Peace Love and Happiness

Use These Seven Steps to Have More Peace Love and Happiness

From Christmas to the Solstice, the winter holidays are about celebrating light and hope; love and joy. In these times of escalating wars and declining jobs sometimes celebrating the positive emotions can be more challenging. Here are seven steps to bring more peace love and happiness into your holiday season no matter what your circumstances.

1) Start with a Quiet Mind
Peace, love and happiness are states of mind. When we are all spun up about our work or our worries, there is no room in our heads for happiness so we must quiet the mind to let peace love and happiness in. There are lots of techniques from deep breathing, to meditation, to guided imagery, and progressive muscle relaxation. They all work and they all work better with practice.

2) Accept Your Situation
Accepting our current situation does not mean we have to condone it or agree that it is good or right, it is simply where we are. We are who and what and where we are today and there is no going back in time to change that. Once we accept our present circumstances, we can start to focus on improvement.

3) Forgive Your Enemies
Like accepting a situation, forgiveness is not the same as approval. Sometimes forgiveness is just the realization that the hatred and anger hurts us more than the person who injured us. Sometimes it is just a temporary truce or refocusing on something else. Often, when we stop looking for revenge, we allow the possibility of making amends.

4) Focus on What You Want
This works best when we can see what we want in terms of values rather than material things, however, the principals work either way. Our brains react to a good day dream the same way as the real thing. Often we can start with the material and move to the more abstract values by focusing on how it will feel. For example, we want the expensive red sports car because having it will make us feel powerful, respected, sexy, attractive, and loved. What we really want is to feel appreciated and loved.

5) Identify What You Have
Often, when we are clear about what we want, it is easier to see where we have it. For example, if we want to car to feel appreciated and loved, perhaps we can see where we already have someone in our life who loves us and appreciates us. Perhaps we can see relationships that could give us that satisfaction with just a little improvement.

6) Appreciate What You Have
When we appreciate the people and things that are already in our lives, we start to develop gratitude. Many recent studies have shown that gratitude is often the root of happiness. To feel gratitude is also to feel loved and supported.

7) Share The Best of What You Have With Others
We can share the best of what we have simply by expressing our appreciation and gratitude. A compliment and a word of thanks can brighten someone else's day. The love and happiness we give away often comes back to us amplified.

As you take these seven steps in your life, you are bound to increase the peace love and happiness in your life.

For more tips on developing peace love and happiness in your life try these 10 Little Shots of Happiness