The 3 Biggest "Happiness Blockers" #191

"Don't worry, just be happy!" If it would be so easy, right? We all want to be happy... We all want to feel joy, light, purpose... But what's actually holding us back from being truly happy? What is the solution? How can you find happiness in the midst of chaos and uncertainty? Listen in and discover 3 "Happiness Blockers" that might be keeping you from enjoying your life!

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Soul Infused Monday.

I am excited that you're here.

Thank you for being here and taking the time to start this week in a meaningful way.

The Soul Infused Monday show is your show for an inspired and meaningful week.

And before I dive even into the topic that is today,

The three biggest happiness blockers and how to actually find happiness in the midst of chaos and uncertainty,

I invite you to take a deep breath.

Take a deep breath and simply become present.

Presence is an important piece,

Will be part of the solution actually,

Ultimately.

But for now,

I invite you to remove any distractions,

Put your phone aside,

Close your door,

Mute your notifications,

Grab a glass of water and leave me a comment below and let me know how you're feeling today.

How are you doing actually?

Take a moment to check in with yourself.

Just take a moment to check in with yourself and let me know.

Because ultimately I'm here for you to support you and the more you engage with me,

The more you let me know what you're going through,

The more you let me know what you're experiencing in this present moment,

The more I can actually support you.

And if you're new to this Soul-Infused Monday show,

My name is Sonja Buonadola Torre.

I've been dedicated and on the journey for over 26 years and I've been teaching for over 18 and I'm here to support you to feel good insight and to deal with what's going on in the world right now as well.

So who is here?

Say hello,

Leave a comment and now that you're a little bit more present,

Verbalize it,

You can do it in your head and then if you do feel courageous enough or open enough to share with me,

Leave a comment or send me a message if you cannot leave a comment when you are listening in on how you're feeling today.

Now,

Happiness,

What is happiness?

I wanna start with what is happiness?

What does happiness mean to me?

Because happiness can also be a very superficial word.

Happiness can be things,

Happiness can be so many different things for different people.

Now,

What does happiness mean to you?

I wanna use happiness in terms of inner happiness,

Meaning that for me,

Happiness is associated with living with the truth of who you are,

Being connected with who you are on a deep conscious level and is not necessarily on what's going on outside or the things that we have.

That can bring some short happiness,

Let it say a beautiful house,

A car,

Lots of money,

A relationship,

Like all of these things can bring joy and happiness into your life.

However,

When I talk about happiness,

It's how you feel inside on a daily basis,

Who you are being at home with inside.

Now,

I've been pondering about this lately,

What's actually blocking,

I mean,

Lately,

I mean,

For over 20 years,

But specifically lately,

That I don't know about you right now,

But this year has been super,

Super challenging for me personally.

And you know,

I'm always very transparent.

This year has been a shit show internally,

Externally,

On so many levels.

And a lot of my friends and clients and people around me,

They're really going through very intense times.

And don't underestimate that,

You know,

Last year through the pandemic and the lockdown,

That was very challenging,

But I don't think that a lot of people are really realizing that the face now after like coming out of it,

Carries some own challenges.

And it's about readjusting and reconnecting and going and creating happiness in a new form.

And it's actually not necessarily a new form,

But a more conscious form again,

Because we are also distracted and used to be on devices constantly on the computer,

Especially through lockdown pandemic,

That we weren't able to really connect in person.

We're so used to it now that we are often not really present.

Does that make sense?

And hello,

I see your comments.

Yeah,

And I wanna share today with you the three biggest,

There's so many reasons or blocks or whatever you wanna call it that are preventing us really from truly being happy on a daily basis.

And I'm gonna share three with you today.

And I'm also gonna share with you what the solution is,

However,

The solution will not just happen overnight.

I wanna give you this as input for insights for yourself,

To ponder around it,

To meditate around it,

To journal around it.

First of all,

What does happiness mean to you?

And what are your biggest happiness blockers?

And I only recently,

A couple of days ago,

I was sitting on my meditation cushion and I've done a lot of inner work.

