Tag Archives: writing

The five stages of happiness

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Anyone who has experienced grief of any kind is probably aware of the five stages of grief, first outlined by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in 1969. I’m certain everyone who is everyone experienced grief in the same way long before that.

I also know that these five stages of grief, Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance, don’t happen in order, they happen in a circle, sometimes circling you all at the same time.

No one that I’m aware of ever explains the opposite though.

You get your big break, your dream job, your book sells, you meet the love of your life, buy a dream home, make ends meet, you do it. You wrestle through life and in some moment, you’re happy. Or maybe, you just get what you want. Finally.

People tell you how to get through grief. How to push through, get through, batten down, suffer it out, but no one ever says: here’s happiness and how you get through it, because once you are happy you can just be happy? Right? When you’re happy you don’t need instructions?  What now?

What now? 

THE FIVE STAGES OF HAPPINESS – which are quite similar to grief, but without all the angry parts:

1. Infatuation (approval)- YES, YES, YES, more of this please. I need more now, I want it all, all, all. I will marry you today. yes. I will do this forever. yes.

2. Elation – over the moon, I can’t believe this is true, true, true. I love this feeling. WOW!

3. Insecurity – will it happen or won’t it happen? or continue to happen? This is a fluke, cling to what you know, you know how to struggle, but you don’t know how to be happy, someone will take this away from me. This can’t be possible! Save some of this for another day, don’t use it all now.

4. Reality – you begin to realize maybe this is real, it’s not over the top, over the moon anymore, it is real. Things calm down, you sink in, you’re good. It’s good. This can send you right back to insecurity.

5. Depression or Clarity – this can go either way – on the one hand, you’ve got what you want, but on the other you aren’t striving for more, better, faster anymore. That’s what you wanted – right? You might start to sink down into depression. It’s disappointing to let go of an old way of thinking. It’s disappointing to have failed all of your old ways by breaking through and believing in what you want and going after it. If you go the depression route, you’ll end up back at the top after you fight your way through it – again. Or you might realize all you’ve left behind was for good reason. This new reality is good, you’ve changed and maybe you can sit with it and be okay without striving for anything more. That can come another day. I’m clear this is real – and good – and I’m okay. Clarity.

After sitting with this piece of writing for a bit, I realize these five stages of happiness apply to lots of things, new babies, new jobs, new loves, new houses, life in general. Most of us are looking out at the world screaming I’m not happy yet! What happened!? Meanwhile we’re looking for something, someone, some experience to MAKE US HAPPY NOW.

And the point is – happiness isn’t out there waiting for you – it’s right here. We’re all circling all of these things all the time. Right now. It’s all the same process.

*After writing this I searched and found other people are talking about the five stages of happiness. Different from my view, but it’s out there.

The opposite of survival

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I used to live for survival. To scrape by. To make it.

Heart-Diamond-LI never realized what I was doing until a friend pointed it out. Good friends do that for you, they point out the thing you don’t want to see the most, in a gentle way, when it’s the right time.

I had gotten a Christmas bonus, not a large bonus, but an unexpected one.
I was telling my friend how excited I was and how I had not expected a bonus. My friend says “What are you going to do for yourself with it?”
“Pay some bills!” I say. I love getting things accomplished, paying things off, even though that might mean I have to charge them right back up.
She turned her head away from me, pausing. “What is it? Out with it.” I said

She says “I asked what you are going to do for yourself and you didn’t think about yourself first, you thought about money.”

Boom. Head-exploding advice right in the moment.

Have I been doing this? Surviving? Not taking care of myself first? Thinking of money instead of what’s right for me? Some might say the opposite of SURVIVAL is DEATH. It isn’t. In my case, it’s abundance. Survival is one step away from death in my book, not at the opposite end of the world. Survival is a hard habit to break, but an easy pattern to keep recreating in my life. Over and over.

She then said “I want you to leave here and head to Twist (one of my favorite jewelry stores) and buy yourself something. Right now.” Good friends do that too, they gently nudge or SHOVE you in the right direction when the time is right.

Could I? Should I? Shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t I?

