Times are tough, money is tight, people get sick and hearts get broken.  It's easy to feel so stressed and anxious that we literally forget how to be happy.  I don't know about you, but when the stress piles up and I'm going through hell and then someone tells me happiness is a choice, I can get kind of cranky.  Still, that's what I'm saying today: The possibility of happiness is always with us and always our choice. Ultimately, it's the only antidote to stress and pain. No matter what.

The name Ananda means "Divine Bliss"  the ultimate happiness. I gave the center this name not because I have this bliss, but because I want it, and I need all the reminders I can get that it is already here.    

Michael Singer, whose book The Untethered Soul is the single best book I've ever read about the practical effects and benefits of living with meditation, says that the highest spiritual path a person can take is to choose happiness.  That's it. You don't need hours of prayer,  chakra balancing, yoga, meditation or Sunday School.  You don't need to renounce the world or commune with angels.  You simply need to choose happiness no matter what. This choice, this faith in the ultimate goodness of all things, automatically affirms and strengthens our connection to the Divine.

 

It's not easy.  We tend to believe--wholeheartedly--that happiness depends on the conditions in our lives, not our response to those conditions.  We believe that if we could just fix this one thing-our weight, our love life, a new job, enough money--then we'd be happy. And without that essential thing, happiness is impossible. 

I'm not saying our problems aren't real.  They are: a sick child, not knowing how to make rent this month, a beloved alcoholic relative who is slowly killing herself and there is nothing you can do because she doesn't want your help: these are real, heartbreaking things.  We want them to be better. We want them to change.

And so we have stress. The discrepancy between what we need and what we have, and the fear that goes along with that gap. 

 

I don't know about you though, but for me, when I actually have achieved my heart's desire, I pretty much the next day-sometimes the next moment-want something else.  The Buddhists call this monkey mind, always swinging from limb to limb. Monkey mind cannot bring us happiness because it's always on the lookout for the next best thing.

Monkey mind will definitely test our commitment to happiness no matter what.

In my house, the rule for dessert at dinner is that you have to eat a 'good enough' meal and use 'good enough' table manners, the definition of 'good enough' unfortunately depending more on how tired Mommy is than any consistent number of vegetables eaten or the proper use of a napkin. Still, there are rules and regularly enough my kids don't get their cookies.  Except for Sunday night. This is "No Matter What Night" and no matter what, they get dessert. Usually ice cream sundaes. 

Trust me when I say that when I first created this plan, my kids totally tested my commitment to it. No matter that they don't eat a bite of dinner? No matter that they hold contests to get milk to run out their noses? No matter that they jump on the table and kick their plates on the floor? It took them awhile to believe that when I said no matter what I meant it--and definitely there have been times I wanted to take it back.  So far, I haven't. 

If you make the commitment to happiness as your spiritual path you can trust that you will be tested.  Situations will arise and you will know that there is no possibility you can be happy through it.  And maybe, for awhile, you won't (I've got lots of experience falling off the happiness wagon. Read my blog).

 

But you can always come back to happiness. You can always choose again. 

There are lots of ways to help relieve stress. Ananda promotes and sells many of them, tools and treatments that do help, that give us moments of balance and clarity to help center ourselves and begin again from our core. Yoga, meditation, a good book, deep breathing, laughing with our friends are also great.

Still, this is life. There will always be another problem to solve, there will always be something we want and don't have. There will always be another way for our hearts to break. We can't stop this from happening. Ultimately, to get rid of stress, choosing happiness no matter what is the only way.