I'm on,

I kept saying this,

I have been saying this for many,

Many years that I'm an inner work junkie,

Right?

And so the other day I was sitting on my meditation cushion and I felt so deeply unhappy and frustrated and even experiencing old emotions that I'm used to from the past that got me to do the inner work to begin with.

And if you've been following me for a while,

I had surgery in the beginning of the year,

That really screwed things up for me.

And I went through a lot of revisiting old trauma,

Old emotions,

Feelings of unworthiness,

Feelings of depression,

Feelings of loneliness.

And maybe you can relate whether you are currently maybe going through a breakup,

Maybe you're currently dealing with the loss of a loved one.

Maybe you are overwhelmed with anxiety or financial distress,

Maybe you have health issues.

Maybe it's something completely different,

But something you are battling with.

And in that moment when I was sitting there tuning into all of what's happening and I was in a moment of distress and even anger and frustration.

And if you are someone that has done a lot of inner work yourself,

You might know the feeling when you think,

But what the hell?

Like I'm doing everything and why am I,

Why I'm not happy,

Right?

So I had a moment of that on my meditation cushion and I said to myself,

Okay,

I'm done being an inner work junkie.

I'm going to become a happiness junkie.

Now that was a thought,

I was like,

Okay,

Not that was completely new to me,

But I was like,

Okay,

I'm gonna focus now on why and how,

Not why,

How can I bring happiness on a daily basis in the midst,

Not when we are not in it,

In the midst of chaos,

Pain,

Uncertainty,

Anxiety.

So,

And then I was tuning in and over the years that I've been teaching,

I've been on the path,

Of course these things are not new.

And at the same time,

We all need reminders.

And I believe that right now there's such a strong,

Intensified collective movement and we all need these reminders and the focus on how to actually bring that in our lives because it's very easy to just see the negative or just see the things that are not working well.

And it has been a very challenging time for many.

Now,

Is this resonating with you?

I'm curious to hear,

Is this landing with you?

Leave me a comment below and let me know what's actually landing for you or resonating with your own life right now.

What are you currently struggling with?

What are your biggest,

Yeah,

Pain points in your life right now?

So,

And let's get into one of the three biggest happiness blockers that I can see.

And some of them are so duh,

But it's about really looking at it on a deeper level and with a lot of awareness and consciousness.

The number one that I would say at the moment that keeps you from being happy or that's really blocking your happiness is disconnection.

Disconnection.

Disconnection to yourself and disconnection to others.

Now,

If you do wanna have more connection with others,

You get to be also first be more connected.

And I'll tell you in a minute how to do that.

But this connection and even the word,

You can write it down,

You can ponder around it later,

What that means to you.

But one thing that I distinction that I wanna make is this disconnection from yourself,

Meaning from your true self,

From who you are,

And being basically in love with your true being versus falling for,

Yeah,

Falling for a fake image of yourself,

A perfectionistic distorted version of who you believe you should be,

Beliefs,

Patterns,

A mask that we sometimes,

And I can relate to that,

That the deep ingrained urge,

Belief,

Pattern that wanting to be perfect to be loved.

Now,

That's just one example,

But the disconnection is one,

One of the biggest blocks to happiness.

Now,

That might take a little bit more work depending on where you are on your journey,

But simply even shifting your awareness to connecting to yourself again,

Connecting to yourself again,

And re-igniting the relationship to yourself again.

Now,

Here's the solution to that.

And once you do,

When you reconnect to yourself more,

You can connect with others.

The solution to disconnection is presence,

Presence,

Being present,

And even hearing this sometimes it's like,

Oh yeah,

I don't have time for this or this,

I heard this before,

Oh my God,

If this is a solution,

Yeah,

But it is the solution.

How do you become more present?

First of all,

You are aware that you are not present.

You're not.

You are in an unhappy state of suffering.

And I also wanna make the distinction between pain.

Some sort of pain is inevitable.

As long as we are inexperienced,

We are going through events that are painful.

However,

It's our clinging to it or our not being present and trying to distract ourselves that often causes the suffering,

Okay?

