When was the last time you had a conversation with yourself? An honest, truthful conversation that laid down the grounds for your own pros and cons in your own life. When was the last time you have assessed your behavior and the impact it has on your own happiness and those around you?
Then, when was the last time you have come to a realization that you have been mistaken in your behavior and apologized towards yourself and promised yourself to adjust your behavior to become one step closer towards your own happiness? And, when was the last time you have come to realize that your behavior has caused such damage to the people around you (friends, brothers, sisters, daughters, sons, fathers, mothers, grandpas, colleagues…), stood up, owned it and spoke about it openly with an intention to apologize and ask for forgiveness?

The questions you might want to ask yourself before all of this might be: Do you want to become free from your own judgment and sorrows? Do you want to establish a transparent relationship with yourself and the people around you? Do you want to enable the people in your small circle to establish themselves the same? Are you ready to take the path that will lead you to happiness and peace of mind?

People can hide all their lives behind their perceptions and illusions of thoughts and inherited and developed behaviors. The most important question in this topic to ask sometimes is are you ready to take the path that will lead you to happiness and peace of mind? The answer to this question is decisive to the process and whether you are ready. What does it really mean if you are ready to take that path? Well, it means, (1) confronting your thoughts, patterns, themes and the sense of “self” that you think you possess and think you own, (2) realize that you are not unique from any other human being no matter what their color, sexual orientation, gender, race, education or economic level are, you are as equal, (3) understand that every understanding you have of every situation or circumstance that passed through your life, you’ve experienced it with your own lens and anyone else would have experienced it differently based on their lens, (4) understand that just because you think you are ready, it does not place you any higher or lower on the scale of beings and it does not give you any reason to become condescending towards any other creature or thing, (5) begin to make a point and move on without clinging.

How you see yourself, is very different in comparison of how other people see you. It can be your parents, your sons, daughters, colleagues, friends… Every person sees you differently depending on their own set of experiences. And everyone chooses to be connected to you, based on what they see in you. And what they see, differs from one person to the other. Therefore, one of the most important things to keep in mind when asking yourself the question of whether you are ready to take that path is: Am I ready to loose people along the way and maybe, just maybe, gain some other ones?

When you start changing, not hiding and showing yourself fully as you are, you are creating a different perception in others’ minds. This perception is viewed by individuals differently as they have experienced life and created that lens of theirs. When you alter your behavior, some will stay, some will leave, some will be inspired and some will fight you. The essence of it all is that, you have to be ready and realize that this road is a road that you alone can take, only when you have become fully conscious of your own existence, your themes and patterns, your thought process, your victim behavior (we all have one in different levels) and your saboteurs and have figured out what triggers them, what settles them and how to work with them to tame them to work for your benefit.
Then you might ask, what happens if I choose this road before I do all of this? This is a very good question to ask. From what I have seen happening is that you fall into fields of illusions. Illusions that can trick you into believing that you are established, that you have understood the five steps I mentioned earlier and illusions that can alter the shape of reality and ruin your life experience. What do I really mean by all of this? An example: If you think you are ready to live an honest life with yourself and others, you sit with your thoughts and start taking each belief and perception separately and examining it. When you examine it, you might possibly throw these perceptions or beliefs, behaviors or perceptions, on external factors such as other’s behaviors, other’s overreaction, or blame substances such as alcohol or drugs, or blame situations such as loss or a divorce… Another example, sometimes, it happens that you have someone in your life that could potentially throw an opportunity intentionally or unintentionally towards you, you might grab it automatically if you are ready, while, if you are not, you will find excuses why you should not grab it (and all this process happens subconsciously).

If you are not ready and burn the process for the sake of “stance” well, then you are deceiving yourself and the people around you. This kind of action requires great sense of “proving” and “narrating” to others how enlightened (although this isn’t necessarily enlightenment but rather steps towards a happy living) – you are and how great your experiences are on your journey and the healing powers you have garnered. This approach is greatly deceiving and exhausting and it does give you temporary dosage of satisfaction until your next experience or narrated story. Looking for recognition is a symptom.
Stop hiding behind the shadows of your thoughts, of your illusionary concepts and ideas that you hold great importance for because you think they constitute what represents you in this life. Look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself: (1) Am I happy – if the answer is maybe or no then continue: (2) What do I need to do to become happy? (3) What can I change in my mindset to become a little bit happier than this moment? (4) Am I connecting my happiness to other people’s behaviors? (5) Am I connecting my happiness to materialistic things including my job?
If the answers of the last two questions are Yes, then you might want to continue asking more questions: (6) What impact other people have on my life and happiness? (7) How do I allow other people to impact my life and happiness? (8) When does this mostly occur? (9) What position do these people have in my hierarchical ladder (based on my perception) and how important do I find these people in my life? (10) Am I ready to let go? (11) What keeps me from becoming happier in my job? (12) What do I need to become happier in my job? (13) What am I waiting for taking action in my career on the pursuit to become happier?

Ideally, all the answers you are going to have are relying on you. External factors would not be playing any role in your answers or very minimal. You as an individual have the power to live a happy life with your fullest potentials by: (1) Asking questions, (2) giving honest, true and transparent answers, (3) re-examining your answers over and over again and subjecting them to (a) reason (b) common sense (c) unselfish “self-love” behavior while realizing that the people around you deserve exactly the same.

I usually do not give further elaboration but here’s a bonus one as an example: Let’s say you are in an emotionally abusive relationship. You are unconsciously considered by your partner as an emotional boxing bag. Let’s say you are answering some of these questions and one of the answers comes out: I am happy but I feel my relationship with my partner isn’t as I would like it to be which is hindering me from achieving my fullest potentials as a happy person. In this instance, you have externalized the responsibility of you not achieving your fullest potentials as a happy person and placed it in the relationship court. What if you say instead: I am happy and I feel that I can work with my partner on our relationship to achieve a more – Goal 1 – Goal 2 and -Goal 3- which ultimately will reflect on both of us becoming happier people? Re-framing and rephrasing this and training your mind to (1) become more positive (2) include those intimately related to you in your life within your plans to become happier and (3) genuinely think of solutions rather than who to blame for your problems will ultimately get you where you want to be.