Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 335 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast….If you’re enjoying the episodes, please consider sharing them and also subscribing and leaving a 5 star review, the more of those I get the more people I reach. The more people I reach, the more WILDLY SUCCESSFUL people there will be in the world, which makes the world a better place all around, don’t you think? I do. Being Wildly successful isn’t just about having having an important job or lots of money even though those things are wonderful and you should be proud of yourself if you have created that, but it’s about having an awareness about you that you do create your own reality by the thoughts you have and the beautiful relationships you have with other people are what make life truly satisfying. That’s the idea. That’s what I want for all of us.
I created this podcast because I have this message inside of me and it needs to get out. We are each responsible for our own happiness. No-one else can create that for us. We have to do it. And we aren’t going to do it by external things. The more external things we get, the more we realize that. Years ago, I thought if I had a Rolex watch that would make me feel like I was finally worthy. If I had a timepiece that represented wealth and status then I would finally think of myself as worthy. So my precious husband got me one for my birthday. I love it and I still do love it but it didn’t give me that worthiness I thought I would have, it made me feel proud for a few weeks of course but I soon realized, that wasn’t what I needed. Maybe it was that designer purse…..nope that wasn’t it either….so were we gonna go for broke to try to fix my worthiness or was I going to finally admit there was something inside that I hadn’t addressed that was keeping me needing external things. My happiness and my worthiness was on very fragile ground. But, When I finally addressed that internal hole, and worked on that internal need, I recognized the external things for what they were… bandaids. I can only describe it as constantly trying to put Bandaids on poison ivy. The bandaid would cover the rash so you don’t have to see it, but the rash isn’t going away until you address it from the inside. I use poison Ivy because I didn’t really feel wounded, like in a huge gaping wound, it felt more like a constant nagging, itching feeling that I wasn’t good enough. That I didn’t fit in. So I tried to fill that by having fine things, a way to put on an image for other people to see me in a way I didn’t see myself in hopes that it would rub off. But it didn’t. I also tried to fill it by wanting my family to act in a certain way so that I was happy instead of just letting them be who they are. That made me a slave to their actions, which is crazy because I don’t control that. My point is. It’s easy to try to fill an empty feeling with external things. Most of us do it. Cars, purses, alcohol, food, drugs, social media, trying to control people, you name it.
But Trying to fill an internal void with something external is like trying to fix Poison Ivy with a bandaid. It may cover it, sure, but if you’re like me, the only way to fix poison ivy for me is by doing something about it from the inside, which usually means a cortisone shot. Clears it up quickly. The external things just never work. But that internal shot will fix it every time.
If you are going through life and you constantly need things or people to be a be a certain way in order to feel happy then your happiness is on fragile ground. You don’t want your happiness to be a slave to people or things.
The car, the lover, the watch, the cake, the perfect family life, if we need them in order to be happy, they’re bandaids. Not a problem to have them of course, I want my relationships to be amazing and I love a beautiful purse and I do still love my Rolex but I just don’t NEED them anymore to feel worthy, I am still a work in progress in not wishing people would be different BUT my happiness is not reliant on that. And that’s a good feeling. It’s never going to be perfect because we are human, but we can be happier way more than we are unhappy and that is within our control.
So if you’re noticing that you keep trying to feel better by buying the latest thing or escaping with alcohol, or maybe manipulating and controlling your relationships that’s good that you’re aware. That’s a good step. We were not taught how to deal with this life in a way that tells us we are able to handle anything that comes our way, so of course you’re doing the best you can. But that’s gotten you where you are and if you’re not able to maintain a level of happiness even though your eggs fall out of your grocery cart on the way to the car. That happened to my friend Lena to which she totally laughed it off. I love that about her. Like Episode 334 she’s not gonna let that ruin her day.
But life doesn’t have to be that hard. We have these rules based on our experience in life of if this happens, I’ll be happy but if this happens, I won’t be. I used to say I had Seasonal Effectiveness disorder, basically if it was sunny I wasn’t happy. I have let that go. Now, I still have to work on it, I was laughing the other day with a friend because now I say I just don’t like it when it’s cloudy with no precipitation…so Im still laying the groundwork for myself to be unhappy if it’s cloudy with no rain or snow. I always tell on myself don’t I? But you see Im aware of it so you know I will be working on that. Be aware of where you’re setting groundwork for yourself to be miserable. If you’re going to a family gathering and you say if this person does this I am going to go off. What is that doing? You’re laying the groundwork for you to have a bad time because you put your mood in the hands of someone else. Your power to be happy regardless is gone at that point because you NEED someone to act a certain way for you to be happy. Don’t do yourself like that, don’t give someone else the power to take away your happiness. They’re not that powerful. But you are.
My ultimate goal is to not NEED anything or anyone to be different for me to be happy. Michael Singer the author of Living Untethered, I think that may be my next book but he said when someone asks how I want my life to be I say I want it to be as it is. And that’s the way to be happy. Just accept that you are exactly where you are supposed to be and life is always working in your favor. When things happen ask the right questions…My personal favorite is “how is this working in my favor?” Who knows why my friend Lena’s eggs fell out of the cart and broke…how did that work in her favor? We don’t know but maybe one of them was bad and would have made her sick? That road that was blocked, the traffic you endured maybe that kept you from being in an accident. Look for reasons life is working for you, and you will find that.
You do have the power to be happy even though things stink.
Someone with fragile happiness gets irritated easily. Someone with fragile happiness gets triggered by words, gets mad when their food comes to the table Luke warm, gets upset when things don’t go exactly the way they want them to go. And we have the ability to let those things go.
When you let those little frustrations go then you will be way more equipped to deal with the big things that happen that we have to deal with like death, job losses, divorce, the big things right? Working on letting go of the little frustrations will go a long way in helping us be happy day to day but also will help us be more resilient when the big things happen.
My challenge to you today is to notice when you’re getting irritated easily at the little things and practice just sort of laughing them off. Coffee spilled on your shirt? You’d rather wear this other shirt anyway, Driver cuts you off? He’s a single dad that’s hurrying to his daughter’s play so he won’t be late. Practice giving yourself grace, giving others grace, and you may notice your happiness gets less fragile the better you get at it. Share this with 3 happy people. I love you guys, I’ll talk to you in a few days!
