Jared Akers

Dr. Wayne Dyer’s The Shift and the Realization That Everything You Need is Already Within You

by Jared Akers

Last night my wife and I watched the Dr. Wayne W. Dyer movie The Shift (Amazon).

The main message is that we all seek fulfillment or purpose, but need help sometimes from what Dr. Dyer describes as a quantum moment.

The Shift happens after this quantum moment as we shift from living in the morning of our lives—driven by ego—into the afternoon—living on purpose; while everything in the morning was a lie.

The movie opens with Dr. Dyer getting out of bed and his first words are; “thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Gratitude, a most powerful action.

The term “living life on purpose,” previously meant something else to me. I associated it with intent, ambition, and drive. You know, waking up and living life on purpose! Today it means something totally different: living life on purpose; as in on task or in the zone of what my purpose is. [Read more…]

Creating Your Happy Life: 3 Keys to Building Happiness

by Jared Akers

It is possible to build a happy life, but for most of us, it’s not easy. Maybe you know someone who seemed to manifest a happy life in an instant; I don’t.

I have heard of these miraculous awakenings into happiness, and I believe them to be true. One thing I have noticed, is that most of these cases seem to have something in common; a drastic change in perspective. Most often, through some type of near death or major life changing event.

But even in these cases, the individuals seem to only maintain this amazing sense of perspective for a short time. As they say, eventually life get’s in the way.

As many of us do not experience some type of amazing life changing experience, how do we go about creating a happy life? More precisely, how do we go about creating a new sense of perspective? Let’s examine the definition of perspective as it pertains to this article: the state of one’s ideas, the facts known to one, etc.

Most of our ideas are based on past experiences, which lead us to anticipate what the outcome will be from similar, or not so similar events in the future. For example, maybe in a relationship we have been left abandoned or our spouse has been unfaithful, we are more likely to anticipate these same things happening in future relationships. [Read more…]

Feelings about Yourself Should Come From Yourself

by Jared Akers

Have you ever experienced the frustration when purchasing a Christmas present for a friend or family member you really do not know that well?

Now think about how well you really know yourself. Do you really know what you need to be happy?

We’ve all heard the saying, “You can’t buy happiness.” So why do we continually try and gain happiness and acceptance from external things or people? Because it’s easier than the alternative. Who wants to embark on the laborious journey of self-searching and examination? Especially if that means finding something we don’t like about ourselves, and God forbid we have to learn to accept it. Acceptance is crucial yet is one of the hardest parts of self-examination; once we accept something, we’re responsible. And if we’re responsible, we are the ones to blame for our unhappy life.

I don’t know about you, but for the majority of my life I had no idea what I needed to be happy. There was always this nagging feeling that someday I would figure it out. In the meantime, I figured if I just kept my nose to the grindstone and charged ahead I’d eventually find it. I guess in a sense, that day finally came; but it was a painful lesson in finding inner-peace and happiness. Experience is that way; a painful teacher.

[Read more…]

Finding Happiness

by Jared Akers

Finding happiness is somewhat of a paradox.

“The pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase, if you pursue happiness you’ll never find it.”
-C. P. Snow

It would seem that finding happiness is somewhat like finding love, or the wind. We can feel it and even see it, but how do we actually go about finding it? Happiness is an emotion or state of being in that it is manifested within ourselves as a result of our experiences. Many times we may associate happiness with an external stimuli or interaction with someone or something. When in reality, happiness actually comes from within us as an emotional state of being. So how do we go about finding happiness within ourselves?

In order to have inner happiness, we must first be at peace with who we are and our place in the world. This peace comes with living up to the highest ideals we have for ourselves. Often, when we fall short of this ideal self, we experience unhappiness in the form of depression or low self-esteem. Therefore, getting to a place of self-acceptance is an important step to finding happiness.

Self-acceptance can be a hard journey to undertake. Especially with the fear of what we may find looming over our heads. However, if we’re serious about finding inner happiness we must travel this road and work at accepting ourselves as best we can. [Read more…]

How to Find Happiness in Marriage

by Jared Akers

I’ve had the experience of being in two marriages.

Well, the first one ended in an annulment 6 months into it so “technically” we were never married, but we were both unhappy.

Today, I’ve been happily married for a year and two months. You may be asking yourself, “What does this guy know about finding happiness in marriage?”

That’s a good question, just read on and make up your own mind.

Before we get into how to find happiness in marriage, it’s important to provide some personal history about myself. In doing so, I hope to help others realize why they may currently be unhappy; and ultimately how my wife and I have found happiness in our marriage.

For most of my life, my relationships lasted—on average—six months. It seems that whenever someone got too close, I found ways to end the relationship. Most generally it was the, “it’s not you it’s me” line. However, I failed to realize this was what I was doing.

I felt as if the relationship was cutting into “me” time and was getting in the way of my goals. I did not want to put in the time it took to build healthy relationships with the opposite sex. Of course I wanted someone to love and cherish me, but when they started talking about marriage or long-term commitments, I usually started thinking about ways to get out of the relationship.

Consequently, this led me to have one-foot-out-the-door in relationships and emotionally unavailable. In reality, I didn’t know enough about myself to know what I wanted and needed in a partner or spouse. [Read more…]