How can we begin to seek happiness from within ourselves?

By Pooja Mamidanna, AMFT

Note: Artist Unknown

I would like to provide some education on the importance of how seeking happiness first begins with you and then amongst your larger community.

As human beings, we often seek most of our happiness from external objects (friendships, relationships, family, materialistic goods, etc.) 

Human beings are definitely relational beings, we crave that emotional connection. However, due to our cultural upbringing, attachment styles can be varied. If we did not receive the attachment we required during our childhood; this can cause a lot of interpersonal/intrapersonal stressors throughout our lifespan. As we try to navigate our lives in our relationships, these attachment issues that have not been worked through show up in different areas of our lives.

To find happiness and work through this, it is important to understand that self-love and happiness can be two sides of the same coin. It first begins with YOU, then it begins seeking this through other mediums. The greatest relationship you must have first is with yourself. Only when one spends time alone and is able to find their happiness within, will everything else fall into place. 

The problem of seeking happiness from external objects is, we tend to have a lot of “expectations” from others. When these expectations are not met, we start to project our emotions in these relationships and we are left with disappointment.

Furthermore, as a society, there are a lot of cultural factors that can come in the way of seeking our own happiness (such as our religious, ethnic, and cultural norms).

Therefore, it is important to assess/reflect:

1.)   How can you start taking care of yourself and loving yourself?

2.)   How can you begin to depend on yourself?

3.)   How can you manage the expectations and irrational thoughts we hold on others?

4.)   How can we have better personal boundaries with all domains in our life?

If you are struggling with this and can relate, psychotherapy would be a good place to start as well as reading literature and books.

You can also, look up the website (therapistaid.com) there are plenty of resources there that are easy to read and can help you begin thinking and working on this.