When someone mentions to you "harmony", what comes to your mind? Or what does that mean to you? To me, "harmony" is to be in unity - it can be among communities, groups, or from a Reiki or Spiritual viewpoint, it can be a unity among the senses or chakras or mind, body, heart connection and so on...
When something is in unity or unified as a single source, there exists happiness. Without harmony or unity, there will be no happiness. Even though we claim to be happy, there will be something that will be bothering us that will cause us to be unhappy or to fuss about.
Just like Mahatma Gandhi mentioned, "Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony." To achieve happiness in a situation or in life, it is necessary to have harmony in our thoughts and actions. For if what we do is one-sided or a sloppy job, harmony will be absent which in turn will start to damage our situation further or our relationship with others.
Before looking for approval and acceptance from others, it is best we start with ourselves. When we are in harmony with our own thoughts, senses and feelings, it is not necessary to look for approval from external people. We also have to remember that other people too have their own matters in life and challenges. Instead of putting unnecessary strain on someone to achieve harmony for our own sake, the easier way is to be in harmony with our self first.
I have personally gone through many stages of my life without harmony at times. During those times, I take regular time out and pen my thoughts down. It is easier for me to pen my thoughts and emotions on a paper. Then I think through exactly what is bothering me. I ask myself lots of questions such as whether my thoughts are in the same direction as my actions. If no, I start asking myself even more honest questions and look at where my life is headed to. At times, it is easier for me to get all answers. At times, it is a struggle as things are not as easy as what it seems. During the times of struggle, I tend to be harsher on myself which I know is wrong. I instantly take a step back and tell myself to be gentle with my good self. I give myself time to think through, and get my internal thoughts and external actions in tune.
It does take time to get in tune to our own self in harmony, but the most important thing is not to give up or get angry or displeased with our self. I feel that if one is unable to be in harmony himself, he will never derive harmony (or happiness) from anywhere. Depending on external factors such as people, situations and environments to provide us with harmony is wrong too. After all, no one owes us anything.
During the process of self-discovery and / or self-analysis, we have to be gentle with ourselves. If we are always in conflict with our own thoughts and emotions, we have to sincerely start questioning ourselves gently and kindly what exactly we hope to achieve and want in life. Not everything we need or want in life will be provided easily. We have to learn to accept things if it is not according to what we wanted or wished for. Once we have accepted things as they are, it is easier to be in harmony with anything around us.
Make a point to be in harmony with your self on a daily basis. And please be gentle and kind to yourself.
To conclude, a quote from Marcus Aurelius,
"He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe".
