I am a very simple person. I don’t expect much in life. But for some strange reason, I am not happy, and felt that simplicity is not a simple thing to achieve.” Jean said, “Isn’t anyone happy anymore?”

This is Peter Ng. Welcome to my motivational series ‘Awakening the Power within You’ – Simplicity is a state of mind.

Simplicity is not about events, lifestyles, and experiences nearly so much as it is about a person’s perception of the circumstances that occur in his or her life. A person’s simplicity level has to do with the person’s state of mind.

Similarly, there is a great difference between being lonely and alone. There are people who have lots of people around them all the time, but yet feeling lonely. And there are people who live alone but never felt lonely and find life meaningful and fulfilling.

First, let us identified what steals our simplicity in life:

• Perfectionism – those who stuff emotions try to keep everything ‘perfect’ in their lives so there will be no cause for them to experience rejection, failure, or criticism.
• Desire for Control – those who stuff emotions very often attempt to control every aspect of their lives – and the lives of others around them – so that no stray emotion has an opportunity to erupt or display itself.
• Self-Doubt and Self-Deprecation – People who have stuffed emotions very often have grown up in environments in which they have felt unloved or rejected as children. In some way, they have not experienced the security and bonding of a normal parent-child relationship. As a result, they have developed low self-esteem and feelings of low self-worth. People who have low self-worth may engage in self-deprecation – they ridicule their own flaws, shrug off compliments, and make overly critical comments about their own minor failures, flaws, or errors.
• Promiscuity – Many people with low self-worth and stuffed emotions tries very hard to please everyone.
• Bursting of emotions – People with stuffed emotions tend to present negative reactions such as anger, aggressive behavior, venting frustrations, and high level of disappoints as they cannot cope with rejections.
• Learned helplessness and hopelessness – Another factor could be due to nurturing is that those who learn helplessness (lack of independence) give up easily and believe bad events will always persist and nothing ever works out for the best.

Let true simplicity builds in your life:

1) Communicating with your heart.
o Speak words of encouragement to your heart.
o Voice words of appreciation for life’s blessings – be appreciative of what you have and who you have in your life.
o Speak words of acknowledgement about personal accomplishments or acts of kindness.
o Turn your frustrations, fears, and anger to appreciations, actions, and joy.

2) Learning to live in the love that flows from the heart.
o Replace distortional thinking with truth.
o Pressure may not make for the best performance – take time out for relax.
o Putting a filter to negative thoughts and reactions by not jumping to damaging conclusions, too much negative emotional reasoning, or disqualifying the positive.
o The cleansing power of self-forgiveness. Failing to do this can result in shame, remorse, guilt, and regret.
o The therapeutic value of joy. Joy is abiding and enduring. It comes from a feeling of contentment deep inside a person. It is not dependent on external factors, but on an inner sense of value, purpose, fulfillment, or satisfaction.
o There is true value of loving yourself and making the choice to be loving and appreciating your unique talents.

Choose to live in a state of true simplicity. The way to do that is to have a mind filled with peace and joy. It is not how you are living on the outside; but how you are in the inside.