Why Am I so Unhappy?

Could I be happy too?

On the manifesting myth, and where happiness actually lives

If you keep wondering why you are struggling to be happy, this is for you. A gentle look at where happiness truly comes from — and why we only find it when we stop chasing it.

If I make this statement: happiness can only come from within. Most of us feel an instant resistance to that statement. No, no — surely if I found the love of my life, got my lucky break, had enough money, finally booked that holiday, then I would be happy. In other words: when I get what I want, I will be happy. It is a feeling I lived with for most of my adult life, and there are multi-million-dollar industries built around taeching us to manifest our dreams and desires.

But here is what I have come to discover.

We only get what we want when we no longer need it.

I once knew a man who bought the Ferrari he had craved his whole life — and woke the next day in a deeper despair than before. The business, the home, the family, the car: all of it, and still he felt hollow, as though he had been lied to. I knew a successful woman who had manifested so much of what her heart desired, yet was so unhappy on the inside that even being driven in comfort to the treatments she could afford when she was was ill felt only like an inconvenience. In both lives, the same truth: happiness does not come from what we get. We know this...

And there is a reason for it. If we get what we want while we still need it, the moment we close our hands around it, we fall into fear. What if I lose it? What if someone takes it from me? Imagine finally finding the perfect partner — and then lying awake the very next night, terrified they might leave. We simply trade one fear for another. But if we need nothing, and yet we have what we want, the only thing left is gratitude.

I know this because I lived it. For years I chased a feeling of connection and shared love I had first known with a very special friend I had as a child. Because I felt it when I was with them, I unconsciously made the mistake of thinking I needed someone like them in my life to switch that feeling on inside me. It was only when I finally surrendered the longing to have that experience of a loving relationship again — a letting-go that felt like looking death in the eyes — that I discovered I had been the one switching that feeling on all along, from the inside. I could simply close my eyes, remember a loving moment and open my heart to let the love stream in.

I was free. And I have never since felt that I needed anyone in order to be happy. I am simply, deeply grateful for the people I love.

So if you are reading this still quietly wondering whether happiness is really available to you, let me offer you somewhere to begin. Something you can do right here, right now to feel genuine happiness inside.

Find a quiet moment and take a slow breath all the way down into your belly, letting the out-breath be longer than the in-breath — this is what gently signals to your body that you are safe. Then return to that same practice I found my way to: close your eyes, bring to mind a single moment you loved or felt truly alive and happy. It does not need to be grand. A hand held. A sunrise. A pet asleep on your lap, or your friend's smile. Now open your heart wide as you multiply the feeling of warmth within. Keep going until you feel yourself glowing up from the inside. Stay there for a few breaths, and notice that the warmth you feel is not coming from out there — it is rising in you, right now, as you turn up the dial. That feeling was never outside you. You are the one switching it on.

This is the quiet beginning. The more we practise returning to what is already here — rather than chasing what is not — the more we discover that happiness was never something to be earned or acquired. It was something to be remembered.

In my forthcoming book, I explore why happiness was never waiting at the end of the striving — and share the practices, from nervous-system regulation to noticing life's small glimmers, that help us settle into the joy that was always already ours.