4.1 Happy at Heart
Hadn’t I wanted this?
I had actively participated in every moment of the creation of this life.
So why didn’t I see myself in any of it?
Line from Eat, Pray, Love
I have always felt lost in this world that I am living in. And I have found myself in a constant struggle with low self -esteem and low self-worth issues. The result has been some really unhealthy boundary settings for myself. This combined with an enormous pleasing behavior, has time and time again caused me to end up in some really unhealthy situations. Such as staying to long in unhealthy situations and relations way after their expiring date.
Now at the age of 36, I am finding myself once again in one of those situations. I am living a life that doesn’t make me feel happy and glowy. I am not waking up every morning, feeling that I am living or pursuing my dreamlife. On the contrary it feels like a life in survival mood and it is stressing me out.
I too want to laugh and feel the joy of living life to its fullest, especially because I want my children to know how to live life with laughter and joy. So, this is me trying to figure it out.
I mean when I was younger, I had so many dreams and hopes for the future. So many plans to conquer the world, become rich and live happily ever after. But it kind a didn’t go that way at all. On the contrary. I am now a single mom, with the responsibility for three children. I have debt and it is difficult for me to get a steady income. And honestly, I have just lost all connection to myself, because of 10 years of chaotic lifestyle. I need to say that these experiences that I have made within the last 10 years, has for me been the steepest learning curve about life. I feel as though I have lived 20 lives in 1 life, to get me to this point where I am at today. But they have also given me some of life’s greatest gifts, my three children and my animals. And for that I am thankful, I couldn’t imagine living life without them.
But it is time to change. It is time to find the joy, the laughter and the meaningfulness in my life. It is time to be Happy at Heart.
And since I haven’t had the best of luck living “Happy at Heart” in the past, I found this Danish book called “Listen to yourself”, where I read something that resonated deeply with something inside of me. I tried to translate it directly, but for me the whole message disappeared in the translation. Instead, I have tried to give my interpretation of the written words in the book.
“To listen to your heart is to be present with yourself. It is to practice you sensing yourself and how your surroundings are affecting you.
It is to sit down quietly with yourself and ask “what is that I need and what is that I feel?”.
It is to acknowledge your needs and feelings for yourself and for you to stand firm on them”.
The author explains, that this might cause a conflict inside of us. Because most of us have been raised to follow our common sense when it comes to decision making. This means that we have been closing down our senses and feelings. And her point is, that when we only make decisions based on common sense, we lose ourself and our connection to living by what our heart and soul are telling us. We therefore end up not living the lives that we should. Furthermore, she stresses the fact, that we need to listen to our feelings and not ignore them, because they are our compass to live with heart and create a life that is meaningful to us and our soul.
Ahlburg, Kirsten. Borgens Bogklub, 2 udg. 1 oplag 2003 s. 73-77
After having understand the concept “follow your heart”. I have tried to reflect a bit on my own decision making in life and why I have ended up here in my present life. And this have made me realized a few things.
1. I have taken many of my decisions in life, based on either just feelings or out of just common sense. And yet I am still struggling with the thing called life. So, I am thinking that if I can find a balance between making decisions with both heart and common sense, the combination of these two could become a powerful tool to create a meaningful life.
I am going to use some text from Matthew Kelly’s book called “The rhythme of life” to try and illustrate this point.
“I want this and this, for these and these reasons, and this is how I am going to achieve it.
It is without no exception these people, that live life most passionately and with most enthusiasm.
They rarely complain, and they hardly talk negative about others and you never hear them
talk about happiness as being about retiring, marriage, promotion or some unexpected money gift.
So, what do they have, that most people don’t have?
They know what they want out of life. They know what they want. Do you know what you want?
Most people can tell you exactly what they don’t want, but very few has the same clarity, when it comes to what they want.
If you don’t know, what you want, if you don’t know what you want out of life, everything will seem either as an obstacle or as a burden.
But some of the most important we can learn from history is, that the whole world moves for people that knows what they want or where they are going. And you can be sure that if you don’t know where you are going, then you are lost.
My thoughts on this are that our feelings/needs/wants are the “What do you want out of life” part and the common sense can be used as the “And this is how I am going to get it” part and those two combined will move the whole world. Oh this is some good thinking if it works 😊. Only time will tell.
Back to my reflections upon my decision making in my present life.
2. Due to my low self- worth and low self-esteem issues, I have always settled with my wishes for life, because I have never found myself worthy of all the good here in life. So, to end this thinking I have found myself a little mantra;
“I am special, I am worthy and I am loved”.
And I am going to go get the life of my dreams,
3. The 3rd one has to due with the feeling fear. I have never tried to figure out what it meant and why I was afraid. Looking back, fear has only meant two things for me.
1. That something was really unhealthy for me, but I didn’t want to listen, because it was the sensible thing to do/pursue (= stress) or
2. That this was something that I really wanted and therefore it would be too scary to pursue, because of the thought of failing.
So, with my new found insight on how to become Happy at Heart, knowing my patterns from the past, I am going to be sensing my needs, feelings, wishes, longings to figure out what I want out of life. And try to combine it with my common sense in order to get there, leaving all bad thoughts about myself behind. Because once again;
“I am special, I am worthy and I am loved”.
And I am going to go get the life of my dreams,