As we make our way into the fifth month of 2020 I think we can all agree that this year has looked nothing like we anticipated. Plans have been put on hold, dreams have been delayed, expectations have been met with disappointment and normality seems a thing of the past. Although this year has been a complete curve ball it has certainly been a time of immense personal growth and self-discovery as we’re all forced to cope with unprecedented change, uncertainty and new emotions that come up in the whirlwind.
I had pretty big plans for this year. On January 23rd I left my life back in South Africa and moved to Dubai to join one of the world’s biggest airlines as cabin crew. After going through some really difficult, yet pivotal life changes back in 2019 I had decided to gift myself with a year of travel and self-exploration. Needless to say I arrived here with huge expectations and dreams of what the year had in store for me. This year wasn’t intended to be solely focused on travel however; I wanted this to be a year of self-growth and a time in my life where I could learn how to be fully alone and whole within myself. It was set to be a modern day personal pilgrimage of sorts. Boy, but a year of self-growth it has become.
You can imagine my dismay at realizing that the one year I chose to travel the world would become the year that a global pandemic brought society as we know it to a grinding halt. As airlines began grounding their aircraft and I was forced to quarantine in my apartment in the desert the reality of what this year was transforming into started sinking in.
What was meant to be an exciting year filled with travel and new experiences had become a year of uncertainty and me being alone in a foreign country with international travel banned for the foreseeable future.
I found myself in a position where everything I had thought the year would give me, everything I had been looking forward to about this journey had been taken away. The happiness, excitement and adventure that I felt like I needed from this year was nowhere to be seen. All I had was myself and no clue as to what the future held. And so I started to receive exactly what I had asked the universe for this year; my personal pilgrimage had begun. Although what I had asked for from this year had manifested in a completely unexpected way, I had asked for the lessons nonetheless. It was when all of the external factors that I was relying on so much for my personal happiness and fulfillment fell away that I started really learning about what happiness was at it’s core.
The biggest lesson that lockdown has taught me about happiness is that happiness is an inside job. All of those things we think we need to be happy? They’re all an illusion. Everything we learn to rely on for happiness outside of ourselves should be a beautiful addition to our lives, they should not be things we need in order to be happy with our lives or who we are.
Ultimately everything in our lives is fleeting and can be taken away in a heart beat. And when everything is taken away all we’re left with is ourselves; our perspectives, our emotions, our thoughts and beliefs, our courage, our willpower and our determination. If you can’t find happiness within yourself, then everything outside of you will give you small moments of joy that only leave you chasing the next external high once it wears off.
When I realized what my life had become during this lockdown I was faced with two choices: I could either crumble and succumb to hopelessness, sadness and anxiety at being “stuck” in a situation I hadn’t signed up for, or I could try do my best to fill my days with things that filled my soul and gave me a sense of purpose. Although it’s by no means been easy and I’ve had my fair share of difficult days, for the first time in years I’ve been able to figure out what truly makes me tick. What truly makes me happy.
It’s that personal equation of happiness that each one of us needs to figure out, because although all the excitement and beauty the world has to offer is wonderful, without being able to maintain your own inner happiness all the external things are meaningless, and become things we use to fill the voids within us so that we don’t have to do our own spiritual work.
This is what I’ve learned about my own happiness these past seven weeks. These are the core things that I need in order to be able to be happy within myself – I encourage you to dig a little deeper into what your equation looks like and how you can maintain your own happiness no matter what the world around you looks like:
Perspective
This is a key factor for me; our perspectives and the way we choose to interpret the world around us has the sole ability to make us happy, or pull us into a state of depression. Our perspective is crucial to our happiness because everything that happens in our lives is filtered through our minds. It is only through our thoughts that we attach to our life experiences that something is able to affect us either positively or negatively. It’s up to us to choose how we want to perceive the world around us; do we want to turn ourselves into victims and live in a negative world where we give away our personal power to our life circumstances? Or do we want to choose to see things from a more positive perspective which will empower us and allow us to take full responsibility for our happiness at any given point? Our perspective affects our actions, decisions, and our ability to move ourselves in any given direction.
Connection
I need connection to maintain my internal happiness; connection to the people that I love, and connection to myself. Although I am essentially alone on my adventure in Dubai and was in isolation by myself for weeks at the beginning of lockdown, I never once felt lonely. Every day I made, and continue to make an effort to speak to the people I love – whether they be my original support structure back in South Africa or the wonderful women I’ve met here in Dubai. I’ve realized that when it comes to connection I don’t need a lot of people in my life (although I am so blessed to have so many) but that I need to have regular small doses of meaningful connection with people that I care for. This allows me to feel like part of a larger community and fills my tank so that I can better care for myself.
This leads me onto the importance of my connection with myself. In order for me to feel genuinely happy and be the best version of myself, I need to prioritize activities that allow me to be in tune with what’s going on within. It’s really important for me to stay grounded in myself and practice self-awareness because it allows me to make decisions that will best serve me, and also helps me to look after myself better. Things like journaling, exercise, meditation, painting and tuning into my intuition help me stay connected and happy in who I am.
Creativity
I have always been a creative person whether it’s through cooking, gardening, drawing, painting, photography, writing etc. But before this lockdown I never actually realized just how vital a part creativity plays in my ability to be happy. Before I came to Dubai I had been in a very numbers-based career for five years and so my ability to create was limited to weekends, and further limited to my energy levels. Needless to say I wasn’t creating all that much. During the past seven weeks I’ve created more than I have in years – not by force or a need to be productive, but because that’s genuinely what my soul has wanted to do. I’ve painted, put energy into my blog content, tried new recipes and I’ve been working on my first ebook. The process of creating allows you to get out of your head and into your soul – it’s a process of love and joy and freedom and realizing how important creativity is to my happiness has been such a beautiful lesson in who I am.
Consciousness
I’ve known this about myself for a while, but its importance to me has only grown as life’s external offerings have diminished. Consciousness is important to my happiness in a few ways:
- Living in an environmentally conscious way makes me happy and gives me a sense of purpose; eating a conscious plant-based diet makes me happy, gardening and growing my own vegetables back home makes me happy, spending time with nature and making decisions that are eco-friendly makes me happy. This has been challenging for me here in Dubai because I’m surrounded by desert and it’s not easy to get into nature or even make environmentally conscious decisions. But knowing how important this is to me makes me excited to put more energy into this when I’m home or start traveling.
- Living in a spiritually conscious way is important to me. This means that it’s important to me to cultivate a sense of faith, inner-strength, mindfulness and deeper understanding in my life. Learning about emotions, helping others in whatever way I can and reading books on things I want to learn about are all things that make me happy because they help me live as a more conscious human being. During lockdown I’ve tried to do this through the books I’ve read, the blog posts I’ve written, making my own affirmation cards and taking time for self-reflection and spiritual practice.
Happiness isn’t the elusive prize we think it is, and contrary to the beliefs so many of us have, it’s not something we need to chase externally. I see now that I didn’t need to move halfway across the world to be happy, although I wouldn’t have learnt these lessons if I hadn’t. Happiness, and our ability to be happy lies within us at all times – all we need is some self-reflection and the desire to learn about what’s important to us, the discovery of our own happiness equations.
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