At some point in our lives we learn to submit, either through experience or intelligence, we come to a point whereby submission to the world around us is easier than continuing the search for happiness. For some this submission comes with a bang or a whimper – by the gun, by the bottle or by giving up and giving into the voices in your head.
I’ve found this point, the place where life is not only good but beyond anything I could have imagined. In my happy state, I can only relate it to floating weightless and my heart, inside of my body has no effort to beat. All of the fear, stress and worry has disappeared. In its place is gratitude and love. I’m not so naïve to imagine that this happy and blissful state will continue but I trust, despite my ability to show stress and revert back to a place I don’t like to go to, the people around me will continue to love me and help me back to this happy place.
I for the first time in my life, feel as if I belong. There is no price to pay, no goods to offer, no tit for tat exchanges. I am loved despite my fallibility. Appreciated for my kindness and moreover cared for, loved and celebrated to some extent. It’s wonderful and scary all at the same time.
As fantastic as this state of being is, just on the other side of your mind is where you go to when you’re tired, scared of losing and holding on too tightly to what it is that’s bringing you happiness (or what seems to be bringing the happiness). The other side when your mind allows you to imagine things that relate back to what you’ve known and lost, what is at stake if you lose and falls back into what you’ve known – reminding you how useless you are, how disposable you are and how you shouldn’t expect to receive or even dare to think about being deserving of happiness.
I am coming off an experience that has turned my world on its head, as I type this entry I go from smiling broadly and feeling fantastic to crying uncontrollably. It’s a process changing your mind, changing your intention and how you process the experiences which form in the world around you. I honestly feel as if there’s two sides of my brain in battle and I’m sitting in there as well adjudicating the fight. In this case, as I reflect on the good I’ve experienced and the scary stories being conjured in my head, I have at least one foot on the ground and enough experience to know this up and down was coming. In the past I’ve often times told my therapist – let’s call him Stanley Clarke, when I feel like this I need to grind through it – a physical enduring of the pain being conjured in my head. This time I’m just going to feel the sadness I feel right now and know that once it passes, the good stuff will be back in no time.
The happiness that’s come up in me has been with me all along and it comes from me and emanates out of who I am. I can experience happiness (and sadness) without someone else (or some substance) to ‘fix’ how I’m feeling.
This one is on me to resolve and I am positive things are on the upswing.
Stay Salty my friends – be kind to yourself and to others. Be someone’s rock, carry their bag if they’ll let you and most of all love freely and openly.