Making the Worst of It

Making the Worst of It

One of the wonderful things that has changed since I decided to be happy is that I look for solutions instead of worrying my problems.

One of the things that is so fun about finding solutions is that it’s all about being creative, and that’s more fun than a crate of happy puppies.

One of the things that is so fun about being creative is that I make the rules. I can dream up anything, it doesn’t have to be possible, or real, or legal, it’s just made up.

How do I know I am creative? Why do I find solutions? What makes me choose?

In the olden days, I would get stuck in my own little pile of ick.I would poke around in it,rehearsing how icky it was. I would worry about whether it was going to get ickier. I would beat me up about getting stuck in the first place, I would get scared about what all that ick was going to do to me, I would get angry at me and say awful things about how I must deserve ick if that’s what I had.

All that energy I was using to support my ick sapped my motivation to do anything else. All that worrying got me so anxious I couldn’t sleep well, my digestion would get dicey, I would catch stuff like colds, and tended to spend my time mostly alone, or, if it was with people, I would complain with like-minded folks who were sitting in their own pile of ick.

One of the features of wallowing in my own mire is that I cannot be present and wallow. Huh. I wallow in a negative, nasty past, or I wallow in a mirky and stinky future. Generally speaking, the present moment is mostly kind of neutral.

One of the things that I love about coming up with solutions is that solutions are goals. We often need to make a plan, and carry it out, and achieve it. I love goals. It’s something to look forward to, a good reason to get out of bed and get moving. I love goals because keeping my goal, that thing I want, in mind, helps me stay focused so I spend less time frittering my hours away. I get things done.

The same way that we have to practice happiness, we have to practice misery. We have to choose it over and over. Many of us choose it to the point of depression. By deciding to exercise our creativity, we can start to come up with ways to unchoose misery. We can come up with creative ways to banish negative thoughts, we can come up with hobbies, that is, non-work occupations we can feel passionate about. Surfing the Internet, for example, is not a hobby. Nor is housework. or TV. Collecting, exploring, making stuff, learning a language or to play an instrument; these are hobbies.

By choosing to exercise my creativity for good, for my good and the good of my communities, I am expanding my life a bit. I am engaging a bit more. I am deepening my connections. When I choose to come up with solutions, I become more interested in other stuff, less self-obsessed. When I choose to play with new hobbies, I refresh my spirit. When I choose to create goals for myself, I feel energized and enthusiastic. Using my creativity like this makes it one of my super powers to be used for good. And that makes me feel happy.

How have I changed from creating misery for myself to creating the life I want to live?

© Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 11192014

Misery Buddies

Misery Buddies

I was at a big event recently where I saw a lot of people I haven’t seen this century. I recognized faces as being very familiar to me from my yesteryear, but mostly found no names coming to mind. What I did find was a nice lift at seeing the faces. I’ll take it.

Why am I glad to see you? How do I connect? What makes me open my heart?

When I choose to engage with you lots of interesting things become available to me. For one, my life gets bigger. For two, I get to have a bigger love exchange; more coming in, more going out. That keeps my spirit healthy and happy. For three, I get more experience. More joys, more fun, and more sadness, too, as we share life things.

I joke around about being a gregarious introvert. There are lots of thoughts out there about what makes an introvert. I love spending time with people, but I recharge on alone time. Good to know.

The other thing that’s good to know is what a huge impact we can have on each other’s outlook, point of view, attitude, opinions, and so on. We can encourage each other to be our best selves, or, um, not.

I used to be a wonderful misery buddy. Now, I will say, I appreciate that we all have stuff, I have stuff. I find it useful to talk about that stuff to find solutions. Complaining, whining, being offended, running a litany of what’s wrong with whatever, or whomever, negative emotional judgments about stuff, feeling either superior or inferior, paying a lot of attention to the negative, brushing off the positive, you know, for example, all work to keep us feeling miserable.

As with so much of our daily lives, misery is a habit. We start in the dawn of time, maybe as hungry or tired babies whining to go home while our mom was running errands. Then we get in the habit of feeling whiny at the store, or in the car. In NLP, we call that “anchoring,” when we attach a feeling to a situation. We are supposed to grow out of it, but sometimes we get stuck.

Giving up those things is part of becoming a grownup.

It’s kind of like we all begin by out looking for the bad stuff. Maybe it’s an old survival thing, but we all mostly do it, like it’s our starting point. It’s easy to see the crap.

As we grow up, we learn that being happy is way better for us is a lot of ways. We sleep better, we have more energy, we stay healthier, we have more fun, we connect more deeply, we find more things to enjoy, we take ourselves both more and less seriously.

Why do I want to be connected? What makes my relationships mutually supportive? How do I engage with you?

We learn to look inside, and we learn that connecting with each other, establishing bonds of intimacy, makes everything nicer, easier, more fun, more profound.

Connecting with each other from a place of positivity, love, and support is so nice. When we have really strong connections with each other, we don’t even need to be in each other’s company to feel supported, we have that history with our loved ones. Our world is bigger, and cozier.

How have I changed from having misery buddies to enjoying grownup relationships?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 01132014