DON'T EVER BE AFRAID OF YOUR UNHAPPINESS
If we make our unhappiness the enemy, we'll never get to know ourselves, understand ourselves, change ourselves. The idea: make our unhappiness our friend -- yes, indeed. Embrace our sadness, our impatience, our anger, our jealousy and our fears. Yes, embrace it all. We only get unhappy as a way to take care of ourselves...believing if we're unhappy about being too heavy, then we will lose weight, if we're unhappy about being annoyed, then we'll chill, if we're unhappy about believing we're not enough, then we'll then figure out how to be enough. In the end, none of it works...it never did, it never will.
What does this mean? Let's become students of our unhappiness...jump into it, spend time studying our discomfort, ask question to understand why we invoke distress to take care of ourselves. We go into it fully and deeply as to way to find our way out. That's why we're teaching folks how to ask questions, how to be nonjudgmental, how to love the parts of ourselves that we want to change BEFORE WE MAKE THE CHANGE. What am I feeling? Why am I feeling this? What am I believing about myself, the other person or the situation that fuels this feeling or unhappiness? Guess what? This is not rocket science. This is taking ownership, not running away but running toward. It's okay if we're unhappy. We've been well-trained and we've continued the training on our own. Let's be kind to ourselves and get to know ourselves more deeply and more lovingly than ever before. We can absolutely do this -- but it begins with wanting to do this...and then taking action.
Run toward the discomfort, go inside and really feel it, then begin asking questions like the simple ones above. We can do this. Absolutely, we can do this and change.
[Photo notation: Manhattan – NYC -Central Park Carousel. Samahria and Me. I love this photograph. Why that photo for this post? I had the thought…don’t just run but gallop toward unhappiness to get to know, understand and befriend what distresses us. Further note: That very Carousel plays an important role in my book, “Future Sight.”]