Does that make sense?

So the solution to reconnect again is presence.

And one very simple way is to be really aware,

What are you doing on a daily basis?

How often are you in the home?

And I'm talking out of,

I do everything myself that I'm just sharing with you.

I'm sharing with you my own journey right now.

It's like,

How much am I on my phone?

How much am I on my computer?

How disconnected am I on a regular basis?

What do I do to actually connect and be present with myself?

For me,

It's meditation,

One big one.

Meditation is quality time with myself.

It's taking the time to stretch when my body is aching.

As going on a beach walk for me,

Now that I live on the beach,

But it could be anything different for you,

And not having to constantly listen to something,

Being present in the moment,

Bringing your energy from an energetical perspective is bringing the energy back in,

Is tuning in again.

Yeah,

You will hit the layers of discomfort.

Let that be okay.

Be present with that.

And the more present you can be with yourself,

The more available you are to be present with someone else.

And therefore you can create deeper connections.

Because we do need real,

Meaningful connections in order to experience happiness,

And it starts within you.

So that's one.

I can talk about this alone for hours,

But I'm gonna leave it at this.

One of the biggest happiness blockers is disconnection,

And the solution to disconnection is presence.

Now,

Number two,

And let me take a sip of water.

Number two is a big one.

And that will create resistance when you hear it.

Number two,

One of the biggest happiness blockers is actually our resistance.

Our resistance to things we don't like in particular,

Because when we like something,

We usually don't resist it.

Now,

Take a breath with that for a moment,

And I'll tell you what happens.

Take a breath with that for a moment,

And allow yourself to be totally okay that we all do it.

I was sitting down,

Writing down,

What have I been resisting this year?

Why is this year so challenging?

And usually what creates the unhappiness is that we resist something that has already happened,

But we are still resisting it on some level,

Was a resisting reality,

And we cannot really change it,

But the resistance to it costs a lot of energy.

We lose our power,

We lose the present moment,

And we are not happy,

Right?

So the resistance to what is in that moment.

And I give you an example.

I was just thinking,

Okay,

What have I been resisting?

So I was like,

Oh my God,

I'm still resisting the fact that I had surgery,

I'm resisting that my body is changing,

I'm resisting that I'm aging,

I'm resisting so many other things that I was literally writing them down.

And I'm not talking about you consciously resisting it.

It's like,

Oh,

I'm gonna resist this,

This and that.

It's about with consciousness and awareness.

It's a physical sensation as well.

Resistance creates tension.

And it's a deeper unconscious level of resisting something that you don't like.

Now,

Take a breath,

Relax for a moment as much as you can,

And allow yourself to just be in experience and witnessing your own resistance.

Where there's tension,

There is somehow resistance.

It's not a bad thing.

Don't judge it,

Don't fight it,

Don't push it away.

Simply be aware of it.

And the crazy things that we human beings do that creates a lot of suffering is that even though we know that happened,

There's nothing to be changed about it.

I cannot change things that happen.

You cannot change things that happen.

Even,

Let's say,

Someone you loved left you,

You got rejected or you,

Something else that's happening in your life.

That happened,

It happened.

So the event itself is already past.

The event itself is not the struggle point.

We are actually fighting and struggling with ourselves with what's coming up inside.

Now that doesn't mean,

Oh,

I just stopped resisting and everything is fine.

You might still have to deal with what's coming up,

Most likely,

The pain from the past or the feelings,

Or maybe something practical.

Stopping to resist does not mean you stop dealing with it,

But resistance is one of the biggest happiness blockers.

So I invite you to ponder around that.

What are you resisting?

Deep,

Be honest with yourself.

What are you resisting?

And resisting is fairly easy to find because it's coupled,

Coupled is maybe not an English word,

But it's combined with judgment.

We usually judge also what we resist.

There's something you don't want.

You're fighting,

You're kind of,

That's the energy.

So find out what are you resisting?

And the solution ultimately to resistance is acceptance.

