Happiness is a form of courage

Wow!  That is so true.  It does take great courage to choose to be happy.  To choose again and again to not get swept away with negativity when things don't go as planned.  It takes great courage to give up control and go with the flow.  It takes great courage to choose joy & love.

It is so much easier to yell when I am angry.  It is so much easier to give my husband the silent treatment.  It is so much easier to be passive aggressive than to recognize out loud that I am being passive aggressive.  It is so much easier to listen to gossip than it is to stop it.

This year I decided to live with joy.  I am choosing every day to roll around in it and celebrate it.  I am doing things that make me happy, no matter how ridiculous.  I own shoes covered in sequins and glitter now.  They make me smile every time I see them and I see other people smile too.  I am choosing to be more joyful in my body.  I am doing
yoga regularly & making sure I get a massage once in a while.  I am complimenting people more, smiling more often, speaking less, listening more, and generally trying my best to not let things rub me the wrong way.


All of this said to show that to choose joy, to choose happiness over and over again is hard work.  It's hard to not let other people affect me.  It's hard to walk away from the unsolicited advice, to bite my tongue, and to keep quiet.  This week I sent out envelope after envelope of stickers that said "You are beautiful".  I never put my name on the envelope.  I just sent them out with the return address of "the Universe" and see what happens.  My friends have had lots of fun putting the stickers up around town and I've had fun stalking them on facebook to see what they did with them.  Things that like that make choosing joy & happiness the only way for me to live.

Creating Space

Recently I accidentally texted someone which led to a big conversation.  This man was the man that I chose to give up my virginity.  I was, what I believed, in love with him.  I was 16.  What did I know?  What I have realized over the years was that I was not in love with him so much as I was in love with the idea of him.  I wanted someone to love me as much as I loved them.  It wouldn't have mattered who it was.  However, I really wanted it to be him because I felt a connection to him.  I always have. 

We met at church camp when I was 13 and we spent a week hanging out.  Nothing serious.  About 2 years later I show up at drum camp and he was there.  I almost jumped out of my skin.  I then spent the next 3 years obsessed with dating him.  When that didn't work out, I slept with him.  When that still didn't make him love me, I did everything in my power to make him never have love.  I was miserable.  I drove past his house constantly and I would call and hang up on him.  This was way before the time of caller id or the internet.

So I'm texting him throughout the day because I had started this conversation and it finally came up that I liked him in high school.  When he asked my why I never made a move, I reminded him who he was talking to.  He said he knew who it was and I reminded him that I had the hugest crush on him and told him the things that I used to do.  He had absolutely no idea.  He didn't remember any of this.  I mean, he remembered the good stuff but had no idea of what I considered to be bad.  I have lived with this shame and regret for 20 years.  I was so ashamed of my obsession.  I was so ashamed of the way I allowed him to have power over me.  Turns out he was completely unaware of any of this.  Totally unaware.  I am still sitting with this and the tremendous release I feel. 

Tonight I read When you let go of something big, something that has held a place of power over you, it creates space.

What in the world am I getting ready to create?