“I wish there were a happy pill” a reader said after describing the really tough situation she was experiencing in her health and relationships.

It got me thinking.

Finding happiness is a buzz word these days.

It probably sells millions of self-help books a year. But the success of happiness books is also a testament to the need for more happiness and peace in our very hurried lives.

We are all craving more peace.

We are all craving more joy.

If there were a magic pill we’d all be living blissfully fulfilling lives right now.

But then I look at Eckhart Tolle who in his dark night of the soul wanted to end his life, but he then had a sudden awakening…a break from the misery that made him realize he didn’t have to suffer.

He saw there was the “self” that was suffering and the “self” that was observing the suffering.

He awoke the next day with a sense of happiness and connection that he hadn’t experienced before.

This tells me that happiness doesn’t take time, it takes awareness.

Deep self-awareness.

So there IS a magic pill, a remedy you can ingest that will bring happiness.

You can take it anytime. There’s no prescription needed. It does not conflict with other medications. There are no adverse side effects. You can’t overdose.

And it doesn’t cost a dime.

Difficult to obtain? Maybe. But only if you don’t know that it’s out there and that you have access to it. And there IS a global shortage of it.

But those who have experienced the benefits of this “magic pill” are now sharing it in droves and hopefully more and more people will not have to needlessly suffer.

What is this pill called and how can you get it?

The “magic happy pill” is called love, specifically self-love.

You get it by simply making choices: choices that are aligned with your heart and soul, choices that let you stand in your truth, choices that let you be who you truly are.

Important note: this pill only works when taken with purposeful action.

Without purposeful action, the full benefits of the pill won’t be grounded in your human experience. In other words, you’ll only be making changes in your thinking and feeling (which is very valuable in itself!) but it’s also important to bring to changes into your full way of being.

It’s about bringing self-love into the way you lead your life.

The courageous self-love pill has many benefits, but here are the top ones:

Ingredient: Mindfulness

Benefits: A sense of empowerment and knowing you have choices

It’s easy to feel like the world is happening TO us.

We go through life and then get blind-sighted by change, struggle to cope, and sometimes feel trapped there. We forget, however, that we create how we feel. Not everyone responds the same way to a given situation. One person’s dread may be another person’s joy.

We are empowered with the ability to choose how we feel about something. Most people would agree that losing a loved one is a really difficult experience. But we can choose to let the experience derail us or choose to let it change us for the better.

Ingredient: Energy

Benefits: The fuel to keep you moving forward toward your dreams and goals

This is the stuff that nourishes your mind, body, and soul…these are the friends and activities that energize you, that fill you up, that inspire a sense of wonder and love within you.

It could be traveling solo to a spiritual place or lunch with your best friend.

Making time for play, for pleasure, and fun will replenish your “batteries” for the journey forward.

Ingredient: Surrender

Benefits: The ability to let go, let be, and deeply know what is and what isn’t within our power to change peace

Surrender is to yield, not to yield our power, but to surrender what ultimately does not belong to us.

Perhaps a more descriptive word would be “unburdening” or forgiveness.

We can’t have peace by holding on to painful thoughts and feelings that ultimately do nothing for us but just bring us down.

The experience of happiness depends on our ability to make room for it in our hearts and in our life.

If we are holding on to pain, or trying to change someone or manage someone’s perception of us, we are not making space for our true self to grow and flourish.

Our energy is consumed by trying to make someone else do something or feel something. We are trying to control them. And subsequently, we are not honoring their ability to make their own choices and lead their own life.

Inviting happiness into our life means letting go of what you know you cannot control and embracing what is within your true power.