The Pursuit of Happiness…

by Kathy Scheiern, Ph.D.

Our founding fathers declared in the Declaration of Independence that “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” were among certain unalienable rights that were endowed upon all human beings by their Creator. This is the foundation upon which our country was built. It is important to note that while life and liberty were guaranteed, happiness was not. Instead, they included the right to “pursue” happiness.

And so we pursue happiness. Our consumer driven culture promises us that happiness can be achieved with our next purchase – of whatever is being sold at that moment. So we purchase and purchase and purchase. In fact our purchasing is the primary source of our economic strength as a country! When consumers feel squeezed and cut back on their spending, the economy slumps; when consumers feel good and increase their spending, the economy booms. And the purchasing continues.

Our houses and our lives are filled with stuff. Are we happy yet? It doesn't look like it. We push and shove at department store sales. We engage in aggressive driving when someone cuts us off in traffic (never mind what we did to the guy beside us earlier). We eat and drink, but the “be merry” part of the process seems to escape us. Instead, we watch “reality TV” and play computer games and go shopping – all to escape our everyday lives. This does not seem like the behavior of truly happy people.

So if happiness is not available with our next purchase from QVC, where should we look instead? The sages of all ages tell us that true happiness comes from within. But what if our internal landscapes look like war zones filled with never-ending minefields of pain and fear? How can happiness come from such a place?

The reality is that in most cases it cannot. We need to heal our damaged inner landscapes in order to create fertile ground for happiness to take root and grow in our lives. And the primary source of healing is love – love of self, love of others, love of life, love.

Our first experience of love is from our mother. She is the person we cry for to satisfy our most basic needs – food, warmth, safety, love. As children, when Mom is not available either physically or emotionally, we become desperate, crying louder from fear and need. And when those needs are not met, we withdraw into ourselves and create walls built of our fear and need, until no one and nothing can get in – or out.

As children, these walls protect us and allow us to survive to adulthood in difficult situations, but as adults, these walls isolate us, and keep us from experiencing happiness in our lives. In order to achieve real happiness, we need to take down the walls of our fear, and acknowledge the presence of love in our lives.

Twenty years ago, Bert Hellinger was doing healing work with people in Germany who had deeply scarred internal landscapes. He discovered that one answer to healing the inner landscape and thus having a place from which happiness can come – is re-establishing the flow of love in family systems. His work allows people to bring their past hurts and fears out into the open, to see these hurts and fears as entangled forms of deep love, and to come to a new understanding of the power and presence of love in their lives.

Hellinger called this work “Family Constellations” because the focus was on the relationships of the family members and the “picture” that these relationships created in the mind and heart of the individual. He then used group healing sessions to facilitate movement in these relationships – a type of representational re-imaging, thus changing the internal picture and allowing love and life to flow more freely for the individual.

The power of this work and its ability to bring a deeper experience of love and happiness into the lives of those who participate is being felt all over the world. From Germany , its practice has moved throughout Europe to Latin America and Asia – and, as noted in the November/December issue of “Spirituality & Health” magazine, it is finally “making its way into the U.S. ”

Family Constellation facilitators are now offering group and individual sessions in almost every state in the country. Along with other established healing practitioners, their goal is to help us reclaim our fear-filled inner landscapes and replace the minefields of fear and pain with fields of perennially blooming flowers of love and happiness. Like the work of any good gardener, it takes time and dedication and willingness to engage in the process, but the end result is one that brings joy and satisfaction to our lives, and incredible beauty and hope to the world. Something that in these challenging times, we all can find worthwhile.

So the next time you contemplate a purchase to increase your sense of true happiness, choose to invest in your inner self, and make that feeling last.

© 2007, Kathy Scheiern, Ph.D. Kathy Scheiern has spent 20 years helping individuals and organizations achieve their transformation goals. She is a certified Systemic Constellation Work facilitator, a certified Cultural Transformation Tools consultant, and a Certified Public Accountant – which basically means she's certifiable!