Mindfully Happy Seven Steps To Creating Your Inner Sanctuary

Hello,

Maria Baltazi here,

PhD in Conscious Centered Living and a teacher in the Art and Science of Happiness and Mindfulness.

Welcome to this 10-day course,

Mindfully Happy 7 Steps to Creating Your Inner Sanctuary.

Starting tomorrow,

Each day we will explore one of seven steps that will enable you to have greater clarity around how to level up your happiness.

If you are already happy,

This course will encourage you to be even happier.

There is likely one or two areas of your life that could still improve.

To begin,

I want to dispel a couple of myths about happiness.

First myth,

The myth of more.

Over the years of studying happiness and in my personal life,

I have found that people often associate happiness with achievement.

To them,

It is about getting something or somewhere.

When I achieve my degree,

Become super successful in my career,

Make a lot of money,

Have the car I want,

Get married,

Then they get the profession,

The money,

The relationship,

And I want more.

And this is the myth of more.

They get more and then want even more of it and still are not happy.

Whatever it is,

It is always out there,

Somewhere beyond themselves.

There is a grasping for something,

Some result that if they do not achieve it,

It causes them to feel dissatisfied.

They are unable to focus on being present because their minds are always in the future.

Living in the second myth I want to highlight,

The myth of I will be happy when.

It robs one of loving and living today,

Being available for family and friends in meaningful ways and instead are being led down the disquieting dead-end path of,

Is that all there is?

Honestly,

It is perfectly fine to want things in life,

Just not at the expense of your happiness today.

The invitation is to delete the sentence consciously,

I will be happy when,

From your thoughts.

Also,

Remove the notion that you will be happy when you have more.

Instead,

Focus on what is making you feel happy now.

When you focus on being happy now,

There is a good likelihood your next now moment will be happy too.

In other words,

Choose to be happy.

To be positive in this now and the next and the one after that until it is your habit to frame whatever is your current situation in a positive,

Productive way that makes you feel good,

That gives you hope.

And know that there will be bumps and challenges along the way.

That is life.

That stuff does and will happen.

It is how you perceive it,

What you do with the negative things in life.

How long do you hang on to ill feelings?

These three things I just mentioned genuinely matter.

The other thing you should know as we begin our 10-day journey is that we all have a happiness set point that we come into the world with and is influenced by our early surroundings.

Your happiness set point is 50% genetics,

40% habits,

And 10% your life circumstance.

The percentages result differently for each one of us.

That is why some people seem to always be in a knot about something or someone.

While in the same situations,

Others appear to breeze through things with a smile on their face and a song in their heart.

However,

Your happiness set point is not a fixed point.

Only half is determined by genetics.

And there is increasingly a question from researchers around this percentage as well.

The other half you can significantly influence.

So especially if you are on the lower end of this continuum,

There is something you can do about it.

Actually,

There is a lot you can do.

How?

By consciously doing intentional activities that will help raise your level of happiness,

Some of which you will learn during our time together.

In our remaining time,

I will guide you in a short meditation meant to begin opening you to seeing more clearly your state of happiness now and envisioning where you would like it to be a year from now.

You can revisit this meditation as often as you want here in this recording or by doing it on your own for a longer sitting time.

One quick note.

During the next 10 days,

I encourage you to keep something nearby to write thoughts and reflections immediately after our meditations.

So now settle into a comfortable meditation position,

Whatever that is for you,

Sitting,

Standing or lying down.

You are breathing in slowly through your nose,

Filling your lungs and belly and slowly breathing all the air out your mouth.

Breathing in again slowly through your nose and slowly out your mouth.

Breathe in fully again.

Breathe out settling into a relaxed natural breath.

Let us start by envisioning what life is like today.

On a scale of 1 to 10,

10 being the best,

What would you say is your overall level of happiness?

What makes you feel happy?

It can be big or small,

Whatever is relevant to you.

How does this happiness fill your mind and body?

Where do you feel it most?

The main question here is what is your overall level of happiness?

If your happiness level is at a 5,

What would make it a 6?

If your happiness level is a 6,

What would make it a 7?

Whatever your happiness level is,

What would it take to go to the next level?

I invite you to try and not make this achievement oriented,

Not make it about money.

Think more about how you want to feel and show up in the world for yourself and those around you.

I will give you 60 seconds to think about these questions.

I will give you 60 seconds to think about these questions.

Now,

Consider 6 months from today and how you would like life to look.

Using the same 1 to 10 scale,

10 being the best,

What would you like your overall level of happiness to be?

What is causing you to feel happy?

How are you envisioning this happiness filling your mind and body?

Where do you feel it most?

What is your happiness level now,

6 months from today?

What would it take to get you to the next level?

I will pause talking for another 60 seconds for you to reflect on these questions.

I will give you 60 seconds to think about these questions.

I will give you 60 seconds to think about these questions.

Jumping to 12 months from today,

What is causing you to feel even happier than you are today?

How are you feeling?

How are you showing up for yourself and those you care about?

As your future self one year later,

After doing the inner work to develop a happier you,

How satisfied are you using our scale of 1 to 10?

What is the best part about being this future you?

This will be our final 60 second meditation pause for you to reflect.

This is our final 60 second meditation pause for you to reflect.

To close,

Prize yourself for respecting and loving yourself enough to create a better version of you.

After we end today's session,

I encourage you to write some of the things that came up for you and keep it somewhere that you can look at during the next 10 days as well as the coming 12 months.

Tomorrow our mindfully happy journey will continue as we delve deeper into one's happiness set point,

Exploring the happiness continuum where we emotionally exist.

Until next time,

This is Maria Baltasi sending you many happy wishes.