The search for happiness is the chief source of unhappiness
On another interesting Ted Talk I was listening to was one about the pursuit of happiness and why we seem to always be chasing that elusive fairy and never finding it. Basically, the point of the conversation was that when we focus only on ourselves the scope of what we experience and see is narrowed down to a very small part in the universe…you. Because what happens is the thoughts that are not positive get accentuated in your head and your ego takes you for a ride.
Susan David co-director of the Institute of Coaching at McLean Hospital of Harvard Medical School also says that you have to have Emotional Agility. And that“Happiness will come and go but having meaning will give you something to hold on too”. She goes on to say, and I paraphrase that you have to weave a different story of your life and that there are four pillars of a meaningful life. Belonging, Purpose, Transcendence and Storytelling.
My question to you is what gives your life value and meaning beyond being married? What’s important to you? You know what it is because it is something you enjoy doing that has a greater foundation than just something so fleeting as sex, alcohol and drugs. It is the intrinsic joy you receive from making a connection with others, be they family, friends or someone new you just met. This feeling comes from inside not outside.
It was said that the Dali Lama (everyone quotes the Dali so give me a freaking moment ok?) was saddened to the point of tears when he heard for the first time from teachers of Buddhism that their American students have a such a self-loathing and negative thoughts about themselves that it is hard to break them of the self-deprecating thought patterns that they live with.
It’s no wonder our society suffers from low self-esteem with the constant barrage from advertisers, the news and about everything else focused on the external aspects of our lives it becomes one of our greatest challenges to just keep from being overrun by the media and our own negative mind chatter.
So how do we seek happiness when we feel like crap? In his discussion Making the Leap to Happiness— Dr. Gay Hendricks PhD has found that most of us get along just fine, but we’re operating at a level beneath our ultimate happiness. We do a good job at whatever we do, and that’s satisfying. But something stops us from letting our true genius out into the world. Dr. Hendricks has discovered a “nearly universal human tendency to hold ourselves below a certain thermostat setting of how good we can feel, how much love we can experience, how much financial abundance we can experience, and if we exceed that we often dial up something that brings us back down below that old thermostat setting.”
The question to be asked is what keeps you from showing your true genius and love to the world? How do you sabotage your own happiness and perpetuate the same life the same thoughts and perhaps the same hell on earth? I found that it came for me with awareness mainly by observing what I was thinking and what was actually happening. I felt that I was stuck in a cycle of just doing and not being. I started by slowing down the crazy mind thoughts and just observing. Granted this does not happen right after the divorce, it takes time so be patient with yourself. It took me some time to start the process of changing my life and getting into a different routine than the married one I had lived for over 12 years.
I started by taking classes of subjects I was interested in from Yoga and drawing to creative writing and fitness, I knew hanging out in bars was not going to help me get things together.
MORNING PAGES: One of the classes I took was called The Artist’s Way by Julie Cameron (Copyright 1992, 2002 by Julie Cameron. Most Tarcher/Putnam a member of Penguin Putnam Inc). She is an amazing woman who wrote the book to help creative people discover and recover that creative self. I would highly recommend getting her book because it is much more than just being a creative. It is about life and the insecurities that come with it and how to deal with issues. One of the tools she uses was called Morning Pages which was about getting in touch with your thoughts process and the layer just below conscious thought by writing as much as you can the minute you wake up. For me many times it was at 4 or 5:00am.
This process of writing and keeping a journal so early in the mornings gave me a road map to what I was dealing with in my own head without being caught up in the actual thought process. It all just seemed to flow out of me.
What I was able to do is see clearly what I was doing to myself by going back and reading what I had written weeks and months afterwards. Reading it like someone else wrote it gave me an emotional detachment, so I could clearly see what the hell I was putting myself through. At times it felt as if someone else was doing the writing.
Remember the key here is to do it 1st thing in the morning meaning don’t check your phone or get showered etc. Just sit and write the first thing that comes in your mind and continue writing until you are finished. It could be what you dreamed, how you feel, what happened the day before, your anger, your joy, the job whatever is just under your thinking mind. Just feel and let it come out. If nothing comes out just write over and over again nothing, nothing, nothing. Something will eventually come and you will be pleasantly surprised what you learn.
You will know when you are finished because it just drains out of you. The reason you do it when you wake up is that your body has hopefully rested and your mind has been turned off for a while, so what comes up is closer to the truth of your feelings than just the old repetitive thinking. 15 minutes or a couple of pages will be a good start and then you can write longer and longer as the moment dictates. I use a big artist tablet (11” X 14”) with no lines just a clean sheet of blank paper. Have fun, doodle do whatever hits you. This is your time and no one else’s.
Don’t think about what you are writing or re-read what you have just written and for god sake don’t make corrections! Just write because no one is going to be reading or correcting your spelling for English or judging you, this is for you! So just freaking write!
Again, write about a dream you cannot get out of your head or the feelings you are having that morning just put it on paper! Don’t read it…. just write it! Write how your body feels, where you are feeling the ache or the stress or the joy of the previous day. What emotions are coming up or the events on your mind that have taken place or going to happen. What worries you and what are you thankful for? There is an endless array of things going on with you so just write it down. The act of writing is best I think because you have to slow down especially if your handwriting looks like mine which is shit.