Well,

Letting go of,

Stopping the resistance,

It's to accept the moment with awareness.

And one thing that you can do to help that is to breathe and to relax your body consciously because a relaxed body can't really resist as much.

It's not so much in resistance.

A resistance is always tension-based.

Again,

This is even alone a topic to dive way deeper,

But I wanna give you something for you to ponder.

So the second biggest happiness blocker is resistance.

And the solution is to accept and be a non-resistance,

Obviously,

In an accepting place.

And the last one,

And they all kind of like go a little bit together,

But the third happiness blocker is that we try to control the situation.

We try to control,

We try to change something that we are actually not really able to change or that,

Yeah,

Is unchangeable.

We try to control in order to make us feel better.

There is an underlying psychological reason as well behind that.

And again,

I'm scratching here the surface,

But when we don't feel safe,

And that's the keyword that you wanna keep,

You might wanna make a note.

I hope you are taking notes.

The keyword is safety.

If you don't feel safe,

And again,

This goes beyond your conscious mind as an adult.

We have a lot of inner parts and the inner child and parts from the past that are living in an anxiety or in an old trauma,

Locked in an old trauma,

A belief system,

A wound,

And it triggers a feeling of not being safe or not feeling safe.

Now,

When we get triggered to not feeling safe,

Automatically the protection mechanism goes into control because it gives us a false perception and belief that when we control,

We can predict the environment,

We can control the environment,

And therefore we get a sense of safety.

It doesn't really work on a deeper level.

So therefore it's also a big loss of energy and it creates a lot of tension.

And the solution to letting go of control is of course first being aware of it and relaxing and surrendering.

And then most importantly is to tune inside and see,

Okay,

Why and what happened to me that I don't feel safe?

What do I get to release,

Heal,

And look so that I can be in the present moment,

Understanding and also experiencing that I am safe in this moment and I do not have to control and lose myself through it.

Now I'm curious to hear,

And let me take another sip of water.

And then I invite you already,

Grab your,

Well,

It's not a pen,

But the virtual pen.

Out of everything that I shared and the three happiness blockers that I've shared,

What is your biggest takeaway from today?

Like what's landing for you?

What's one thing,

One thing that is resonating with you that is making a difference for you?

And it could be something very simple.

Most likely it's even something that you heard a million times before,

But what's landing here for you?

What's landing deep inside yourself and leave a comment below.

And why did you do that?

Take that moment.

I'm gonna also see what the comment says and happy to answer some of your questions as well today when it comes to happiness.

Do you have a question about happiness or anything else?

Leave a comment below.

Antina is sharing that so many words came to mind when I asked the question,

How are you feeling?

But now that I'm talking about it,

It feels disconnected.

I feel it,

I feel disconnected.

That's great.

Antina,

You know what I mean?

It's not great that you are disconnected,

But that you have the awareness now before.

What you just shared is so profound.

So listen to this for a moment.

And that's why it's so important for you to share,

Not only for yourself,

But because it is an insight for others.

When you don't know,

When you're not aware that you are disconnected,

You have nothing,

There is no solution because you don't even know what the problem is.

Now,

When you take the time to tune in and to realize,

Hey,

One of the biggest,

I say one of the biggest,

It's not the only one,

But one of the biggest blocks for us to feel happiness is disconnection.

Now you can do so many other things around yourself and you can do three hours of yoga and do another meditation and go out and be with people and buy a new car and or whatever it is,

Or we are all addicted to something,

Everybody,

Including you and me,

And we can stuff ourselves with food or we do something to distract ourselves and you can do whatever you want out there.

As long as you are disconnected,

It's very difficult to experience happiness.

Just thank you for sharing that.

And I wanna share a few more.

And again,

Take the time for yourself,

Even if you're listening to this on a different device and you're not on the video call and you cannot leave a comment,

Leave me a message or leave me a review,

Share with me what's your biggest takeaway out of this episode today.

And Mandy saying,

Happiness has happened in my house,

Jacuzzi arrived.

That's a great example that I wanna use.

