How To Be Happy, 4 Steps To Living Your Life In Happiness

By Dr. Maryann Miller

Do you want to live in a state of happiness? People spend billions of dollars trying to achieve it but living in happiness only requires four steps. Are they simple? That depends up you and how much you want to achieve happiness.

If you are at peace with yourself, with others, and with life, you are living in happiness. There is an ancient Hawaiian practice: Ho’oponopono and those who practice it live a happier life than those who do not.

Ho‘oponopono comes from ho‘o, which means to make, and pono, which means right., thus, to make right. Because pono is repeated it becomes doubly right. Being right means you are right with yourself and with others. So, Ho‘oponopono is the process that teaches you to forgive yourself and others.

There are only four steps to Ho’oponopono and this is its modern version.

Step Number 1: Who and what needs to be forgiven?

First choose the person and situation you want to heal. Get in touch with your physical body, your emotions, and your thoughts regarding the person and issue. It is important to include each of these areas because heartache, fear, anger, pain, and resentment affects all of them. Balance must be restored in each area before true healing can take place.

Let’s use this example. Let’s say your issue is with a friend who is also your boss; we’ll call your boss, Margie Smith. The issue is that, without warning, Margie called you into her office and fired you.

In this example, the first step would be zeroing in on who and what needs to be made right:

• I want to make right and forgive Margie for firing me.

 *For the issue you have personally chosen, you would fill in this blank:

I want to make right and forgive _______________ for: _______________ .

 Step Number 2: Forgiveness and Release

It is important to forgive and let go. Remember that, at times, it may not be another person you need to forgive, it may be yourself that needs forgiving. Regardless, it is always important to ask yourself what part you played in the situation, and acknowledge your share.

Why is forgiveness so important to living a happier, healthier, more successful life? It is important for many reasons but physically, it’s a scientific fact that harboring current or past heartache, fear, pain, resentment, guilt, or anger releases negative endorphins into your body. The following can also help release positive endorphins.

• Meditation
• Laughter
• If you can, eating chocolate and chili peppers
• Get a relaxing massage
• If you can, exercise

Moving beyond current or past heartache, fear, anger, pain, or resentment is not always easy to do. So be honest with your emotions and thoughts regarding the person and situation needing forgiveness and healing. It is important that you recognize your thoughts and emotions are shadow aspects of yourself trying to get your attention to also be healed.

In this step, it is important to remember that your feelings serve, or once served, a useful purpose or they would not continue to be part of your life. Acknowledging yourself and your feelings are important steps to the healing process.

You then proceed with this step by focusing the following thought.

• I totally release my feelings of hurt, anger, resentment, fear and sadness. I know these feelings are only hurting me and holding me back from living in total happiness and moving forward with finding a new career opportunity that I will find very fulfilling.

*For your personal process, you would fill in this blank:

My feelings of ___________ no longer have a purpose in my life and I release them now.

Step Number 3: Judgement and Incentive

It’s always difficult to make an accurate judgement of a situation when you don’t have all of the facts. This generally leads to poor judgements and less than positive actions. So before placing blame, gather as many facts as possible. Continuing to harbor negative emotions sets the stage for living in misery.

Incentives: What are the incentives for releasing your judgement – what are the rewards?

• For one, those good endorphins we spoke about earlier will kick in, your physical body will respond, and you will physically feel better.
• Your emotions will calm down, be more balanced, and at peace.
• Your brain’s constant chatter or review of the situation will be reduced and you will be free to move into more positive, creative thoughts.
• Your over-all being will be better prepared to job hunt and show up for that all important job interview.
• You are better able to listen to your inner promptings that will lead you to a happier, healthier, more productive and successful life.
• And most importantly, you will be happier.

To re-write your internal script and move past all of the negative emotions affirm the following.

• I choose to release my judgement and feelings of hurt, anger and resentment, sadness, and anger against Margie. I know that by releasing these feelings I will be free to move forward with my life with happiness and joy.

*For your personal process, you would fill in this blank:

I choose to release my judgement and feelings of hurt, anger and resentment, sadness, and anger make right/forgive _________________. I will now move forward into the next unlimited phase of my life and will feel _________________.

 Step Number 4: Acknowledgement and Commitment

It is sometimes important to spend short amounts of time with your thoughts and feelings until you can deal with them and totally release them. If after conducting this process, you find that you are not being successful with moving forward, it sometimes helpful to set aside a time and day of the week when you can spend a half an hour going over the issue trying to understand its purpose in your life, how to forgive, and how you can move on.

It is important to end each session by thanking your feelings and thought for once serving you well and helping you get through the day. Then let them know it is now time for you to release them, to transmute them into higher frequencies of forgiveness, kindness, confidence, contentment, serenity, happiness, and love. Affirming these new emotional responses are more in alignment with your intent to move forward with your life and secure the happiness and success you seek.

Affirm this decision with:

• I forgive Margie for firing me and commit to my happiness and inner peace. I acknowledge and accept my new emotional freedom as I move forward with my life free from everything that held me back.

*For your personal process, you would fill in this blank:

• I forgive (name of the person and what you are forgiving) and commit to my happiness and inner peace. I acknowledge and accept my new emotional freedom as I move forward with my life free from everything that held me back.

It is very important to commit to a time-frame for this process. Until you find yourself living with your new emotional freedom, the process is not complete. Your success is in your hands.

*This exercise is not intended to take the place of any medical  advice or treatment.