Happiness is a State of Mind

Over the past few months I have made more and more of an effort to meditate every morning after I wake up and every night before I go to sleep. Sometimes each meditation lasts an hour - but other times just a few minutes!! On the days when I don't meditate I feel a HUGE difference in how my day unfolds!! If I skip meditation, I tend to feel more stress, anxiety, worry, fear, sadness, and basically all of the negative emotions!! The power of the mind is TRULY phenomenal and I hope to foster more and more positive feelings.

The other day I found this quote:

"Happiness is a state of mind. The world only has influence on your state of mind if you let it."
-Unknown

I think this statement is SO SO SO true!! Each morning I start my meditations by focusing on my virtues. Every day I pick a virtue to live by - and lately that virtue has been peace!! When I make an effort to stay peaceful within my mind I find that I am also happier regardless of what happens to me in the outside world. The other day I had a really good meditation and felt so happy and peaceful ALL day!! The students I taught that day were also very peaceful - and I find this happens a lot because consciousness is contagious!!

At the end of the day I ran into an old acquaintance. It was her first time supply teaching in a high school, and she told me how yelling at the kids didn't work and in fact caused them to rebel against her.

Now this may sound weird - but I have to say it - my sun sign was in Cancer at the time of my birth - so I experience the world by feeling everyone's emotions all the time 24/7. I do my best to shut this unfortunate ability off, but that strategy usually fails miserably.

If I wasn't so happy and peaceful in my mind that day - I would've taken on my friend's emotions and felt a lot of sorrow for how horribly her day went. Instead I chose to remember that happiness is a state of mind and I can sympathize with her, but not to the extent that I feel so bad for her that I spend my entire evening worrying about her. That would be silly and would rob me of the glorious feeling of happiness :) I realize that last statement might sound cold, but I think it makes NO SENSE to take on someone else's sorrow. If I did take on sorrow, I wouldn't accomplish anything and would end up feeling drained!! It's best to send the person good wishes while standing in a beautiful place I call "Happy Land!!"