Faux Happiness

Faux Happiness

I am always amazed when, out of a deck of fifty-two cards, the same one shows up over and over, or the same two. I got the happiness card again today. This is good for me. If I want to say something new, I will have to dig a little deeper, scan a bit broader. I get to become a bit more intimate with happiness.

Why is it so easy to think of something to write on happiness? Why are my creative juices flowing? Why does writing on topics I love come easily to me now?

Et, voila. (Seriously, this stuff works.)

I do talk about happiness a lot. It was something I really, really wanted, and worked very hard to get. At the same time, it’s just a word.

Happiness.

Having grown up on Charlie Brown and Snoopy, I have a bunch of those “happiness is...” images in my head. Thing is, that’s all outside stuff, and I got the lesson over and over and over and over that I can feel a lot of things about outside stuff, but core happiness wasn’t one of ‘em.

So I will try to parse happiness into manageable chunks, and see what falls out.

I love to laugh. I like to spend lighthearted time with my friends. I practice laughter yoga, and so, if you were peeping, you might see me laughing my head off, all alone. But laughter isn’t happiness, I could laugh in the dark ages, too, and heaven knows I wasn’t happy back then.

I love to love. I love having people and critters in my life that fill my heart up. Something about how their well being matters to me, and I want to contribute to it. Something about how I feel like I am more, better because of how I respond to them. But loving can also bring feelings that are challenging and dark, so love isn’t happiness.

Likewise with being loved.

Feeling peaceful is part of it for me, and relaxed. So is self-love, enjoying what I do, feeling satisfied in my accomplishments. Finding places to be creative each day, to engage, be quiet, take some time to meditate, to play. Having something to be passionate about is also an aspect of happiness for me. Allowing life to flow, letting things be easy.

Happiness isn’t about being all smiley and jokey. We can be miserable, and still be like that. Happiness isn’t about being cheerful, whistling a little tune, or bouncing around. That’s all stuff we can fake.

Core happiness comes from feeling right about ourselves, what we are doing, and with whom. Core happiness comes from responding to our life-events as they unfold, rather than trying to control them, or fighting them.

Core happiness comes from letting ourselves be unconditional, but with healthy boundaries. (I know, it sounds like a contradiction but let it roll around for a bit. You’ll see what I mean.)

Core happiness comes from spending time living our natural lives.

How have I changed from faking happy to finding my way to the real thing?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 12032013

Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime?

Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime?

One of the amazing things about being a human is that we care. We care about a lot of stuff, we care about each other. We care so much that we will give things up in our own life to support the wellbeing of our loved ones. We will give away our stuff to support the wellbeing of strangers. We will bend over backwards for animals, plants, and planet.

Isn’t that lovely? Why do I care? What makes me feel involved? How do I know that I matter?

We will even sacrifice stuff, ourselves, our very lives, to support intangibles like ideas, values, even vaguely formed notions.

And, of course, like so many other things, it’s a two-sided coin, or multi-faceted gaming die, depending on how, um, interesting your life has been.

For examples.

Giving my dear ol’ dad three Saturdays out of the month is a big gift. I thoroughly enjoy it, he enjoys it. I have a couple meals with him, I read aloud for a few hours, we have a singalong with friends. It’s worth having to spread a whole day’s worth of errands, tasks and so on over the the week to spend time with him. Worth it.

Letting my friends drop away, giving up my activities, and releasing my self-respect drop by drop for someone I really cared about who was handsome, charming as heck, negatively manipulative, and mean, choosing subconsciously to sacrifice my well being for his need to feel in control was a useful experience, but not worth it. Not worth it.

Sometimes we think we don’t care, that we are indifferent, when we are really just Pissed. Off. One good clue is if what comes out from your mouth sounds like, “I don’t flippin’ care!” Indifference tends not to be impassioned.

How do I know what I feel?

As I have grown up, I have sorted out what is good, useful, and supportive for me to care about, and what is damaging, unsupportive, and hurtful.

I put way less energy into crappy caring, and a lot more into the good caring.

Caring feels wonderful. That wonderful feeling makes it easier for us to do it. Making a difference is a nice feature of our overall sense of well being.

You are out there, caring every day. I know that, because I know you. Some days your caring makes you crazy, and you wish you didn’t care so much. Some days, you do what you do, and have no idea that your caring totally made someone’s day. That happens more that you think, too.

When we relax into our natural lives, we accept that we make a difference, we accept that our nature is caring, and we are easy and comfortable in that.

We also come to see that we have to make choices, we can’t actively care about everything. It’s like coming to terms with the fact that we will always be missing something, even if we never sleep.

It’s a marvelous paradox: The more I recognize certain limitations, the more freedom I have.

How have I changed from discounting my contribution, to knowing I make a difference?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 11152013

From Apathy to Sympathy

From Apathy to Sympathy

Meh.

Who cares?

I would hazard a guess that we all get here from time to time, for a thousand different reasons.

Perhaps I’ve agreed to do too much, ala Martyr Me, and so I’ve used up my caring. Perhaps I have been choosing the blues, and so my caring is all plugged up with apathy. Perhaps I am using all my care up on my own self, my problems, my victimhood, my disappointments.

Not caring isn’t a fun place. Apathy is kind of bleak. It’s also a wonderful indication that we’ve gotten off track somehow.

I’m not talking about caring about specific stuff, mind you. There are lots of things in the world I will most likely never care about. We all have those things. It’s a marvelous use of our judgment.

I am talking about that general kind of malaise that sets in, not quite depression, just, well, meh.

Why do I care? How do I know that it matters? What make me make a difference?

When I am feeling meh, I can often flip it around by helping someone else. This technique is really useful for busting up a pity party. In fact, it’s a cornerstone of 12-step groups, helping a new person find their way.

It is sometimes really useful to be around others who have more topics up than we do. (And I will own that when I was deep into my own pity-party, knowing others had it worse than I just pissed me off big time.)

When we relax into our natural lives, caring about each other comes naturally. Compassion is a fundamental component of our perfect selves, and when we let ourselves soften into our core, it is just how we are, it’s just what we do. We choose the places that matter the most to us, and we give of our time, our energy, our resources as a matter of course.

When we relax into our natural lives, we seek solutions rather than worrying our troubles to death. When we relax into our natural live, we are aware of life-enhancing resources and pay attention to those, we are aware of the members of our communities who can help each other, support each other.

When we relax into our natural lives, we see possibilities. We come up with creative ideas to help us all, we enjoy being present for each other, to lend a hand, an ear, or a raft of ideas.

And, weirdly, caring, and then helping, often generates feeling of gratitude for being able to be of service to others. And isn’t that nice!

How have I changed from apathy to making a difference?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 09162013