si dawson

I realised some­thing yesterday.

I'm not allowed to be happy.

Now, since I'm the one cre­at­ing my life, what this actu­ally trans­lates to is I'm not allow­ing myself to be happy.

What the… ? How did that happen?!?

A lot of it is upbring­ing — we're taught things, for bet­ter or worse. Don't do this, make sure you do that…

Some things we may rebel against (sex, drink­ing,..) and with that rebel­lion comes a cer­tain illicit enjoyment.

Oth­ers we may not, and so cross­ing those lines brings guilt, regret, anguish.

On top of that, I know I've set up con­di­tions for myself. I can't be happy if… (I'm too lazy, too poor, single…)

Well! It's hardly sur­pris­ing I wasn't happy. If I'm wait­ing for my life to be per­fect — and, while we're on the sub­ject, what IS per­fec­tion any­way? Meet­ing some entirely arbi­trary list of cri­te­ria? Most of which I was barely con­scious I was even cre­at­ing? Well, that's not going to hap­pen in a hurry, now is it?

So, first order of the day:

Find these con­di­tions and dump them!

pic by Light­Spec­tral

Ok, so how to do that? Try find­ing a quiet spot, and let­ting your mind auto­mat­i­cally fill the end of these sen­tences. Just start say­ing them with the expec­ta­tion that some­thing will fall out, and see what comes up. You may be very sur­prised (I know I was)!

I can't be happy because…
I can't be happy until..
I'm not allowed to be happy because..
It's only right I should suf­fer because..
I should be unhappy because..
I'm sad because..
I won't be happy unless..

You get the idea. What­ever comes up — clear it out — in what­ever way works for you. Per­son­ally, I use releas­ing (sedona method), eft, and a bunch of other energy tech­niques.. but that's just what I've found works best for me. You find what works for you — real­is­ing you have these ingrained belief sys­tems is the first, but hard­est step.

And you know? It's a strange thing, but even in the last day or so I'd say I feel 40–50% lighter. Clearer. Calmer, and yes, much, much happier.

The impor­tant thing to realise is this: We are ulti­mately respon­si­ble for our own hap­pi­ness. Not any­one else. Not our part­ners, our bosses, our fam­ily. You may have no con­trol what­so­ever over your imme­di­ate sur­round­ings, but you are the only per­son who has the say in how you react to what hap­pens around you. You decide how much you're going to let things affect you or not.

The great news is, even if your life seems utterly mis­er­able, you can change your­self, and thus your hap­pi­ness.. and I guar­an­tee you, as your atti­tude changes, all those lit­tle things around you that have been both­er­ing you for so long will almost mag­i­cally change as well.