I remember having to do a lot of work in therapy to let myself experience joy and happiness. It took a while, but in an EMDR session, I accessed a flood of times, being angrily told to be quiet-settle down-hush, being pinched hard on the leg for laughing, banished outdoors, frowned at, yelled at, etc.
This was just childhood! I’ve been shut down more than once in coaching groups! Once, we were told to celebrate but not over-celebrate because some people were in pain, and this immediately shut me down. Unfortunately, I allowed it to slow my roll to a stop.
How do we know how much to celebrate? Laugh but not too loudly. Cry, but not too much. Be happy but not so happy you make others feel sorry for themselves.
And for sure, don’t celebrate having more money or wild success because now you’re an icky coach/person who - eeewwwwwww - makes sales and is successful!
We are conditioned to repress happiness while constantly told to be happy. Buy X so you can be happy, do Y so you can be happy, but when you are happy, wealthy, in love, and healthy af - knock it off.
Is there a fucking list somewhere that I didn’t get?
How much is too much?
How happy can I be?
How much love can I have?
How much celebrating can I do before I get pinched?
How much money can I make before I become icky or a rich bitch or one of “those people”?
So, let’s say you make it through all of that, and you have the unbelievable nerve to get happy and, by chicken and waffles, commit to it.
Now, you dare not allow a single moment of upset! You must freeze your happiness and hold it steady. You must pin the butterfly of joy down to a beard and never let her go!
Never complain
Never point out problems
Never have a grumpy moment
Never experience sadness
Never feel anything other than happy
If you do anything of that you’ll JINX IT!
When the inevitable fade of joy happens it’s YOUR fault! You JINXED it and now everyone hates you! Blasphemer!
How dare you dip into a downswing, say something “negative,” forget your daily practice, skip prayer, let your altar get dusty, neglect to shove a handful of crystals into your bra, or worse - up your bajingo - spill your moon water, trip over your black cat…OMFG, the horror of it all!
It’s not funny though when you’re in a group that treats you like a pariah because - GASP - you behaved like a frikkin’ human being. It’s especially not funny when said group is your family! This particular bit hasn’t happened to me, but this post came in response to someone it did happen to, which is heartbreaking in a different way.
Can you jinx happiness for others? In the instant of a shift, sure - but then it’s on the individual to decide where they’ll go from there. Are they going to swing themselves back up, or are they going to start their engines and drive straight to Pity Party Land like a NASCAR racer? Keyword - THEY.
So yes, you can say or do or radiate sadness in a group that’s been busy being happy, and unless they’re all selfish jackasses, they’re going to feel that shift.
Then they choose.
Then you choose.
When you come from the viewpoint of thinking emotions can be or ever will be or ever have been static you’re already screwed and have set yourself up for significant distress because that is quite literally not possible.
When emotions are allowed to be normal wavelike expressions of energy and physical sensations, they last less than 2 minutes and provide threads to weave an incredibly rich tapestry of experiences - internal and external - for your life.
When you try to hold an emotion static or convince yourself you feel other than what you feel this radiates disease, depression, and destruction. You fill the resonant field around you with repressed and deformed energy, and this impacts your reality over time.
We don’t get rid of emotions. We only force ourselves into numbness and become more unconscious until we’re sleepwalking through life with an idiotic grin on our faces, masking the unbearable suffering underneath.
It’s where the Law of Attraction goes off the rails and even though Ester Hicks continually says the process is taking the hit and then working with it until you move up the scale and get where you want to be - people still hear that they have to be happy allllll the time and that anything negative ruins everything.
Getting happy and staying happy is impossible. It sells a lot of products and services, and it’s complete bullshit.
Get happy, feel less happy, slip into sadness, listen to NPR and deep dive into despair, think about the people who keep war machines running and burst into the flames of rage, look at the options for where you can help and slowly rise back into joyfulness.
Lather.
Rinse.
Repeat.
Try to contain the ocean for a single second and you cannot and why would you?
Imagine the loss if all the waves stilled, it’s the stuff of nightmares! No more wild electricity running through us when the waves are 5 stories tall? No more salt spray making your hair look absolutely amazing? No more getting knocked off your feet, scared for a few seconds, and then filled with laughter?
No, thank you.
Give me wild and wooly honesty over twisted lies and smoky eye-burning stomach-turning illusions every day of the week.
Now, go out and celebrate the fuck out of every little thing. I want to hear your laughter in my dreams!
XO,
LMW