How to Be Happier: A Happiness Expert's Best Tips for Finding Joy, Awe, and Meaning Even During Difficult Times
Looking for lasting happiness? Discover the neuroscience of happiness, the surprising power of awe, and practical ways to navigate suffering, increase emotional resilience, and cultivate greater meaning in everyday life.
Have you ever caught yourself wondering:
"Is this all there is?"
Maybe life feels repetitive. You move from one obligation to the next, checking items off your to-do list while feeling increasingly disconnected from yourself. Or perhaps you're carrying grief, betrayal, anxiety, depression, burnout, or trauma, making joy feel frustratingly out of reach. You may even feel guilty for wanting more. After all, your life might look good from the outside.
So why does it feel so flat on the inside? If you've searched "how to be happier," "how to find meaning in life," or "how to enjoy life again," you are asking questions that psychologists and neuroscientists have been exploring for decades.
Surprisingly, many happiness researchers agree on one important point: Happiness is not simply the absence of suffering. It is the presence of meaning, connection, curiosity, and the capacity to remain open to life's moments of beauty, even when life is difficult.
The Biggest Myth About Happiness
Many of us unconsciously believe:
"I'll finally be happy when..."
...I find the right relationship.
...I earn more money.
...My anxiety disappears.
...The children are older.
...I heal from trauma.
...Everything feels easier.
This belief places happiness perpetually in the future.
Research in positive psychology suggests that while external circumstances certainly matter, they explain far less of our long-term well-being than many people expect. Factors such as relationships, gratitude, purpose, psychological flexibility, and daily habits contribute significantly to subjective well-being (Lyubomirsky, Sheldon, & Schkade, 2005).
In other words: Happiness is often less about eliminating every hardship and more about how we experience our lives while living them.
The Neuroscience of Awe
One of the most fascinating discoveries in recent years is the growing body of research on awe. Awe is the emotional experience of encountering something vast, beautiful, meaningful, or unexpected that momentarily shifts your perspective beyond yourself.
Research by psychologist Dacher Keltner and colleagues suggests that experiences of awe are associated with:
— Greater life satisfaction
— Increased generosity
— Reduced stress
— Improved emotional well-being
— Stronger feelings of connection
— Lower self-focused rumination
From a neuroscience perspective, awe appears to quiet excessive self-referential thinking while expanding our awareness of the larger world around us.
Instead of asking:
"What's wrong with me?"
our attention shifts toward:
"Look at this incredible sunset."
"Listen to that music."
"I can't believe how beautiful these mountains are."
"Look at the way my child is laughing."
Even brief moments of awe can interrupt cycles of chronic worry.
Finding Awe Every Day
Many people assume awe requires extraordinary experiences, such as traveling to Iceland, standing at the Grand Canyon, seeing the Northern Lights, but research suggests awe can be cultivated through remarkably ordinary moments (Keltner, 2023).
You might find awe in:
— Watching sunlight move across your living room floor
— Listening to a symphony
— Walking beneath towering trees
— Observing ocean waves
— Looking through a telescope
— Watching your dog greet you with unrestrained joy
— Holding a newborn's hand
— Reading poetry that leaves you speechless
— Witnessing remarkable human kindness
The nervous system is continually scanning for danger. Practicing awe gently expands its capacity to notice beauty as well.
Happiness Is Not the Absence of Pain
One of the greatest misconceptions about emotional well-being is that emotionally healthy people do not suffer. They do. The difference is often found in how they relate to suffering. Psychological flexibility, a central concept within Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), refers to our ability to remain open to difficult internal experiences while continuing to move toward personally meaningful values (Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 2012).
Instead of asking, "How do I stop feeling pain?", the question becomes, "How do I continue living meaningfully while pain is present?" That shift changes everything.
How to Navigate Suffering Without Becoming Consumed by It
Suffering deserves compassion. It deserves attention. It deserves support, but it does not always deserve exclusive control over your attention. One practice happiness researchers frequently emphasize is both/and thinking.
Both "I am grieving." and "I noticed the smell of fresh coffee this morning." Both "My relationship is struggling." and "My friend made me laugh." Both "I am carrying trauma." and "I felt peaceful watching birds outside my window." This is not toxic positivity. It is emotional integration. The brain becomes healthier when it develops the capacity to hold multiple truths simultaneously.
Relationships Matter More Than We Realize
One of the longest-running studies on happiness, the Harvard Study of Adult Development, has consistently found that the quality of our close relationships is one of the strongest predictors of long-term health and happiness (Fuchsman, 2023). Meaningful connection regulates the nervous system.
Feeling emotionally safe with another person reduces physiological stress and promotes resilience. This is one reason loneliness is associated with increased risk for depression, anxiety, cardiovascular disease, and even earlier mortality. Our nervous systems evolved in connection. We heal in connection, too.
Small Daily Practices That Increase Happiness
Lasting happiness rarely arrives through one dramatic event. Instead, it often grows from repeated moments of intentional living.
Consider incorporating:
— Noticing one moment of awe each day
— Expressing gratitude to someone directly
— Spending time outdoors
— Moving your body
— Limiting chronic comparison on social media
— Engaging in meaningful conversation
— Serving someone else
— Laughing often
— Protecting time for rest and play
Small practices, repeated consistently, reshape both habits and neural pathways.
What If Life Feels Meaningless Right Now?
Perhaps the most painful question is not, "Why am I unhappy?" It is: "Will I ever care about life the way I used to?" Periods of emotional numbness often accompany depression, trauma, chronic stress, burnout, grief, and prolonged adversity. During these seasons, pursuing happiness directly can feel impossible.
Instead, begin with curiosity. Can you notice one interesting thing today? One beautiful thing? One meaningful conversation? One tiny moment of wonder? Meaning often returns before happiness fully does, and meaning creates fertile ground from which happiness can gradually grow.
Happiness Is Something We Practice
At Embodied Wellness and Recovery, we understand that cultivating happiness is not about pretending life is easy. It is about helping the nervous system become flexible enough to experience the full range of human emotion without becoming trapped in fear, shame, trauma, or disconnection.
Our integrative approach combines neuroscience, somatic therapies, attachment theory, trauma treatment, relationship therapy, and evidence-based psychological interventions to help clients strengthen resilience, deepen connection, and rediscover meaning. Perhaps happiness is not a destination waiting somewhere in the future.
Perhaps it is built through thousands of ordinary moments, such as looking up at the sky, receiving a friend's smile, listening to music that stirs your soul, allowing yourself to laugh, or finding awe in something unexpectedly beautiful. Sometimes the most extraordinary transformation begins when we teach our brains to notice that beauty has been quietly present all along.
Reach out to schedule a complimentary 20-minute consultation with our team of therapists, trauma specialists, somatic practitioners, or relationship experts and start working towards integrative, embodied healing today.
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References
Fuchsman, K. E. N. (2023). Harvard Grant Study of Adult Development: 1938–2022. Journal of Psychohistory, 51(1), 27.
Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D., & Wilson, K. G. (2012). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: The process and practice of mindful change (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
Keltner, D. (2023). Awe: The new science of everyday wonder and how it can transform your life. Penguin Press.
Lyubomirsky, S., Sheldon, K. M., & Schkade, D. (2005). Pursuing happiness: The architecture of sustainable change. Review of General Psychology, 9(2), 111-131.
Waldinger, R. J., & Schulz, M. S. (2023). The Good Life: Lessons from the world's longest scientific study of happiness. Simon & Schuster.
