headed out to Smith Rock to climb as often as I could.

I thought this would make me happy, and indeed, there were moments of peace, of joy, even happiness. But overall, the feeling was fleeting, and I wanted to feel happy all the time. I thought I could feel happy all the time. I thought that all the happy people I knew were also feeling happy all the time.

I didn’t realize that this constructed idea of happiness wasn’t real or possible, or even desirable. Implanted from years of watching sitcoms and reading fairytales, I believed those stories about happy endings more than I believed my experiences with emotions in real life.

I thought that my emotions were untrustworthy, to be ignored and repressed, and I was rarely certain of what I was feeling. Much of the time I felt depressed and tired, or occasionally manically joyful. My inner voice was judgmental, constantly measuring my thoughts and actions to an unattainable standard. I never felt content with who I was, only that I had to be better. And out of this mess I thought I could just ‘be happy.’

It took the book, The Language of Emotions, by Karla McLaren, for me to learn that all of the emotions have value and a place at the table. Sure, I learned that concept intellectually, but I didn’t learn it from an experiential standpoint until years later. I’m still uncovering unconscious contracts that tell me that certain emotions have more (or less) value than others.

That book was the starting point to approaching my emotions, and my happiness, from the perspective not of chasing, but of embracing them.

I had lots of ideas and feelings and contracts about my emotions, and what they meant about me. As I slowly disentangled what I believed about my emotions from my actual experience with them, I began to trust my emotions and myself more. As I began to flow with my emotions, my happiness began to flow along with the rest of them.

Happiness is not a constant state to maintain, but a part of the whole that comes with welcoming and listening to all of your emotions.

I’m still a work in progress with my emotions, unearthing new (old) unconscious contracts all the time that I didn’t know were there, learning to work with anger, sadness, hatred, and the suicidal urge in ever more subtle ways, and always, exploring what emotions mean to me, and to you.

What assumptions do you have about happiness? What have you learned about happiness that you’d like to pass on to your loved ones?

The past 4 years, I’ve created courses about Anger, Sadness, Shame, and Fear. I think it’s time for a course about happiness, don’t you?

Would you explore happiness with me? I’d like to know about your relationship to happiness: your blocks, questions, and hopes. Would you take this questionnaire about happiness, contentment and joy to help me understand where you’re coming from when you think about happiness?

Also, I’m leading a 1-week Channeling Emotions Intensive course in December that will focus on channeling happiness, contentment and joy. Join my newsletter and receive a discount on the course.

This is just the beginning of our exploration of happiness!