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SUNSHINE, RAINBOWS & RIDING UNICORNS

How is your pursuit of everlasting giddy happiness working out for you? Are your days spent frolicking in beams of sunshine, chasing rainbows and riding imaginary unicorns? Have you managed to capture that happiness bubble? Or have you been able to bottle that shit up so you have a constant supply of happiness on tap? No? I didn’t think so, and you my friend are not alone, because constant happiness is one elusive mofo.

(PS if you are a super freak and answered yes to the above, go you! You are obvs the chosen one out of 7.837 billion peeps and you really should share your secret.

Any-who, back to old mate happiness and why the pursuit of it is making the rest of us depressed.)

Here’s the deal, almost everyone wants to be happy, I mean that is our preferred emotional state right but the pressure these days and what is deemed as living a happy life is causing our anxiety to fucking skyrocket!

And here is why:

GETTING SUCKED INTO THE HAPPY LIFE PURSUIT

‘Perfect’ ‘Happy’ lives are being poked in our face on the daily, several times a day in fact. It’s in our social feeds and in advertisements, it’s as if these perfectly happy people have been kissed on the bits by the happiness genie and all troubles are a far distant memory - obviously we know this not to be true unless they are that one person above, but in reality these guys too are depressed and/or anxious trying to maintain an image of happy perfect lives, not to mention the diets, the exercise, the amazing hair…can you imagine how freaking long that shit takes to do!, the always on the phone looking for that perfect photo/moment to shoot and upload, and meanwhile life is just passing on by. Self-help books and ‘How to be Happy’ are all the rage right now, hell even showing your ‘vulnerability’ is now on point thanks to the beautiful Brene Brown, so much so that some peeps are just making shit up for the ultimate prize of being noticed, liked, commented on, and congratulated on their bravery and courage for sharing such a vulnerable moment. Before you get your knickers in a knot and think I am kicking someone in the guts while they are already down, let me just get this out of the way and say, I am not knocking vulnerability, it can be beautiful when expressed and helpful to others when genuine, but vulnerability for an advantage, well that is just gross. Unfortunately, these peeps have been sucked into to the happiness pursuit and believe they have to create something that is not always real in order to be liked, believing this will create genuine happiness for them.

Please absolutely know my beautiful friends that the lives we see on our social feed 99.9% of the time is not 100% real. We only ever see their trailers so to speak – the juicy shit, the stuff that leaves you wanting to know more.

What you can do:

∞ Go to the actual movies my friend…at least you know it has been directed and the popcorn rocks!

∞ Success leaves clues, be around actual flesh and blood people that you can actually see living a real life that you admire – PS Wildly successful is NOT someone that has worked themselves into the ground, looks a million times older than they should and have had the fun police lock them away from joy town because all they do is work, work, work, work, work.

CHIN UP DARLIN’, JUST THINK POSITIVE THOUGHTS, PUT ON A BRAVE FACE

Perhaps another reason the pursuit of happiness is making us depressed is because we are constantly denying our ‘negative’ emotions in favour of replacing them with ‘positive’ ones. Without having acknowledged, dealt with or created mindfulness around why we are feeling these less desirable emotions, we are effectively just popping on a positivity band-aid and hoping whatever is underneath will just go away.

We must lean into our crappiness, just as much as we lean into what makes us happy. It’s important that we know, acknowledge and accept that having so called negative emotions is quite normal and in fact healthy. You must know one side to know the other.

What you can do:

∞ Acknowledge when you are feeling shitty and know that this is ok

∞ Don’t stuff down the emotions, feel it, let it out, then move on when you feel ready

WHOS DREAM IS THIS ANYWAY?

From the time we are born, all the way through to adulthood and throughout our lives we are being saturated with information, being directly or subliminally messaged to us, through our parents, teachers and the people we admire. Parents often have high hopes and aspirations for their children, of course they want the very best for them however often the very best means a certain career, marrying a certain kind or being a certain person. Unfortunately, the thought of just wanting what makes their child happy can sometimes escape them. Sometimes we can be living someone else’s dream in order to make them happy whilst foregoing our own happiness and desires, this is a recipe for disaster and you need to sort that shit out big time!

What you can do:

∞ If you are a parent, let your kid decide their own path to happiness

∞ If you are living someone else’s dream, it’s time to return it to them and start treading your own path baby!

THE SECRET TO THE HAPPINESS

Truth is, there is no one secret, equation or method that will ensure a steady stream of happiness. You will get bursts, sure, but you will get bursts of sadness and despondency also. It’s like an ebb and flow, where all the feelings will come and go. A common saying to say to comfort someone when sad is “This too shall pass”, well the same applies to happiness…that too shall pass. And it too shall return!

I think the trick to happiness my friends, is to not place so much emphasis on obtaining and containing it, allow it’s spirit to be free…perhaps by allowing happiness that freedom to come and go, it may encourage it to visit you more often!

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