I walked into Twist and headed directly to a jewelry case that I know has the work of Jeanine Payer in it.  Classic, simple jewelry with poetry inscribed on it in the tiniest letters, so small that they are sometimes hard to read, but you always know it’s there.

The first necklace I ask to see, has a slim curved silver pendant, about a half-an-inch long and a red jewel stone hanging next to it. It’s delicate. I hold it up in the light to read it. On one side it says, “I call for your abundance” on the other “like an armor of ships.” ~ Leonore Wilson.

Boom. Again. A message from the universe.

Be on the lookout. The words always come, right when you need them, but you have to be listening.

*disclaimer – the photo of the necklace here is similar to mine, but the one in the photo has a diamond, not a red jewel.

today is the future

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7664654346_335f7e8e19_bAt one of the last places I worked, the creative founder, many times used Ezra Pound’s line – Make it New. One year it was turned around into Make it New. Make it Now.

For me, that changed to The Future is Now.

The Future is Now reminds me of – The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle and When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron. The power and things falling apart are both about living now and feeling now rather than thinking about the future. This doesn’t mean the thought of the future should not be bright, but the brightest point in our future might just be now. In most moments there is an energy, a spark, a something that says – everything is okay – everything if felt right now is good. Even if it’s terrible.

I remember being in the middle of a panic attack – and I find those two words strung together so interesting – PANIC ATTACK. The panic is coming after me, but in truth, I’m creating it. So what would that look like in words? MY PANIC? I’m slowly killing my own self through worry?

Anxiety was attacking me and I thought about the Power of Now and to Pema Chodron. In this moment – I am – I thought to myself, I am what? I am terrified and I cannot control what is going on. That’s one thing, but what else? In this moment, I am still alive. There, that is better. It’s all I could cling to – the moment of being alive – standing at the edge of a cliff with a wall of anxiety behind me, in front of me, beside me and below me, but still ALIVE. HERE. NOW. Not being able to calm that shit down is the worst.  Learning how to reframe it is a gift.

I love Pema Chodron because this is how she reframes it: “Rather than letting our negativity get the better of us, we could acknowledge that right now we feel like a piece of shit and not be squeamish about taking a good look.”

I’m no professional when it comes to curing anxiety, but I am an expert at having anxiety and now – at taking care of myself through it. I’ve learned that much of MY anxiety and anxiety in general came from not living in this moment, but thinking the future would be better, instead of focusing on making now good – I’d focus on the tomorrow, the what if or the past. Those things were killing me.

I needed a set of tools to help with anxiety to look at my shitty-feeling self through a new lens. Tools that could change my mind, change my outlook, change my life. All very scary, because when I started to find those tools, to learn how to deal with anxiety – I also learned I had to deal with all the issues in my life that were helping create anxiety. Miserable job, bad relationships, bad ideas, drama, my attitude and my behavior. I realized that living a life that is not about living now – was not about living at all, but existing. I want to do more than exist. Taking good care of myself first, rather than taking care of my job, the people around me or anyone else was the key to actually being able to have a future.

Here is a list of few tools that I learned help me: (the audio versions helped me tremendously)

First find a therapist, an adviser, a friend, someone who knows about the kinds of things you are going through. It’s not always easy to find the right one, but it’s worth it.

David Whyte: Midlife and the Great Unknown 

Eckhart Tolle: The Power of Now

Pemo Chodron: When Things Fall Apart

The West Wing – I’ve no idea why this made the list, other than I watched it obsessively for two or three years.

Journal Writing and the Wish Jar – I’d write in my journal and anytime I came to a point where I was writing about something I wanted to happen in the future, I’d write it on a small slip of paper and put it in a jar, then I didn’t need to dwell on it. It was safe for the future. (I might have stolen this from the Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron – yet another tool – or I might have made it up, I can’t remember)

When I say journal writing, I think – ick – I hate the sound of it and the thought of it, but I sit down and do it anyway.

The future is not next week, next month, next year – it is NOW. Changes may take you well into the future, but there is no place to start but NOW. There is something in every moment, even if it’s just asking the question, what am I right now, what can I learn right now?

The future is NOW. And Now.