I love a jacuzzi that's gonna,

You're gonna experience joy,

But it's not the jacuzzi that brings you the happiness,

Is how you feel when you are in it and the experiences that you have.

Now,

A great thing in that scenario would be,

Okay,

So for those who don't have a jacuzzi,

How can I create my inner jacuzzi?

You know,

Like,

And ask yourself a simple question,

What makes me happy?

What creates happiness in my life?

Even the image just to being in a nice warm bubbly water could be,

Right?

But it's not the thing itself that creates the happiness.

So that's really important to understand because otherwise what happens when the jacuzzi is taking away or the car is gonna take away or the money is taking away or your boyfriend is taking away or your wife,

That means then in that worldview,

In that reality,

That you are not gonna be happy anymore.

I love that example.

Thank you so much for sharing,

Mandy,

And I'm really happy for you.

Enjoy it.

And Deborah is sharing that the third one is lending for me and the third one was the controlling one.

Yeah,

Debbie,

I hear you.

Yeah,

That's a big one.

Just increased my awareness for the connections in all three to happiness.

Beautiful.

Thank you for sharing.

And Tina is sharing,

That's my biggest takeaway today,

The disconnection.

True,

I didn't even know that I was disconnected.

Wonderful.

Okay.

So I'm gonna leave it for now here for today.

I hope it was valuable for you.

I really want to acknowledge you that you're here.

You are taking the time to actually do something.

And if you are in a place,

I want you to know,

If you're listening in and you are really in an unhappy place,

I am with you,

I hear you,

And it's okay.

And we all go through certain phases and you're not alone.

Now take even only one little bit of this and even the question,

Okay,

It's okay.

I'm not feeling happy right now.

I'm,

You know,

It's easier said than done.

I'm with you.

Maybe it's simply taking a deep breath.

Maybe it's simply being with someone,

Sharing with someone,

Connecting.

If you are not able to connect with yourself,

Because that's not easy sometimes,

It's not easy sometimes.

If you're right now feeling,

Hey,

I feel disconnected.

I am very resistant.

I am judgmental.

I don't like myself.

I don't like my life or something is just too hard.

There's too much pain.

And therefore you are kind of like in a tense,

Stressful situation.

The magic trick,

And it's magic for a reason,

As first you take a deep breath,

You relax your physical body,

Nothing more than that.

Let yourself feel the fields.

Accept what is in this moment.

Accept even that you feel disconnected.

Relax your physical body.

Maybe it's your jaw,

Maybe it's your neck.

Maybe it's your shoulders.

Maybe it's your lower back.

Maybe it's your fingers.

Maybe it's your legs.

Maybe it's your legs.

Maybe it's your legs.

Maybe it's your fingers,

Maybe it's your teeth.

Take a breath and simply relax your body.

And connect in whichever way you can.

Maybe it's easier for you to connect to your pet.

Maybe for you it's sending out a message to your best friend and saying,

Hey,

I feel so disconnected.

I just wanted to send you a message.

Whatever it is,

One little thing.

No need for pressure.

No need for,

Oh my God,

I have to work on this so hard.

No.

Take the pressure off.

Take a breath.

Start with connecting to yourself.

Start to practicing more and more to be in acceptance with what is,

And awareness is the key.

Reduce your time on your phone.

Reduce your time where you are distracted.

And reconnect to experience more happiness in your life.

So I hope this was valuable for you.

If it was,

Please share it with a friend.

Practice,

Practice happiness,

Acceptance,

Surrender,

Presence with other people,

Because the more you do it,

The more you invite others to do,

And the more you are surrounded by people who do the same,

The more it will uplift you.

So take a last deep breath before we say goodbye.

Let your energy rise.

Have a inspired,

Meaningful,

Relaxed,

Accepting week.

And I'm looking forward to seeing you next Monday again at 9 a.

M.

Pacific time,

12 p.

M.

Eastern time.

And if you need additional support,

Please reach out to me.

I work with clients one on one and can help you deeper with your own personal issues.

Much love.

Reviews

Very interesting! Thank you!