Do you prepare for happiness?
Think about all the ways you prepare for things in your life. What do you notice yourself preparing for?
You prepare for what you’re going to say to this person about that thing that happened. Or how you’re going to tell the people you can’t do that thing you said you’d do. We prepare to deal with the pain-in-the-arse person. For our response. For attack. Rejection. Loss. Disappointment. For work, for lunches.
But how often are we preparing for our happiness? Isn’t it more often the case that we prepare for our struggles and suffering? We prepare for resistance or conflict or disappointment. We prepare for lack and burden. Devastation and disaster.
But happiness? Are we preparing for our happiness?
When I prescribe a little Preparation-H to clients, they often treat the topic like it’s something frivolous. Lazy. They want to dismiss it, and will even question my ability to help them with the super big serious issue they’ve got going on. The thing we don’t realize is that happiness is the cure for any kind of inflammation.
Whatever is inflamed needs to have some happiness brought to it.
We need to learn to prepare for our happiness.
Our natural reaction is to ward it off before it takes hold. This isn’t usually a conscious choice, it’s a life preserving thing you learned when you were small. We may feel we don’t have time for happiness or we don’t like to feel guilty about having it and we definitely don’t like to expect it if there is a chance of being disappointed but these are the stories we allow the inner Joy Restricter to spin.
The truth is: happiness and ease is what we are all craving.
It’s what the unconscious prayer always is. Always. Even under your ego stories, it is there. But how do you prepare for happiness?
We have to decide. Decide that inner happiness is your one true goal. We must choose that this above all else is what will help us in every circumstance. Sometimes it’s a minute by minute decision. If you’re like me, you wander off the path only to find your suffering wakes you back up again.
Your inner happiness is something that a craft project cannot reach. The kind which cleaning closets or picking up sticks in the yard can’t help. Money can’t scratch the itch, and all the Earthly Credentials in the world can’t give it to you. When I catch myself in that whacky story about my extra 10 pounds, I remember that this and all the others are the surfacy things my ego keeps grasping for.
Inner peace lights you up in a way that is sexy.
Yes, I said it: SEXY. Do you want to be sexy? How about juicy or vibrant? Alive? How will this ever happen if you go around Sour-Pussing this super awesome excellent advice I am giving you? How will you ever get to happiness if you refuse to even consider doing the stuff which could bring this on?
You have to choose this in absence of any evidence sometimes. Even the preparation for making yourself happy will make you happy.
So how do you prepare for happiness? By trusting that you do not have to suffer in order to feel joy. By pruning what no longer serves you. By surrounding yourself with people who get it. By letting go of every negative, burdensome story you hear your own mind spinning. By letting go of what you’ve been clinging to and preparing for.
Happiness is an inside job and your inner happiness is THE job.
It’s the cure for any kind of inflammation. Whatever is inflamed needs to have some happiness brought to it.
Try it and see. Let me know how it goes.
I love you, your life is precious and your happiness isn’t optional.
xxo
