This is the fourth post in a series entitled “Basics of Happiness.” This series allows me to explain my take on happiness and what I believe to be useful steps on the journey to happiness as a state of being. The content in this series is also the foundation of my book-in-progress.

So here we are. We’re ready and we’re really choosing and now we’ve reached the end of the preparation for our journey into happiness as a state of being. The last step in choosing to be happy is to OPEN.

O P E N  W I D E. Really wide.

We’re about to begin tackling the things that stand in our way of being truly happy. Absolutely, without question, the only way to do so successfully is to be open.

What does it mean to be open?

Being open means letting go and allowing yourself to receive. Letting go is such a big part of being happy. It’ll come up many more times before we’ve reached the end of this series. For our purposes right now, though, we will just begin to let go. We can think of it in terms of getting a massage. Let’s say you’re getting some deep work done to release knots in your muscles. Your Massage Therapist will always begin with smooth, superficial strokes to allow the muscles to warm and open a little before digging in to do the really big work. It’s the same with this. Our preparatory letting go is just enough to get us warmed up for the bigger work ahead.

So let go. Let go of as much as you can right now — fear, control, stress, doubt, “I can’t” and “I don’t know how.” Even a little is enough. Like everything else, letting go is a practice. In fact, it’s a practice that will be a part of your life forever. Get used to its presence and understand that even the smallest release is huge progress and is to be celebrated as such!

The other vital part of being open is allowing yourself to receive. To return to our massage analogy, let’s say you’re super stressed. You go to get a massage, but you just can’t stop thinking about the things that are stressing you out. You spend the whole session in your head, worrying. At the end of the session, you find your muscles are just as tense as they were before. Though your body was present for the work, you weren’t allowing yourself to receive it. Your therapist could be giving you off-the-charts stellar work, but unless you’re allowing yourself to receive it, it won’t make a difference. You must allow yourself to receive — gifts, compliments, healing work and so much more. Using an example relevant to our work, how many times have you asked the Universe for something, only for your request to go seemingly unanswered? I used to have this problem a lot. Finally I realized — the Universe was answering me. I just wasn’t receiving that answer. So often when we ask for things, we have a very specific idea about the form the answer should take, and we close ourselves off to everything else. It is vital that we practice being open to receiving our answers (and everything else) in whatever forms they come — not just the forms in which we think they “should” come.

Let go. Receive. These practices create flow. They allow you to adapt easily. They support your quest for a new and different experience of your world.

Next post: The deeper letting go begins.