Happiness = Me and My Shadow

In my work as a psychotherapist I usually hear folks say they are seeking happiness. Usually those folks are looking for a different spouse, job, house, car, etc. in the journey to find happiness. They often blame one of these realities for the fact that they don’t feel happy. I think happiness is an inside job. By inside job, I mean that happiness is to be found within myself. Nobody else and no external things such as a job, house, car, etc. can make me happy. Those things are not unimportant but neither are they as significant as we sometimes want to believe. I suspect there are parts of ourselves and our particular history that we haven’t accepted and with which we haven’t made peace that could be causing us to think we are not happy. Many therapists call those things our “shadows.” I agree. My journey into deeper happiness, and I’ll add the words contentment and peace will involve my acknowledging, accepting, befriending and learning from my shadows.