What do you do when you realise that, even though you have everything you've always wanted, you're still unhappy? How do you stop your eternal search for happiness? How do you find lifelong bliss, love, and joy, and move your life beyond happiness too? In Beyond Happiness, author and master healer Marnie McDermott reveals the answers to these questions and more. In this deeply personal account, she shares lessons, wisdom, and insight that touches the heart and inspires the spirit with the twelve principles of enduring bliss. For ten years, she searched in vain for happiness, only to find that the more successful she was, the more money she earned, the more things she had (and the more she strived to have), the more miserable she grew. She was a successful corporate communication specialist who had the world at her feet. But when she lost everything-except her life-in a devastating house fire, her priorities shifted. Now, in Beyond Happiness, she demonstrates that what we all really crave is lasting happiness of the soul. Driven to rediscover happiness and find enduring bliss, she studied alternative health and mind-body principles, immersing herself in esoteric wisdom. By following what she calls "the gentle knowing in her heart", she left the corporate world behind for the mysterious world of healers, mystics, and angels. Within Beyond Happiness, the keys to lifelong bliss, love, happiness, and joy for all who wish to move their lives beyond happiness await.
beyond happiness
THE 12 PRINCIPLES of ENDURING BLISSBy Marnie McDermottBALBOA PRESS
Copyright © 2012 Marnie McDermott
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4525-0604-3Contents
To Begin..............................................................xiiiPart I Happiness and You.............................................1Chapter 1 Happiness explored.........................................3Chapter 2 Limiting happiness.........................................13Chapter 3 Choose happiness...........................................25Part II: Mind Your Beautiful World...................................37Chapter 4 Principle 1: Create perfect order..........................39Chapter 5 Principle 2: Choose beautiful thoughts.....................51Chapter 6 Principle 3: Express your gratitude........................63Part III: Body Your soul sanctuary...................................75Chapter 7 Principle 4: Love the physical you.........................77Chapter 8 Principle 5: Nourish yourself well.........................89Chapter 9 Principle 6: Rejuvenate your energy........................103Part IV: Emotion Your Loving Heart...................................119Chapter 10 Principle 7: Free yourself from hurt......................121Chapter 11 Principle 8: Choose to be love............................137Chapter 12 Principle 9: Make today beautiful.........................149Part V: Spirit Your shining true self................................163Chapter 13 Principle 10: Cherish your peace..........................165Chapter 14 Principle 11: Be true, be you.............................177Chapter 15 Principle 12: Live with purpose...........................191To end................................................................20515 simple promises....................................................207Bibliography..........................................................209About the author......................................................211
Chapter One
Happiness explored
So many people talk about happiness. There are books, projects, websites, and even entire national policies on happiness. But if things like divorce statistics, the nightly news, and even the glum faces of people you pass in the street are anything to go by, few people experience true happiness in their days or their lives.
The United states General social survey, which has been conducted annually or biannually since 1972, shows two key findings relating to women and happiness:
• Over the last few decades, women, in comparison to men, have become less happy with their lives
• As women get older, they get sadder
But the findings aren't just unique to this particular survey, or to the United States. The results from six major studies of happiness have been released in the last decade, collectively representing more than 1.3 million men and women who have been surveyed over the last forty years.
"Wherever researchers have been able to collect reliable data on happiness, the finding is always the same. Greater educational, political, and employment opportunities have corresponded to decreases in life happiness for women, as compared to men."
Happiness is a new science and, globally, happiness is a hot topic. Developed countries are following the lead of countries like Bhutan, which has been measuring gross national happiness for decades
Research suggests that levels of happiness in Britain, the United states, and other countries remained the same even when other factors like disposable income and financial security increased Happiness research like the Global national Happiness survey and the Better Life Index by the organisation for economic Co-operation and Development, which measures well-being in thirty countries, shows that happiness is higher in countries like Bangladesh and Nigeria, ahead of European and north American nations.
The multiplicity of happiness
Happiness, like so many things in life, is subjective no two people will give the same response to this question: "How do you define happiness?"
We are all unique, and you will create your own meaning of happiness and of bliss You may even rediscover and recreate your definitions of both throughout your life, perhaps even as you read this book.
As an experiment, I asked people to share with me via my Facebook page how they define happiness You can see how varied people's views are with just this small selection of responses:
• "To me, it means just being in the moment"
• "For me, happiness is a mental state where you are comfortable with who you are, where you are, and what you're doing"
• "Family, friends, sunshine, and good wine!"
I also received this one, which I love:
• "Happiness is that indescribable feeling of joy and contentment, hard to explain but unmistakable when you feel it A soul smile, so to speak."
The multiplicity of happiness lies in the subtle experience of the word itself. On the one hand, the word happiness conjures feelings of joy, visual images of gleeful smiles, or contented moments of idyllic bliss on a tropical beach. Whatever happiness feels like for you, it fills you up inside. Everyone wants to be happy.
On the other hand, striving to be happy sees most people trying to change everything and everyone around them, dictated by some deep-seated belief that happiness is an external experience. The oversight of the happiness seekers is not realising that happiness is a state of being rather than an external experience. When people realise that they need to look within, and connect to themselves, happiness becomes a much more challenging concept and an even more challenging experience to find.
My role in writing this book is not to tell you what happiness is. My role is to help you rediscover it for yourself. However, just as I'm sure you have, I have experienced happiness in so many forms. Yet no matter the variation, the result was always the same for me: fleeting. It has led me to believe that there are five common kinds of happiness: storybook happiness, surprise happiness, surrogate happiness, someday happiness, and soul happiness. The first four result in fleeting happiness, but the fifth transforms it into enduring bliss
Storybook happiness
We frequently compare ourselves and our lives to others. We strive to have the storybook-perfect life we perceive some others having. Because they appear happy, we believe they are happy and make all kinds of wild assumptions as to the reasons for their happiness. We believe they must have found the key, that they must have all the right happiness ingredients. We want their "happily ever after," so we seek to emulate what they have. Sadly, we believe that whatever they have is better than our own lives.
This stems from not truly accepting who you are. When you don't love and cherish yourself, it is easy to compare yourself, often less than kindly, with someone else's life. You may perceive others to be more beautiful or successful than you, to have more thoughtful partners than you, or to have nicer homes than you sometimes you may go a step further, comparing yourself to people you don't even know, like the airbrushed gorgeous celebrity on the front of your favourite magazine or even fictional characters in television shows.
We judge all these people based on what we see—without any true insight into their lives. If what we see mirrors our perception of happiness, often we will go to extreme lengths to create our storybook happiness.
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