I have never shared what I have written, but I want to give you a taste an excerpt of what I was going through after my divorce. Remember this was written a couple of years after I moved out (8 months after my divorce was final) and right after I got out of bed at 5:00am, so it is a train of thoughts coming out of me.
“The illusion is so powerful, it takes lives, it gives life it is the fog as Miguel Ruiz says in the 4 Agreements. Be impeccable with your words speak the truth, don’t worry about what others think, etc. What are my four agreements?”
“To live a life every day in the moment to feel the body to breath and stop and see and feel the world around me. Listen to my body, be true to my soul to my dream to my artist and creative self. I get frustrated that I am not the wealthy and popular artist now I feel like I am running out of chances sometimes. I know that is ridiculous, I worry about not having enough about having a relationship that will love me for me in this house and not my dream house. I am in a hold pattern when it comes to relationship I feel, I think it is the same when I married, I needed to have money in the bank and a home to have my wife in. Now I feel I need more money and a bigger home to have a relationship. I know that is bullshit, it is not the truth, I feel that it is not the truth. My home is a beautiful sanctuary and for that I am very thankful. This is my meditation and when I light my candles and light my incense, I feel one with spirit and I am in my sanctuary able to do this, I feel safe and supported and have all I need in this world”.
“This is the truth Billy, you do not need anything all I have is enough would more even make a difference in my happiness? Would I have the big house and be alone make it a problem for me? I just will have both the loving relationship like XXX has and a beautiful home to share with my friends and family. That is what I think I miss the ability to show off? To say, hey look at me I made it! I thought I had that, but I did not, the home I moved out of was not a home and was a sanctuary but not safe for my spirit to develop and feel free, free of all the worry and doubt and shame and regret and anger and jealousy and fear and all the emotions that test us to see do I chose love or do I chose pain. I will create no more pain for me or anyone else in this lifetime. This was my oath to me and to XXX and it worked. The two-year journey to be here was a painful and trying one, but I made it and am in a place I know I would be eventually. The change worked from doing yoga, meditation, writing and feeling alive, very, very alive and for that I am very thankful. Thank you oh spirit for the love that courses through my veins and all the love I experience every second of every hour of every day. I am”
It is strange to go back and see what I wrote and I did write a lot! It felt as if I had to word-vomit the emotions out of me. It always felt good afterwards. What you will hopefully find after a couples of weeks or months is that you can go back and read what you wrote and you will start picking up key words or phrases or situations that keep coming up for you.
I believe this is a great way to gain insight into your sub-conscious and the way your mind / ego is working. For example, do you write about the past or the future or do you constantly write negative things about yourself or someone else. What are you fantasizing about or concerned with most of the time? Work or your kids perhaps the person you spotted yesterday that sparked a memory? Whatever it is just write what comes to you. Now don’t tell me you have nothing to write about because I call bullshit on that. If that is the case you are over thinking it, the key to this is to not think! I see it as a mental defragging, clearing out all the crap cookies in our heads. This is a great tool and you will not regret using it.
Being alone and being lonely
“Ah, yes, divorce… from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man’s genitals through his wallet.”- Robin Williams
Are you aware that being lonely and being alone are two different things? If you see them to be one and the same possibly because you feel like you need someone in your life to be fulfilled, then you are fooling yourself and creating hell on earth. I think many divorces happen because even though people are not alone they feel isolated and lonely in the relationship.
One of the most important points I want to make is that you can never find the answer you seek or happiness you yearn for by looking outside of yourself.
This is an inside job and always has been. I believe this is much more difficult for men than women to accomplish, since we always want to just fix things and move on. We don’t tend to have the patience or think we have the time to spend on managing our emotions. This is one reason I am putting this out into the world to show that it can be done and that there is a route you can take to feel more love….which is the love within that is connected to an unending source. So, how do you change to have this awareness in the darkest moments?
This change of behavior is multifaceted when you take into consideration your inner and outer world, your physiology i.e. how your body reacts to stress the emotions you feel and how you think day to day. It must all be working together to create thought and behavior shift.
Maybe that is why people are so afraid to try and change, because they are afraid of what they might find if they look deeply into their core. What you must realize and feel is that at your essence there is joy and love that will never end no matter what you do…. it is always here within. Trust it!
Most people doubt themselves so much that they don’t even consider that there is an intrinsic and endless storehouse of love deep inside them. I have seen where people will make up all kinds of stories about why they are not good enough, not worthy (great religious guilt trick) etc. etc. etc. Think of all the ways you criticize others because I bet it is a direct reflection of what your internal dialogue says about yourself.
It is one of our greatest gifts as humans, the ability to open our hearts and give of ourselves without any expectations or the need to get something in return. It can be as simple as the smile to a stranger or a squeeze of a hand to a loved one.
How sad it is that we often do not take the time to do the same for ourselves?
We instead wallow in the pain and self-pity without turning that same love we feel for others on ourselves?
