Being happier

How to fill your happiness tank – A simple guide to enhance your wellbeing!

There are things that we can do to increase our sense of wellbeing. I’m not talking about rolling around on the floor laughing 24 hours a day (though that would be fun).  I’m talking here about moving through those more negative or unpleasant emotions to those that are much more positive, peaceful, satisfying and fulfilling.

In this article I’m going to give you some tools and resources on How to fill your happiness tank – a simple guide to enhance your wellbeing!


The Range of Emotions

At the very lowest level in terms of emotion we can have feelings of shame.  In the middle we might feel neutral and at the highest level we have enlightenment.  As a guide here, I’m using Dr David Hawkins Map/Scale of Consciousness from his book Transcending the Levels of Consciousness: The Stairway to Enlightenment.

Within this scale are 18 emotions and we may move between them or spend much time at those lower levels where fear, anger and apathy reside.  Clearly, living here is not a very pleasant place to be.

Basically, the Map of Consciousness is an energy scale used to realise your ultimate potential. Within this scale we may be suffering, getting by, in flow, in pure Tao or have realised our ultimate consciousness.

Each emotion or level is attributed a score and this is something we can simply track on a daily basis and modify what we do where necessary using the guide and templates I will give you.  You (with my help) will identify those activities that raise your level of emotion and/or consciousness.

At the very least we really want to be ‘in flow’ more often than not.  It is normal to experience negative emotions or where we are feeling a little low, but as much as possible we want to move through them, not live them constantly.

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“How to fill your happiness tank – a simple guide to enhance your wellbeing!”


A Spoonful of Happiness Food – Boosts for Feeling Good!

I don’t mean food literally here, though good nutritious food will of course enhance how you feel.

I’m talking about other types of happiness food.

There may be activities or rituals that you know do increase your feeling of wellbeing and you do them which is great (keep them up), but perhaps your sense is that they are not enough or that something is still lacking or out of balance.

And further still, there might be things that you know you enjoy but that you may inexplicably avoid or deny yourself.

Let me give you an example.  I consider myself musical, I have an ear for music, pitch and can sing, and yet for many many years I very rarely listened to music (at least not outside of a dance club), I didn’t do the music scene and I didn’t sing.  Yet, music fills my soul and makes me happy but I denied myself the pleasure.  I won’t get into the details as to why that might be, suffice to say, that it happens.  And we don’t actually need to know why we don’t allow ourselves these pleasures, it is enough to know that we’re denying ourselves.

And then there are some activities that perhaps you haven’t tried but that you have an inkling you might actually like.  These also might enhance your wellbeing and so these are things that you can explore too.

Finally, sometimes we don’t even know what we like or what makes us feel good.  We have shut down so completely that we have forgotten what used to make us excited, happy, sparked our interest or even just made us feel peaceful. That’s ok, it just measn it’s time to explore. How exciting is that!

It sounds cliché, but it is about balance and with our very busy lives and responsibilities it can be difficult to find that balance and often it can be stressful trying.

What I do know though is that it is important.  You are important enough to give yourself the time and fill your happiness tank.  In this way, we are also much better able to give to others and the person they see is someone much more fulfilled, joyous and balanced.

My suggestion is to choose perhaps 2-3 things per day and a couple of things per week that are focused on your wellbeing.

These don’t have to be too onerous, take too much time or money (if any at all).  It’s up to you.  Ease into it at first.  You don’t want to overload yourself to the point that resistance kicks in.

You can include elements that are social, solitary, physical, mentally stimulating and non-mental (those things that get you into the place of no-mind/non-thinking or flow).

Here are a few suggestions many of which have helped me:

  • Yoga (for a beautiful balance of the physical and spiritual).
  • Meditation (I can’t recommend meditation highly enough for expanding awareness and consciousness)
  • Exercise
  • Commune with nature and animals
  • Socialise (perhaps try for at least once a week)
  • Paint or draw
  • Dance (on your own or even if people are watching)
  • Music (listen, play an instrument)
  • Colour a Mandala
  • Read a book, magazine or a comic if you like them
  • Be grateful (daily)
  • Write in a Dream Journal (weekly) and Journal the Positive (daily)
  • Acts of Kindness (e.g. volunteering if you have the time, if not, something small – even a kind word to someone)
  • Anything else that comes to mind for you.

