In a world of progress and wealth, mental health struggles and burnout persist, leaving us feeling full but not fulfilled. Our relentless pursuit of happiness through possessions and achievements seems to lead us further from the goal, trapped in a cycle of striving but never arriving.
Do you ever feel there must be more to life than chasing external goals, always waiting for happiness around the corner? Never finding thee time to do the things that really matter? When we cultivate inner contentment, we discover a happiness independent of external circumstances. Using ancient wisdom to solve our modern problems I believe happy humans make a better world.
I'm passionate about restoring the essence of being human—connecting with ourselves, each other, and something bigger.
We’ve become human doings rather than human beings and we live a fast life, not always a good one. I believe the answer lies is cultivating calmony not pursuing happiness. If we think our happiness is found in external things we’ll always be searching and we’ll also be at the whim of external circumstances which we know we don’t control. However, if we cultivate calmony we have an inner peace that is there irrespective on what’s happening externally. We can control our own sense of joy, fulfilment and happiness – imagine!
It's like baking a recipe, we have all the ingedients in the tin, we’ve just sometimes forgotten to switch the oven on. We’re waiting for happiness around the next corner rather than looking at the all the ingredients we already have to create it in our own tin. Creating calmony is turning on your oven.
This sense of calmony describes the harmony that arises from this contentment within. The wholeness when everything feels right, our lives have a sense of meaning, we know who we are and we’re not at the whim of external circumstances. It’s a calm and inner peace that we can tap into wherever we are.
How do we get it? From making the most of our moments. From creating space in our schedule. Slowing down. Meditation, gratitude practices, being in the moment more often. Being alone from time to time, having time to just be rather than constant doing. All this stuff we’ve often ignored in favour of chasing the things we think will bring us happiness can in fact create the very contentment we crave.
It’s also found in connection. We’re more connected than ever before online and yet also increasing lonely and unfulfilled. We’ve lost real connection in this world of hyper connectivity. Connection to ourselves (who we are and what’s important), connection to each other (kindness and compassion) and connection to the present moment. Our loss of connection to nature is contributing to the climate crisis and a fundamental part of our wellness: green therapy is now prescribed by some doctors! There’s also the connection to something bigger, our sense of meaning and purpose that so many of us struggle to find in our work, leading to low employee satisfaction and engagement across the globe. Connection is fundamental to calmony and therefore contentment.
Our inner state is the foundation of how we experience the world. Whilst we think the world is as we see it, it’s really just as it appears to us. This means we all see the world differently. What’s bad to us might be good in someone else’s eyes. If you want to test this out, try discussing politics with your in laws! I liken it to lenses we look through and the type of lens we see through is dictated by our inner state.
When we create a calm inner world we’re less at the whims of the unexpected things the outer world throws at us too. Better able to bounce back and stay calm amid the chaos.
I don’t believe calm, clarity and composure is something new we need to learn. I believe it’s a capability we all have deep within, it’s just that we’ve lost touch with it. It’s not something we learn it’s something we are. Calm and composed is our natural state. Just like water before the weather stirs it up or a stone is thrown into the lake.
It comes from deep knowledge of self and if we can keep coming back to this seed within that’s our essence, without all the stress and busyness, we’ll find this is where the calm lives. It’s when we get still and quiet we can tap into this state of being. We remove the layers of stress, busyness and distraction and find it’s been there all along.
When we know ourselves we’re more grounded, we’re better able to regulate our emotions and we know our triggers. It’s about creating the conditions to be our best self. Calm and composed is not something we learn, it’s something we are.
It’s the difference between happiness and contentment which I believe is why most of us have found happiness to be more elusive despite us growing richer as a nation with more opportunities than ever before.
Rather than chasing happiness we need to focus on creating calmony. This is the key to real and lasting happiness and is something we control and carry everywhere with us, not something that’s dependent on others or our external circumstances.
Find out more in my brand new book out in November 2024.