Why can’t I just be fucking happy?
Why can’t I just be fucking happy? Why can’t I let go of my misery and enjoy my life?
I guess I can sum it up in one word…depression.
A word I haven’t used to explain how I felt until only about a year and a half ago. I never called it anything. It’s just how I was. I was miserable. Hating myself and hating life. In my mind I had nothing to live for. In my mind my life was not worth living.
How did I get to that? How did I become the person who was so angry and mad at everyone and everything that it blinded me to so much? I couldn’t see straight. I couldn’t appreciate all the good things staring me right in the face. I’d look around them to prove to myself that only bad things existed.
Because that was all I deserved!
Nothing but misery!
At least, that was what I was told every fucking day of my life.
But, who would say that to someone? Who would be constantly reminding you of how much you suck and how much you will never be worthy of anything good? Of any happiness?
Was it my mother? My father? A teacher?
Nope. It was me! Well, the voice inside my head I believed was only me.
I listened to her incessant blabbering on every single second that I was awake. She informed me in no uncertain terms that I was too fat to be loved. Too hopeless to be what I wanted to be, and too inadequate to actually get it. Therefore, sucking all of the happiness from life like a vacuum cleaner hyped up on nitro.
My voice ruined everything for me. It snatched the joy right from my grasp and handed me an abundance of misery instead. Informing me that this is all I have a right to hold onto. That this heavy and decaying part of me was all I was worthy of being trusted with.
To my detriment, I allowed it. I held on tight to it as if letting it go would result in my demise. It was my safety blanket. And, soon enough it was all I knew how to be. It was all I could focus on. My world shrunk down to the only thing I was capable of holding onto. My misery. My depression.
I lived in this world for over 30 years. Sure, I had fleeting moments of happiness and good things did come my way but it is what I did with those moments of joy that has me looking back on the years gone by with a sense of sorrow. I cannot change the past but I do wish I was more capable of giving those times the joy they deserved.
The want was always there. The ability to do it didn’t come easy. If at all. I was so caught up in my misery and fighting against the current there was no strength left to feel happy. Because it was an effort to feel good. To feel joy and happiness. It took more of my strength to bring my happiness up and out of me than it did to sit in my misery. I was comfortable there. It wasn’t fun but it was comfortable. I was content. Protected. Sheltered from putting myself out there and getting hurt in return.
Avoiding pain inflicted by others was my life’s mission. Stay put in my little miserable world, know only the pain I have already felt and keep myself from adding to my miserable pile of misery.
How fucked up is that!
Do you believe it actually was that way?
Of course not!
Misery loves company, right? My misery just kept finding other things to be miserable about until soon enough I was taken over by a horde of miserable feelings and expectations and thoughts. They all loved lounging around inside me, making a mess of my mind and my heart and not giving a shit about what they were doing to me.
But, yet! There was one small part of me they were unable to make a mess of. One tiny portion of my being securely tucked away from the craziness, reaching out to me every now and again to ensure I never gave up hope of finding my happiness one day.
I never did. I couldn’t believe my happiness would ever return to me in one piece but the hope never faded. Underneath all of that misery and all of that depression, hope remained. If only a sliver. A sliver was everything I needed to continue searching for my happiness.
Over the years I searched extensively for my happiness. I looked for it in the number on the scale, the size of my body, the number on the clothing tag, in how much I ate, how little I ate, how many vegetables I ate, how many times I ate a salad instead of a greasy burger, how many times I exercised, how many calories I burned, how beautiful I appeared to others, how many men found me attractive, how many nights I got wasted and had a great time, how many friends wanted to be around me, how much love I received from everyone but myself…
The list is endless. Full of endless ways I thought I was going to finally feel happy. All of it was on the outside. All of it was going to come from somewhere out there.
There was a day about 2 years or so ago now, where I was given the most significant communication from somewhere beyond myself that I have ever had. A voice come in nice and gentle to let me know I was capable of changing anything I didn’t like about myself. It is possible. You don’t have to let your misery convince you there is no other way to be. Your fucked up voice does not know best. It does not want anything good for you. It loves being miserable and picking out all of your faults and your imperfections and weaknesses. It thrives on your weaknesses and mistakes. It’s what it lives for.
But, what do you live for? Do you live to be happy or do you live to be miserable? Which ones feels better? We all know happiness feels better but yet we can’t maintain it. It’s not to say you are going to be happy every second of your life. Life is life. Shit things happen. Fucked up things happen. Once those things pass and you have given them your attention and dealt with them in the way they require, your happiness is waiting for you. It is sitting at the door with its tail wagging, its tongue hanging out panting and so very excited to see you back home.