Your Free Guide

I’m not going to leave you there.  It’s really important to have some structure to this process, otherwise we end up floundering or feeling like it’s not working and we’re back where we started and feeling less than great.

So, here’s where we go from here.

Nothing beats a visual to really identify what you are doing and what you are feeling on a daily basis and how they correlate.

Subscribe now (top right of this page) and receive your free “How to fill your happiness tank – a simple guide to enhance your wellbeing!”. 

The Guide includes:

Additional information and guidance on how to proceed from here with instructions and templates:

1. Happiness Food Grid – Boosts for Feeling Good

To identify and record the activities that are working for you and enhancing your wellbeing or perhaps what needs to be modified; to record your Map of Consciousness scores and to see your progress (though you’re sure to feel it).

2. Map of Consciousness Emotion Scatterplot – you will notice your mood and how what you are doing impacts on this.

3. Map of Consciousness –  list of emotions with scores that you can use to see how you are evolving and where it is ideal to be for your wellbeing. 

Complete the subscribe fields at the top right-hand side of this page and get your guide to enhance your wellbeing now.

I am certain that this article along with the guide to enhance your wellbeing will help you to enhance your wellbeing.

Start feeling better today!

Please leave any comments or questions below.  I’d also love to hear how you get on.

For now, go forth with ease and just be!

Martine

6 Comments

  • Tom

    Hi Martine,

    This is such an inspirational and important article for the times we are living in. Here in the UK, we are still in lockdown so as you can imagine, it is not a very happy place to be in. I am going to share your article with some friends and family and hopefully you can help them too.

    I will encourage them to comment and if they have any issues or questions or anything else for that matter, I will advise them to get in touch. If that is OK with you?

    Thank you for sharing and keep up the great work.

    All the best,

    Tom

    • Martine Brooks

      Please do Tom. I appreciate your enthusiasm and praise. Please encourage your friends to subscribe so I can send them their free copy of “How to fill your happiness tank – A simple guide to enhance your wellbeing!”. It will help.

  • Matt Lin

    Hi Martine,

    I agree that we can do some of those recommended activities to fill happiness in our daily life. I do lots of exercising, meditating, being close to nature, and moving my mind from the negative to the positive. I think they work quite well for me. In most cases, I find myself feeling so much better by doing the above activities and could focus on things that really matter to my life. So, I will suggest my friends & family read this article whenever they feel blue. 🙂

    Matt

  • Tom

    Hi Martine,

    I love this article. It has been a year since we have been in lockdown and I have had ups and downs throughout. The thing is, I know that I need to exercise, eat healthier and be healthier. So, I do it for a while and then after about a month or two, I stop. I don’t know why I do it because during that time I feel happy and fulfilled, but I am not able to sustain it.

    Your articles really do help me realise this and what I need to do to keep it going. I need to stay persistent and consistent with what I do. I need to keep telling myself that I am on the right path and things are going to keep improving.

    I will keep you updated on how I am doing and if I have any burning questions then I will get in touch.

    Thank you for sharing and keep up the great work.

    All the best,

    Tom

    • Martine Brooks

      Thanks Tom. If you have some barriers in relation to meditation particularly (which alot of people have), you might be interested in my article https://yourpurepotential.com/avoiding-meditation-find-out-why/

      In terms of health and wellbeing, I can’t recommend meditation highly enough. It’s my number one. Everything else then comes from that i.e. the desire to eat well, exercise etc. We become naturally compelled to do the things that support our health and wellbeing and begin to move away from those that don’t (I even gave up smoking just meditating – no willpower required). It’s a really great starting point.

      I’d love to hear how you get on. Thanks for your comment, I appreciate it. Martine

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