15th March 2023
Did you notice that the Adventure has begun?
Yes, I promised you an adventure and I hope my last blog episode gave you the inspiration. If you have not read it, here it is!
For those of you, who immediately lost interest, let me bring you up to speed.
In my last blog episode, I invited you to…
Laugh more, Laugh harder and Laugh as if your life depended on it!
Today, I am going to encourage you to take the second step.
Can you please give yourself the permission to be happy?
I know, you must be wondering,
What? How do I do that?
When did I deny happiness?
This doesn’t make any sense!
Let me facilitate this exercise with you.
Take a deep breath and look at your life and the choices you have made. I want you to be brutally honest with yourself.
Notice, the first thing you did was, to judge the decisions you took and the choices you made. The immediate categorization was … Right or Wrong decisions; Good or Bad Choices.
Also, all the things you think didn’t work out well for you, came to your mind immediately!
STOP… that’s not the intent. Kick the Judgement out of the door, this is a private moment, you can be vulnerable with yourself. No self-pity please!
Start again. Take a deep breath and simply look at how you have created your life. Go back as far as you can… First Job, College, School, Kindergarten, Nursery, as far as you remember.
Recollect the memories and sense the innocent joy and happiness you had.
Remember how loud your laughter was… how you didn’t have a care in the world... and how everyone around would laugh with you.
And now, sense how everything started to change.
Expectations, Judgements from everyone around you, Self-Judgement, Responsibilities, Seeking approval, Comparisons, Finances, Fear, Doubt, Blame, Shame, Regret, Guilt, Anger, Rage, Hatred…. the list just goes on.
Heavier and heavier the burden got as you grew older.
Your life choices were influenced by all of the above and many others that are not mentioned. Each one of you have a unique list.
Everyone around you sold you the lie – Life is Hard, Life is a Struggle. You have to fight to Survive.
You bought the lie and you gave up your laughter.
Slowly and systematically, the joy vanished from your life and you started denying yourself the choice to be happy. On few occasions when you tried to make the choice, everyone called you SELFISH or you, yourself felt GUILTY about making the choice.
So, you either ended up blaming others or blaming yourself for not being happy.
I apologize for bringing all of that up from your past. You had done such a good job to bury it deep within. But I had to do this, to ask you the next critical question.
How many items from that list were your choices?
Let me answer that for you… Hardly any.
You got them from people around you – Parents, teachers, friends, society, community, culture etc. etc. Even if you think you made those choices, you didn’t have any freedom.
In some places when you tried to make a different choice, you were made Wrong.
So, now that you are looking at your life objectively, can you ask yourself…
Whose life am I living?
Whose wishes am I fulfilling?
Whose dreams am I actualizing?
If you are being brutally honest, you will get the awareness that most of your life you have been living for others, trying to fit in, trying to be the good son, daughter, father, mother, worker, bread winner, husband, wife, brother, sister etc. etc. etc.
Once you acknowledge this, do you realize how much you have neglected yourself?
Taking care of yourself is not a sin. Many people misidentify the meaning of self-care as just mindlessly spending money on yourself.
What I am requesting you to do is…
Give yourself the permission to be happy every day.
Not on some days, not in some situations, not in some relationships….
Every moment of every day.
In fact, say it out loud,
“I give myself the permission to be happy.
Whatever I be or do, I will not eliminate myself from the equation,
I will be the priority.”
It is not Selfish, this is the greatest kindness you can do to yourself and to everyone around you.
This choice will be Uncomfortable; I am not promising you a fairy tale.
But as you keep practicing this every day, you will see how much your life will change.
You will be happier, less cranky, more present, and more available for everyone around you including yourself.
My friend, it might be easier that you think!
Make the Choice to give yourself the permission today and share your story of change with me, I would love to hear it.
I am available to facilitate you on your journey. Feel free to reach out to me,
if you would like to talk.
With Happiness,
Tina Chakrabarti