“The greatest gift you can ever give is your happiness”

This blog is an attempt to share some very personal insights that I’ve recently had. It might not make sense to everyone, but I wish I’d read something like this a long time ago, so I’m still going to write it down and put it out there for someone else to stumble across.

Maybe it’ll help you or maybe it’s absolutely irrelevant to you… I’ll let you decide that for yourself.

I’m not exactly sure where to begin, but if you’ve read my story you’ll know that happiness didn’t exactly come easy to me (if you haven’t and you’re interested in what I came from, I suggest you read Part 1, Part 2 & Part 3)
I’ve grown so much in the past 7 years and I’m incredibly proud of myself for getting this far. But until very recently, sometimes I still struggled with finding my happiness… And believe me, I’ve worked hard to give myself a meaningful, happy life…

• I love my work and helping people. And by helping them, I also help myself.
• I love how I’ve helped so many people through my work as a personal trainer and through my blog.
• I love and appreciate everyone reaching out for my help or to tell me I’ve inspired them in some way. It makes me feel truly blessed to be able to give and help in this way.
• I love how I’m growing spirituality, and how I’ve finally found a way to balance my spiritual beliefs with the lift I want to live.
• I love how I’m wired to make a set back into a comeback every time. I’ve never faced hardship and not used it to become more of what I want to be. Even in tough times, I’m always progressing and achieving new goals.

I chose to live in Dubai and do what I do, because I knew it would make me feel good. And I’m doing so much better than I was in 2011, but somehow I’m still not really, truly happy with my life.

Recently though, I decided to be more aware of loving and appreciating how blessed actually I am. I’m far from perfect and I’m not in a perfect state of mind and focused on joy and appreciation all the time (yet) but I’ve been studying, meditating and practising a lot.

And suddenly I understood what was wrong.. I had put myself in a waiting position.

I’ve been waiting for someone to come along and sweep me off my feet, save me and change my life, so I could finally be happy. I put all this pressure on other people, instead of doing everything I could to be happy exactly where I am right now.

Examples:

1. I bought an older car, and after a few months I began focusing on all the things I didn’t like about it, instead of being thankful for finally owning my own car.
2. I never did much to make my apartment feel like home. Instead, I kept it how it was when I first moved in. While always talking about all the things that annoyed me about the apartment and how I wanted to move into a nicer space some day…

These are just two examples, but they represent my home where I wake up and go to sleep every night, and my car which I drive for 2-5 hours every single day… And instead of being thankful for owning a car, a big SUV even, I was upset that it wasn’t the brand new, white Range Rover I was dreaming of.

And instead of being thankful for living on my own in a quiet apartment conveniently located for work and with easy access to any other daily need I have, I was focused on how the walls weren’t the right colors, I curtains were ugly, the kitchen too small and how it wasn’t located in a more central area…

I MADE MYSELF FEEL BAD ABOUT MY SITUATION, BECAUSE I FOCUSED ON WHAT WAS LACKING AND NOT WHAT I HAD.

Not so secretly, I always dreamt about meeting a beautiful, loving man who would want me to move in with him in his beautiful house, shower me with gifts, take care of everything financially and just love me and make me feel happy in a way I felt like I couldn’t make myself feel.

And recently I’ve realized, that whenever I met someone that I really connected with, somehow I made it their responsibility to make me happy. It’s not that I stop trying for myself, but because of my negative focus, I easily let their actions affect my happiness… Instead of being thankful and appreciate what I had and allowing this beautiful person to enrich my life in his or her way, I would become anxious if they didn’t constantly “fill me up”.

When I understood this, everything fell into place for me…

I now know that my happiness does not depend on what others do, but only upon my own mental balance. To use a yogi term, it depends upon my Vibration. The way I feel is simply, clearly and always the indicator of the Vibrational balance between my desires and my state of mind.

When I focus on what I don’t have, I feel low, anxious and depressed.

When I focus on what I do have, and appreciate it for all that it is, I feel joyful, empowered and happy.

And the greatest gift you can ever give to another person and the world is your own happiness. I can’t control the way others behave, so if that control is necessary, I’m in trouble. That has been the case until now. But I will no longer hold anyone else responsible for my joy.

I’m going to make the best of what I have while working towards my goals!
My immediate plans are to redo my entire apartment and make it really nice and homey. I will also take better care of my car and make sure it’s always clean and in the best shape possible. And of course I’ll continue to take good care of my body and mind and be thankful for my health and everything I’m blessed with.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading all the way to the end. I hope my words made sense to you.

I feel like I want to make more posts about this as I continue to educate myself on this subject. I’m still a beginner trying to find my way in all of these thoughts, but I truly feel like I’m on the right path and I can’t wait to see what life has in store for me when I become better at being thankful and appreciative.

Thank you so much for reading my blog. I love you so, so much and wish you a beautiful day whereever you are!