What are your tools? Post them here, I’m always looking for new tools.

Daylene

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I say this line sometimes from a story I write in my head.

I say it loud and confident in my best southern accent:

“Daylene! Get in here. Daddy needs a sponge bath.”

I imagine Daylene lives in a trailer home in the South, with her Momma and her Daddy. Daylene is small, blond, rail thin and sweet. She is fierce when it comes to scrubbing Daddy during the sponge bath. If she hurts him he’ll want it over faster, so she scrubs real hard with her tiny pink hands, which are so thin you can almost see right into her veins, all blue and tangly running up her arms.

Daylene’s Momma sometimes cracks her on the head or the behind with a cast iron skillet. She’ll yell “Daylene, get in here before I make you get the skillet so I can crack you on the head with it.”

Daylene has a secret though. She’s getting strong. Early in the morning and late at night when everyone is asleep or no one is home, she’s been lifting the cast iron skillet, over and over, high over her head and then back down to the ground again. Daylene knows that one day when she is strong enough, she will either leave this place forever and not look back, or she will have the nerve to smack them both over the head with that skillet and kill them.

That’s Daylene. Maybe one day she’ll make it into a story or two. Until then Daylene lives in my mind.

Daylene! Get in here!

Never and Ever

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2826443735_6dc0cd1cdf_bHere are a few things I have said over the years:

I will never wear heels.

If I ever become the person who gets up and goes to the gym first thing in the morning – shoot me.

I will never eat sushi.

I will never ever ever….and then something happens and I’m wearing heels, eating sushi and going to the gym at 6am. Not wearing heels, or eating sushi AT the gym, but you get it.

What do I say now? – even if I say I will never – it doesn’t mean a damn thing.

Here are some other things that I’ve also said:

I will do a photo shoot in Paris.

I will work for myself one day.

I will write a book.

Two of those three are now TRUE.

Things change. We change. Life evolves.

You can always start over, you can always change, you can always believe in something instead of saying never. Saying never – never ever helps.

I am who I am at this very moment and that is that. There are some basic beliefs I have that stay true, but sometimes we learn and sometimes what we learn changes who we are and what we think and what version of NEVER we know.

I can use my willPOWER for things I want to be true.

Change is inevitable. Suffering is optional. GO!

Today.

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Every morning I wake up and pinch myself. I think – why – oh – why didn’t I do this before? Why – oh – why didn’t I start my own business before?

The answer – I wasn’t ready for it and neither was my life.

It’s that simple. Trusting that I’m doing the right things at the right time is always a challenge, but things always happen when they are at the right moment to happen.

I wish

I want

I do

All things in good time. Wishing and wanting are good, but believing in those things is not the only thing.

Do something. Keep wanting, dreaming, believing, but action is everything. Live your life like the story you want it to be – as if – you are already in the new story. Live your life – as if – the story is yours to write. You are writing the next word on the page – what is it going to be?

Had I not had the life-experiences and job-experiences I had in the moments that I had them – I would not be doing what I’m doing now. End of story. LIVE. Everything in your life has brought you to this very moment. It’s yours.

GO!

the day you think you are desperate

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2900736320_efec4ccf78_oThe day you think you are desperate – think about the day in the future that you will be more desperate. You never think it could be worse, but I’m telling you from experience it can. What could be worse? What could be better? When were you desperate before? Are you in the same place or a different place? Are you desperate about the same thing?

Desperation is not easy. It’s as if the world is going to end, even though you know it is not going to end. Lonely, bored, sad and afraid of what comes next. Desperation.

Desperate – having lost hope.

And hope is ridiculous.

I was reading Danielle LaPorte the other day and sometimes, she hits it just right – Replace “hope” with action words, reality words, intentional, faith-bounding, wide-open, change-agent hero words..

Losing hope is brilliant.

I hope someone saves me.
Not going to happen – I’ll soon resent them for saving me and end up right where I started.

I hope, I hope, I hope. Don’t hope, achieve, reward, do, go get, be it, breathe it. You are your own hope. Your hoping is hold in you back.

Desperate times often deserve desperate measures of change. Cut it off, set it on fire, let it loose.

