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Saturday 9 October 2010

Flow and the art of finding happiness




How is it possible to feel pure happiness so far away from loved ones?

Can you count the moments in your life when you have felt truly happy, and you could not imagine life to get any better on two hands, or are you one of very few lucky ones who walk around in a happy rush most of the time?
In my late teenage years I started to get into the self-help section and by the age of 20 my mind was so confused from all the different approaches to life that I stopped searching  for a while for the answers.
So in my early twenties I started to search for happiness outside of the self-help shelf and got  into yoga, meditation and studied what  different religions had to offer. I am still on that journey and hope that I will never stop it.
A few years ago  I read about " flow"- How you can find happiness through the most mundane tasks, by just immersing yourself 100% in it, and realized I could have saved many hours of reading as I already was experiencing moments of happiness although I had not really recognised it as such. So simple.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi´s book on the subject is well worth reading.
Another simple act is to write down at the end of the day 5 positive things that happened in the day - slowly somehow you start to appreciate how blessed you are by acknowledging those everyday moments.
It is a long and winding road to find true happiness but to recognise all the good things in your life is a good way to start.

Travelling from Arequipa through the Colca Canyon I had one of those moments when I realised how truly happy and lucky I am to see the amazing landscape and to experience this culture and country like I have. I only wish that we all can have those moments, if only for a brief moment in time.



                                  
                                            Such amazing colors, handcraft and prints






                                  Alpacas and lamas holding up the traffic


                                  ´                 Travellers offerings´





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