I think the capacity that we have to open our heart to others is a reflection of the same loving, caring and nurturing that we feel or don’t feel for ourselves.
Nothing gets solved or satisfied when we are so self-loathing and hatefu.
This waste of energy is a cycle that only we have the power to stop, it is not easy, but it is our right as spiritual beings to touch our essence which is love and the intrinsic joy I believe is at our core.
Going through such loss as a divorce and all the stuff that comes with it is emotionally and physically draining especially when lawyers and money get involved.
To get through this we need to slow the wheels and take a moment to stop hating and complaining. This awareness is what I hope to offer you again and again.
My own self- talk and doubts are sometimes background noise in my life like the slow hum of a refrigerator. If I pay attention to it and all the other hums they drive me crazy and if I don’t, things move much easier. Controlling my self-talk has taken time and it has been one of my greatest gifts to myself. However, it is not to say that I don’t get hooked by my thoughts at times, but I have been able to see it for what it is; ego or fear and put it in a place that has no power over me.
Seth Godin the American author and former dot com business
executive calls it the lizard brain because all it wants
to do is eat, sleep, fuck and get the hell out of here. He says “The lizard brain is hungry, scared, angry, and horny. The lizard brain
only wants to eat and be safe. The lizard brain will fight (to the death) if it
has to but would rather run away. It likes a vendetta and has no trouble
getting angry.
The lizard brain cares what everyone else thinks, because status in the tribe
is essential to its survival. The lizard brain is the source of your
resistance”.
This resistance is what we are trying to overcome within ourselves. The author Steven Pressfield puts it this way in his book Do the Work;
“Our enemy is not lack of
preparation; it’s not the difficulty of the project, or the state of the
marketplace or the emptiness of our bank account. The enemy is resistance.
The enemy
is our chattering brain, which, if we give it so much as a nanosecond, will
start producing excuses, alibis, transparent self-justifications and a million
reasons why he can’t/shouldn’t/won’t do what we know we need to do”.
Because of this resistance you need to have all the things around you that will help you maintain your awareness inside and out.
For me what I had to do was get help by having many positive and inspirational things around my house from fresh flowers to beautiful pictures and inspirational books to sayings in my car, on my fridge and in my office. I am the post-it-note king when it comes to insightful and universal truths around me. I am constantly finding and changing to new and inspiring sayings just to come back to center when I feel off.
One I have up on my wall is by Buddhist teacher Pema Chadron – “Let your curiosity be greater than your fear”
The shift though to the other side comes when you can get that inner knowing and feeling of love and peace by just looking out the window into the world. Maybe it is a falling rain or by taking a deep breath of some clean mountain air. It is that light feeling that comes over you that knows that this is what makes heaven on earth; simplicity and gratitude.
Some of the most brilliant people I know are also some of the most critical. There self-talk is so negative that many people I used to hang around with I no longer do. We all have people that used to be our friends but no longer are because listening to their drama is exhausting. If you are still keeping these “Energy leaches” around I would suggest the following. Try this next time someone you know like a friend or family starts going off on themselves or others. Ask them a question instead of agreeing with them, turn it on them by saying something like:
- Do you really hate that person that much? I can see that it made you feel hurt, how did they do it to you? Try to discuss the feelings without the drama and that the other person did not make them feel anything, they made themselves feel that way. The circumstance may have been shitty, but how we react to what happened is the key to our drama (joy)
- Why would you talk so negatively about yourself when I think you are a really good person? I don’t hang around assholes.
- Why do you kick yourself like this and aren’t you tired of doing it?
- How did you think you mistreated that person to have them act like that towards you? Tell me facts of what happened.
I find it really interesting to hear what influences in their lives are affecting them in such an emotional ways.
Sometimes we need to be that sounding board for our friends and lovers. Doing this with an open heart, compassion and love. If you are trying to steal their energy by criticizing instead it will only backfire on you. Although if you are going through a divorce this probably was something you have experience with.
This type of introspection seemed to always help me as much as I hoped it helped my friends and family.
One of the best ideas I have heard regarding how two people who are in a relationship speak with each other when they are emotionally overcome is from Thích Nhất Hạnh the Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, teacher, author, poet and peace activist. He talks about deep listening with compassion to help others suffer less, I particularly love the conversation or mantra as he puts it between two people who loved one another.
- The first is “Darling I am here for you” this is love shown to the one who suffers by offering your presence.
- The second is what they would say back to you. “Darling, I know you are there and I am happy you are here” the monk says to be loved is to be recognized as existing. He says that these two mantras alone can bring happiness right away.
- The third is when someone you love is suffering you would say “Darling I know you suffer that is why I am here for you”. Just your presence can help relieved the suffering.
- The fourth is when you suffer because of the loved one and you retreat to your room to get back at them. The silent treatment basically. This last one takes much trust and self-love to go to that person who makes you suffer and say “darling I suffer, I am trying my best to practice love so please help me”.
These words take courage and compassion and love of self to open your heart enough just to be present. Life is very hard when we do not learn how to speak with an open heart. I think this is part of the on-going process of each of our souls to open more and more. This I believe is true freedom from the ego-self and the headache or Samsara of the world.
