Back to Center: 'How can anyone possibly be happy?'

The “Back to Center” advice column provides perspectives for personal realignment and empowered living in these tyrannical times. Sarah encourages you to reach out to her with requests for advice about self-development and emotional and mental well-being. Please send your questions to advice@frontline.news. Anonymous and secure. Looking forward to hearing from you!

I feel like there's bad news everywhere I look these days — so much violence and grief and struggle. How can anyone possibly be happy? I try, but it feels so hard…

Thank you for your question. I hear you — there are a lot of really difficult and stressful things in the news right now. Achieving happiness and calm can feel elusive and nearly impossible at times.

I'm going to share with you one of the most powerful insights I've ever experienced, in hopes that it will be helpful to you. It's not a new idea, but when you truly internalize it, it can change your life dramatically.

Here it is: Happiness is a choice.

Your level of happiness is 100% up to you. It does not have to depend on anything external — not the state of the world, not your spouse, not your children, not your job. True happiness can't be about what's going on outside of you. If that's how you look at it, you will constantly be running around, desperately reaching out for something to be that thing that makes you feel okay. And that “something” will always ultimately disappoint.

You're right — this world is a hard place to live a lot of the time…terror and tragedy abound these days…spouses forget that important thing you asked them to do…children misbehave…your boss doesn't acknowledge all the hard work you're doing. If we make these people and circumstances responsible for making us happy, we will be waiting a long time. This doesn't work.

True happiness is something you create within yourself. How? I can't answer that for you, but I can tell you some of the things that work for me:

• Connecting with something higher — Deepening my relationship with God and belief that things happen for a reason as part of a higher plan for the world.
• Practicing self care — Making a conscious choice to allocate time in my day to things I enjoy that make me feel nourished.
• Choosing my thoughts — Making healthy decisions about how I want to think about myself, others, and situations in life. Focusing on empowering ideas.
• Getting into action — Choosing to focus on ways I can do something positive and helpful to others, especially when I feel unhappiness or despair creeping in. This also helps me feel good about myself.

What could this look like for you? How could you shift away from the feeling that the circumstances you see in the world are preventing you from being happy, and find a way to own the process of creating some happiness for yourself? 

Yes, extremely difficult things may happen in life, but it's amazing when we can realize how much of our experience of those hard things — and of life in general — is actually up to us. We don't always have control over what happens to us, but we can always control how we choose to view it, and harnessing that power can change everything for us. 

The more happiness you choose to create, the more it keeps growing. I truly hope you can allow yourself to go on a journey of discovering what brings you true happiness that stands the test of challenging times! 

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Previous columns:

• ‘We are on the verge of losing all our freedom here’
• ‘I want to run away’
• ‘When we heard about the return of COVID, my daughter lost it’
• ‘COVID was a nightmare – not again!'
• ‘My kids are obsessed with screens’
• ‘Why would I want to stay home with my kid?’
• ‘I let myself be talked into a medical procedure I didn’t want'
• ‘I encountered a slew of racist hate messages online’
• ‘I want to take our family’s health back into our own hands'
• ‘Even though things are better with COVID, my friends are still on medication’
• ‘I am “awake” now, but I wasn’t always'
• 'My daughter is worried for her friends who got the COVID shot'
• ‘How can people call themselves Christians and believe these things are okay?’
• ‘I’m alone for the holidays for the very first time'
• ‘What’s a formerly proud American to do these days?'
• ‘How can I extend forgiveness for all the COVID atrocities when it still hurts so much?’
• 'I long to help my daughter connect with God in these times'
• Is it irresponsible to think of having another child in today's world?
• ‘I want my son to have strong male role models’
• ‘Our son has secretly been in the process of gender transition’
• ‘I wonder if the sacrifices I and my fellow soldiers made were worth it’
• ‘I know Scripture approves of 2nd Amendment rights, but the idea leaves me uneasy’
• ‘I was an approval-seeking people-pleaser’
• 'God is a God of justice, right? Where’s my justice?'
• ‘I’ve tried my best to be faithful and live a holy life; now I don’t know what to believe’
• 'Kids gravitate toward honest answers, even when they’re tough answers'
• 'I used to be a pretty positive person, but the world is different now'
• 'Do I have an obligation to say something to my friend who is about to inject her one-year-old?'
• 'How do I respond to wild hatred?'
• ‘All my friends have abandoned me’
• ‘Who am I to build a better world?’
• 'The world does not have to understand or approve of your choices'
• 'I get tired and overwhelmed'
• 'I vacillate between feeling inspired and useless'
• ‘I pity the people creating the lies’
• ‘The anger and hurt feelings are costing you too much’
• ‘People who once treated each other with so much love and kindness are now at odds’
• ‘Struggling with my relationship with God since COVID’
• 'I have lost confidence in our healthcare system, including my own personal doctors'
• 'Can you forgive yourself for the years you couldn’t be there with your daughter?'
• 'My wife is willing to take the sacrifice for her sister and I'm sick to my stomach thinking about it'
• 'I deeply regret taking the vaccine'
• 'Married 39 years and I thought we were on the same page when it came to things that mattered most'
• ‘How do I repair this relationship or accept that I may never see my son again?’
• ‘How can I stop fear from controlling my every thought and ruining my dreams?’
• 'How can I pursue my dream to find the person to marry, when it's so hard to connect with new people because of COVID?'
• 'How can I feel safe these days?'
• Advice column premier: Back to Center

Sarah encourages you to reach out to her with requests for advice! Please send your questions to advice@frontline.news.  Anonymous and secure.

Sarah Perron is a Certified Transformational Life Coach. Her passion is to help people create a powerful vision for their lives, identify and eliminate anything that holds them back, and step into their own unique greatness and mission in the world. She believes deeply in the power of coaching to bring fresh perspectives, ideas, and motivation to anyone who wants to thrive in life. Sarah works with clients one-on-one and in group coaching programs and presents exciting workshops on self-development topics. You can follow her on her YouTube channel Find Your Fire.

You are invited to book a complimentary coaching call with Sarah! Please visit https://calendly.com/sarahperroncoaching/45min to choose a time that's convenient for you. She looks forward to meeting you!