Feeling Good Each and Every Day

Is it possible to live each and every day in a state of emotional wellbeing? Can we hope to feel good most of the time, if not all of the time?

A great many people do not feel excited about life, do not have hearts filled with hope, but exist each day in a pretty joyless state. Only when something in their external world comes along to pick their spirits up do they feel somewhat "happy" for a time.

Many of us are not just joyless, but actually depressed. In fact, the World Health Organization says that depression is a more debilitating condition than angina, arthritis, asthma, or diabetes.

Depression is a combination of feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. When people feel helpless to do anything, and lose hope that their life can be fulfilling, they become frozen in a state of immobility. They feel they can't affect anything because their energy has become locked within them. A dark veil descends upon them.

In many cases, the antidote to depression is to have a sense of meaning, so that we live with purpose.

But feeling excited about life is more than having some external purpose give us meaning. When meaning comes to us from outside ourselves, it can quickly be lost if the situation that brings it to us changes. For instance, if our meaning is found in a relationship or in a job, we are devastated if these get taken away.

A sense of meaning has to emerge from deep within us. Our meaning has to be so solidly anchored in our essence that, when we are buffeted by the tides of life, we do not lose our sense of purpose. Even if everything appears to go wrong, it does not diminish the fact that each of us is a wonderful person who can continue to be enthusiastic about our life.

If life feels meaningless, it's up to us to discover our meaning because no one else can make our life meaningful. Yet, paradoxically, finding meaning doesn't require any kind of "efforting."

How do we find meaning? By allowing ourselves to enter into the deep stillness that is at the heart of our being.

When we enter into stillness, we discover within us not an emptiness but a fullness. It is a fullness of joy, which issues in a love of life and a love of the people in our lives. This is what makes life meaningful and gives us purpose. It is what enables us to engage every facet of our life with enthusiasm.

When we come from a sense of fullness, our creative essence is brought to bear upon everything we do, whether putting our socks on in the morning or washing the dishes. In all things, we are awake, alert, attentive-fully present rather than going through the motions with our mind on something else.

Entering into stillness is the key. It is in the inner silence, beneath all of our mental chatter and emotional turmoil, that we discover our true self, which has been "pressed down" much of our life.

When we are in touch with who we are in our essence, everything we do in our life flows from a state of alert consciousness-a finely attuned awareness. It is impossible to be bored when we are in tune with the heart of our being. It is difficult to be depressed. A joie de vivre simply bubbles up within us spontaneously, effortlessly. We can't help feeling wonderful!

There is creative potential in everyone, not just those in fortunate circumstances. No matter how trapped we feel, if we are attuned to the deep consciousness of our essence, we can bring this to bear on and transform any situation.

Even when times of pain come into our lives, we can invest them with purpose-a purpose born of our essential being, rather than from a mental image of how our life ought to be.

When we live with purpose, we recognize that everything in our life-everything-is for our ultimate wellbeing. It is all intended to press us to awaken to ourselves as unconditionally loving, innately peaceful, exuberantly joyous, and infinitely creative.

Love, joy, and peace are not emotions but states of being, although they can and do trigger deep emotional responses. In most people, these states are hidden under layers of mind chatter and emotional reactivity. But for all of us, these states are who we really are, right now.

In The Leap-Are You Ready to Live a New Reality? I explain, "When you abide regularly in stillness, you come to realize that there is no need to seek anything, including solutions, outside of yourself. It is in stillness that you access the omniscience of your inner knower. Just ask the question and watch for the answer or guidance to be given when it is needed, though perhaps not a moment before. You will know at the time you need to know."

In any given moment, any situation, we can experience meaning as we invest that moment with consciousness and bring our creative Presence to bear upon it.

When we live in this way, the pervasive disappointment, anger, and depression that many of us feel simply melts away. It is replaced by the power of purpose, springing from the infinite Presence that is the heart of who each of us really is.