Yesterday, as President of the Swiss Club of Victoria, I attended the annual Seniors’ Luncheon at our Club in Flinders Lane. There were about 45 members having a wonderful time, and as most Swiss events go, towards the end of it they broke out into song accompanied by musician Valeri Ozeran on the accordion.

Valeri’s smile was infectious, a true showman who made eye contact with every member of his audience and seemed to connect on a deeper level. During the breaks between his performances I got to learn a little more about him.

Valeri does more than just play the accordion. He came to Australia from Russia 16 years ago to join the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra to play Double Bass and Violin. He now regularly plays the accordion at The Cuckoo Restaurant in Olinda (owned by his Godmother), and he does a fabulous calling sound of a cuckoo too!

But there seemed to be so much more to the jovial and always smiling Valeri …  I was intrigued and I wondered what this may be. As we chatted he slowly began to reveal more to me.

Valeri is the Author of “The Path to Change One’s Life” distributed by Pan MacMillan Australia into 16 countries worldwide. As impressive as this may sound, it was his philosophy for life that amazed me. How could a man who had seen such poverty under communist rule have a heart so gentle and open that it simply oozes happiness?

In a day and age where 1 in 4 Australian adults is on anti-depression medication, has Valeri actually found the path to what it seems we are still all seeking?

Valeri starts to explain to me his philosophy. “If you’re not happy you are thinking the wrong thoughts” he says, and goes on to explain how what we think effects how we behave, how we react and the level of happiness we feel in life.

Valeri continues for quite a while with so many pearls of wisdom that it’s hard to capture them. He talks about how in searching for our own happiness we need to understand how to express love, and how to express gratitude.

And then he says one of the most important things I have ever heard … that “gratitude is the highest expression of love.” And that was it … the last piece in the jigsaw puzzle which explained to me why it’s so important to express  gratitude throughout each and every day.

In my own search for deep and everlasting happiness I have been practicing Gratitude now for 344 consecutive days … that’s almost a year. Writing it down in my Daily Success Journal and spending a few minutes reflecting on what moves me to feel Gratitude has added another dimension to my life.

Some days it’s easy to feel grateful for hundreds of little almost inconsequential things. Other days it has proved more difficult to find that one kernel of deep heartfelt Gratitude.

You can feel grateful for your family, husband, a BFF or furry four-legged companion. It might be an unexpected phone call you receive out of the blue, the thank you card you receive in the mail, or simply a kind word of compassion or support. In fact it could be almost anything at all.

But that one true thing, that all of these have in common is that they move us, they deepen our connection with others, allow us in that moment to be more open and vulnerable and to feel what we spend most of our lives trying to cover up and protect.

Who knows why we do it. But with this revelation it seems completely silly that we try and protect ourselves from the potential of a pain that may not ever eventuate. And by trying to prevent the “bad”, we exclude the possibility of actually feeling at all. We miss out on the presence of true joy, contentment and happiness in our lives.

It’s when we allow ourselves to actually feel the emotions we have, whether they be positive or negative, we journey to a better place. We soon pass by anything that we’ve bottled up, even if it’s been for years. And we do eventually reach the destination of the feeling we’re all trying to get to. And that feeling is love itself.

So take some time out each day to sing to your hearts’ content, be merry and laugh, hug everyone in sight, dance with abundance, express deep gratitude or simply allow yourself to feel what you feel. You never know, you might just find true happiness.