Wake UP. Look out at your life, what’s making you happy? what’s not making you happy? Do something. Don’t wait. Don’t hope. Start now.

Shame

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3310992624_4e6d8ec606_bShame.

Shame on you.

Consciousness of guilt, impropriety, shortcoming. Something to be regretted.

Shame.

It’s what makes you pause. stop. stall.

Moving through shame is moving through mud, the thick stuff in a swamp. Shame is internal. No one feels your shame, just you.

What if whatever made us feel shame, we named it. Shouted out. Some might say that’s inappropriate. I’d say we don’t have to give details, just say it. I got a DUI. I live with my parents. I let my friends down. I cheated on someone. I was a bad parent. I have a gambling problem. I didn’t pay attention to my partner and they’ve left me. I am poor. I’m a sexual deviant. Whatever your shame is. Name it. Work with it. Change it. Forgive yourself first. We all have our story, our own shame.

I’ve written about vulnerability before and the need for expanding consciousness about our own issues so that collectively we might heal ourselves. Shame is the same way. It’s the bitter taste in your mouth. And yet, saying it makes it real, makes you face it and that is where shame meets vulnerability and the two do not want to talk. Naming your shame can be freeing, but mostly – we don’t want to be free. We like feeling this way and that’s why we stay here with shame.

Shame. No one else likely sees it the same way or maybe they do, but the only way out of shame is through. Open up the conversation, which might be a tough conversation to have, but dig deeper, admit it, talk about it.

Shame can suck it.

On the other side of shame is respect.

GO!

YOU

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2781942861_d83cc52858_oI’m apologizing to myself today and to many people I’ve worked with over the years.

I have to say I’m sorry. I probably didn’t treat you the way you wanted to be treated or manage you in a way that was helpful to you.

My expectations were too high, my style was too much, my patience was too thin. I expected you to show up and get IT done.

I set the bar high when it comes to performance. Whether it’s people, sport, you name it. I show up and deliver my best whenever I can and I expect that other people will do the same thing.

I want to work with the best people, who are full of passion and who care enough to do their greatest work as often as possible. The people who leave it all out there, every time they hit the field or office.

I find it IMPOSSIBLE, to work with people who have no inspiration, no passion, who fly below the radar, who half-ass it, whose best is mediocre.

In every organization I’ve worked there’s always been one or two who I’ll call “YOU”. And what I realize – wherever I go there will always, always be another “YOU”. The YOU without fire, the YOU who is okay with mediocrity, the YOU who doesn’t think there is time to do it right but doesn’t mind doing it over. The YOU who is too fearful, nervous, or small to live up to you own big-ness, the YOU who settles for less than.

I also realized that was not YOU at all – it was me. I’m the one who was going about this the wrong way. I’m not okay with “YOU”. Maybe that makes me a jerk, a neanderthal, an ass, or makes my expectations unrealistic, or maybe, just maybe, it makes me different. Not better, different. We don’t have the same values.

I’ve thought over the years and sometimes have been coached that I should learn how to work with “YOU”. That I should tolerate “YOU”, since there will always be another “YOU” and then I turned a corner and realized, that’s no way to live or work. That’s not me. That’s not how I do it. The time when mediocre is acceptable needs to be over now. It’s what’s wrong. Why we can’t get ahead. Mediocrity sucks.

My thought is if you are in a job where you can only perform at a mediocre level, find a new one, get better, do it! Find what you really want and do it!

GO!

Overwhelmed

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2363216190_b7896a01ba_bI haven’t been writing much lately, but I’m still thinking about writing. Always.

I’ve been feeling overwhelmed.

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by my own thoughts. All of the chaos, madness, must do/must have/must be here by 9am. It’s too much.

I make something out of nothing and that sends me on a spiral and then I do dumb things and keep making up more stories about what if this and what if that what, if I…

And then in an effort to breathe, I realize I am making it all up and I should just stop.

Stop telling myself the story that isn’t true, stop worrying about whether the story is true, stop worrying about things I can’t control. I can only be how I am in this moment and this moment and this moment. It’s so hard to remember when the world is piling things on and up. Breathe. It’s that simple.