For me life was always the same. I would wake up and it was all the same. The same mood. The same routine. The same thoughts. The same feelings. The same of being the same. The same realisations over and over again and then nothing ever changes because the same keeps coming back.
It was SO frustrating!
It was once I heard that loving voice speak to me when everything inside me began to change.
My attention was redirected. It was turned to those who were sharing the ways they knew on how to change yourself from the inside. I looked. Really looked. I paid attention. I learnt. I read. I listened.
Unfortunately, there is a HUGE but coming!
BUT!
The fucking voice in my head was too loud. I spent most of my life listening to her so she was all I could hear. I had to learn to turn her down and tune into that wonderful voice I was now able to hear. She was the only one I wanted to listen to.
I also found a lot of the information I was coming across as frustrating. If I listened to all of them then how was I ever going to actually have a life? Do this for 10 minutes every morning, no do this for 30 minutes every morning, no do this for an hour every morning and afternoon and at lunch time. If I did all of what they were all telling me I couldn’t do anything else!
My loving voice spoke to me again and told me to listen to what I wanted. What I needed for my life. My life is very different from theirs. Yes, it’s great to hear what they have to say but they don’t know my life the way I do. Take whatever feels good for you and leave the rest.
So, that is what I am doing.
Yet, it is more than that. So much goes into finding ones happiness when that happiness has been buried under years and decades of decaying and rotting emotions. I explored emotions in the last column (I feel dead inside. Read it here), but, for me it is exactly the direction I was required to go. Clear out all of those ignored and unloved emotions so I can clear a path for my happiness to return home.
I came to realise my misery is important because it is helping me find my way back. It will help me to let go of all that has held me in this misery. My misery is my handicap. It will give me the power I need to propel myself forward. I want to work with my misery to figure myself out. How did I get here? How did I become this woman I am today? All the parts of me, where have they come from? Am I finding it so hard to be this way because I remember somewhere down in the depths of me what it’s like to be unconditionally loving, and to have that from others?
There is one thing, though, which will ensure your happiness stays put. And, that is unconditional love. Love for yourself. Love for your Self. The good and the shitty parts. The light and the dark parts. They are all you. Knowing all of these parts do exist inside of you helps with the healing. They may never fully go away but they can recede into the background so your happiness has all the space it needs to flourish.
So how do you bring love into your life? Especially when you have hated yourself or felt as though you are unworthy of any kind of love? Even from yourself.
You expect the love to come from someone else. Be aware of where you’re asking that love to come from. Know it is within you at all times. Change the relationship you have with yourself. Speak kindly to yourself. Replace all of your horrible and mean thoughts and words about yourself to one’s that are much kinder the instant your shitty voice speaks them to you.
Little by little.
Give yourself permission to bring a little (a LOT of!!!) love into your life. Don’t wait for someone else to give it to you. Change how you feel about yourself. Small changes become big changes.
Listen to your loving voice. Open up the communication with your Divine Self.
The shitty voice (ego) and your loving voice cannot feel good at the same time. If my ego feels good then it is doing what it does best. Putting me down, making me feel inadequate. If I feel good then I am doing the exact opposite. One of us is not getting our way. Our ego hates to not get its own way. So, it will talk louder, become more insistent about doing the opposite of what you really want. It becomes eve more annoying!
So, always, always know in the front of your mind that you ARE worthy of love. From yourself and from others. Forgive yourself for what you have said and done in the past. Those things your shitty voice has led you to do.
Embrace this moment anew as one to move forward with a new appreciation of what and who you are. You are so much more that your shitty thoughts and feelings. Bring attention to them and love them, then let them go. Know you are capable of doing this for yourself. If you want love then go within to cultivate it inside you first. Then spread that love all around you out into the external world. When you do that, the love you are sharing will come back to you even more. It will fill you up until you are overflowing. That overflow will make its way into those around you, those close to you and those who are far away.
This will bring the happiness you deserve.
Love is the key to letting go of the misery and the depression. It will unfurl the tight grip your fingers have on them and release them into the ether.
Because there is no love outside of you greater than the love inside of you.
You deserve it all.
Fuck that voice in your head that tells you you can’t!
Fuck that voice in your head that tells you you are unworthy!
Fuck that voice in your head that tells you you don’t deserve to be happy!
What the fuck do they know?
In the meantime, keep on shouting “SHUT THE FUCK UP!”.
P.S. Here’s a little exercise for you to do:
Start noticing all the sneaky ways your shitty voice keeps telling you you don’t deserve happiness.
What is it saying? Is any of what it is saying actually true?
Listen. Always listen to the sneaky and underhanded ways your voice stops you from doing what makes you happy.
Notice the difference between your loving voice and your shitty voice.
Which one feels better? Go with that one!
