Those of us on the path of personal and spiritual growth tend to analyze our unhappiness to find the causes and make improvements. But it is just as important, if not more so, to analyze our happiness. Since we can rise above and observe our emotions, we can recognize when we feel joyful and content. Then we can harness the power of the moment by savoring our feelings and taking time to be grateful for them.

Recognition is the first step in creating change; therefore, recognizing what it feels like to be happy is the first step toward sustaining happiness in our lives. We can examine how joy feels in our bodies and what thoughts run through our minds in times of bliss. Without diminishing its power, we can retrace our steps to discover what may have put us in this frame of mind, and then we can take note of the choices we’ve made while there. We might realize that we are generally more giving and forgiving when there’s a smile on our face or that we are more likely to laugh off minor annoyances and the actions of others when they don’t resonate with our light mood.

Once we know what it feels like, identify some of the triggers, and are aware of our actions, we can recreate happiness when we feel low. Understanding that like attracts like, we can pull ourselves out of a blue mood by focusing on joy. We might find that forcing ourselves to be giving and forgiving, even when it doesn’t seem to come naturally, helps us reconnect with the satisfaction that usually precedes it. If we can identify a song, a picture, or a pet as a happiness trigger, we can use them as tools to recapture joy if we are having trouble finding it. By focusing our energy on analyzing happiness and all that it encompasses, we feed, nurture, and attract more of it into our lives, eventually making a habit of happiness.