Being Content - 7 Ways To Feel Content Now

According to Merriam Webster, contentment is defined as the quality or state of being contented. Being contented is defined as feeling or showing satisfaction with one’s possessions, status, or situation.

When I pondered writing on this topic, I had a lot of conflicted feelings. The idea of feeling content felt like admitting defeat.

Just accepting how my life is and being happy with the things that I don’t like about it. That’s a mindset I couldn’t accept having.

But the definition of the word helped me have a better understanding. It’s not about being okay with things you don’t like.

It’s about finding satisfaction in the now. What I mean by that is cherishing moments in your life that are actually good currently.

Often when people think of contentment in comparison to happiness, they see it as a deeper level of inner-peace.

One way I like to think of it is just believing that no matter what’s going on in life, everything’s okay.

Here are a few ways you can practice experiencing this feeling today.

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Black woman meditating in nature contentment

1. Be present

A lot of discontentment comes from waiting for future events to happen. It’s okay to desire good things to occur in your life someday.

But it shouldn’t be at the cost of feeling good about your life now. Practicing mindfulness can help you to appreciate the present

Research on mindfulness and the brain has shown that it can decrease our feelings of anxiety and give us more life-satisfaction.

According to Mindful, there are five steps to being mindful:

Let go of past and future thoughts
Accept the present moment
meditate
Get in touch with your senses
Practice mindfulness during routine activities

The article explains each of these steps in greater detail. Practice being mindful to help increase your peace.

2. Find your meaning

Recent research done on finding meaning uncovered that it was a determining factor to our sense of well-being.

The senior author of the study, Dr. Dilip V. Jeste, stated that “When you find more meaning in life, you become more contented…”

So how do we find meaning in life? Greater Good Magazine noted some interesting ways to find purpose, some of which were based on research:

Read

Turn your hurts into healing for others

Cultivate altruism, gratitude, awe

Hear what others appreciate about you

Find community

Tell your story

I can remember times when I would read something from a religious text, and it would deeply resonate with me.

To the point that even though I wasn’t happy with much in life, I felt it was all for a bigger purpose, and I’d feel okay.

3. Be filled with gratitude

I’ve mentioned gratitude quite often in my articles. It really can help you feel more content.

Of course, don’t force being grateful. Researchers looked through yearbooks and found that those who genuinely smiled in their pictures were more mentally well 30 years later than those who faked them.

Give yourself time with whatever emotions you’re experiencing, and when they’ve calmed down, try using gratitude to give you perspective and peace again.

4. Accept your thoughts and emotions

If you have angry thoughts or emotions, accept them. You do more harm to yourself ignoring those feelings than you do feeling them.

Greater Good Magazine published an interesting article titled, “When Getting Angry Makes You Happy.”

A surprising thing they found in a study on happiness they did was that people who allowed themselves to feel anger reported having greater satisfaction in life.

Not everything you’ll think and feel will always be positive, and that’s okay. Your human, and you feel what you feel sometimes.

Accept it, but don’t dwell in it. Feel them for a while, and then let them pass.

5. Think of your life in the grand scheme

Cornell researchers evaluated models of evolution and concluded that focusing on contentment in the long-term is a part of our survival.

Professor Shimon Edleman expressed that we should evaluate our lives on more than just what’s happening now.

Marking happy events more than unhappy ones, being less envious of our neighbors, and focusing more on long-term well-being rather than momentary pleasures.

The takeaway I get from this is to play the long game in life. Plan and make choices that support your future well-being.

You’ll be more likely to experience a state of satisfaction.

6. Focus on enough

In an article on pursuing contentment over happiness, a group of researchers had gotten in contact with a remote group of people that lived in the Himalayas.

They were one of the three last uncontacted tribes in the world. The researchers were doing research on emotions common across cultures.

When they showed them different faces highlighting emotions, they could identify most of them. But then there was a pause on the facial expression for contentment.

The guide who was with them informed them that that emotion was what they believed was the highest achievement of human well-being.

The closest word in that culture’s language translating to that was chokkshay, which meant “the knowledge of enough”.

The guide described it as meaning right here, right now, everything is perfect, no matter what you’re experiencing outside.

Practice having moments where you feel like everything is enough as it is. It doesn’t mean you never try to have more of enough of what you need.

But just to choose for a moment to feel like everything is as it needs to be for now.

7. Recognize the good of who you are

We spend a lot of time focusing on what we need to change and improve about ourselves. But often we completely ignore what’s already good about who we are.

Psychologists from the University of Hertfordhsire surveyed 5,000 people, and half of them rated themselves poorly on self-acceptance.

Dr. Mark Williamson, the director of Action for Happiness, explains that lack of self-acceptance makes us less content and more anxious.

Learning to accept the good about yourself will help you to be more satisfied in the moment. Researchers recommend three things you can do to practice self-acceptance:

Be kind to yourself through noticing things you do well.
Ask trusted people what they value about you.
Spend quiet time with yourself, tuning into how you feel and trying to be at peace with yourself.

Contentment is a lifelong process. Fortunately, older people are usually more emotionally well. You can take solace in knowing as you age, you’ll find more peace.

Be patient with yourself, and strive to be appreciative of the present moment that you’re able to enjoy.

Being Content – 7 Ways To Feel Content Now