Release Your BUT

Today, I want to Spark Your Happy by encouraging you to let go of your BUT.

Do you ever think you could be happier if your circumstances were different? You’d like to be happier, except that you tense up at the thought of just letting yourself be happy. You blame your unhappiness on a crappy childhood, a horrible break up, or the people who have convinced you that you have a lousy disposition. You accept the idea that you’ll never be as happy as you think you should be. You wish your life was better in some way then you could feel happier. You tend to set your happiness based on something in the future.

• I will be happy BUT I have a boss, spouse, or partner who makes my life miserable.
• I will be happy BUT first, I have to land my dream job or take my dream vacation.
• I would like to be happy BUT people have told me I was born this way and take after my SOB of a great grandfather.
• I will be happy BUT first, I have to lose weight, get fit, conquer this disease.
• I will be happy BUT I’ve got to keep working this job I hate in order to get my kids through college.
• I will be happy BUT first, I have to make more money, be more successful, make a will. Retire. Die.

Stop a sec. Think of your own or someone else’s newborn baby. Think about how you feel toward that infant. People are naturally drawn to babies. They begin to talk baby talk and make exaggerated facial expressions. Doesn’t that memory make you smile? When the baby wiggles, smiles, blows bubbles, or coos, we all go gaga. Right? Even watching a baby sleep makes us feel happy.

           

I believe we are born happy. Happiness draws people to one another. When we keep ruminating on some unfortunate event or get caught up in the busyness of our lives, we tend to lose touch with our natural state of happiness. Once that occurs, we simply need to rediscover and reconnect with that natural state.

           

How do I do that you might ask?

           

Well, what would happen if you let go of reaching for happiness at some unknown time in the future and just allowed yourself to be happy now? Right this minute. What if you stopped for a moment, released your big BUT, and let yourself feel that happiness which is your natural state?

           

Stop again for another second. Think about a time when you felt genuinely happy. It may have been a special birthday or holiday celebration. Perhaps it was the birth of your own child. Your happiest moment might have occurred when you conquered a fear, reached a goal, performed a loving gesture, or caught the sunlight creating a rainbow in a dewdrop.

           

However you arrive at that moment in time when you felt deeply happy, feel it again. Hold onto it. See how easy it is? Every time you feel down, stressed out, or miserable, pull up that memory and practice feeling your natural state of happiness.

           

Release the hold on your BUT and be happy now.

           

Ignite Your Happiness in 2016

Last year at this time, I had taken classes to become a life coach. I worked about half of 2015 on finding my niche, and trying to figure out a way to attract clients to my “office.” I got frustrated trying to build my own website and start a Facebook page. Things just weren’t coming together, and I partially blamed it on knowing little about how to run a business or be an entrepreneur.

           

Also, I had no idea how to market my work. That was further complicated by not really knowing whom I wanted to serve. My interests are many and varied, and I personally felt as though I could coach anybody who came my way. However, all the marketing people I spoke with told me how deadly that approach was. Since I ended the year having coached only a handful of people, I guess they were right about that.

           

One day, an idea dropped out of the sky into my overwhelmed brain. I was spending way too much on learning the technical aspects of a business when I should have been out meeting and interacting with people. Life coaching is a people business. Similar to my beliefs about teaching school, I don’t believe it can be run as a business. I have no interest in building up a huge clientele that requires a special office with extra people to keep the books, order supplies, or run advertising campaigns. I simply have a genuine interest in helping people discover and use their highest potential. All that is required to run that “business” is me.

           

Don’t get me wrong, I am aware that there are bookkeeping needs as well as contact tracking and some marketing stuff. I just choose not be overwhelmed by the “business” aspect and to focus my attention on making connections. To that end, I will be helped by TEAM, the Networking Referral group I joined this fall.

           

Once I listened to that message (something I refer to as the touch of grace) about connecting with people, amazing things started to happen. In November, I met Becky Wilbur at a business conference. When I asked her what she did, her answer was, “I spread happiness.” Fascinated, I asked her to tell me more.

           

Becky introduced me to Gretchen Rubin’s book, The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun. I ordered the book from Amazon right away. Shortly thereafter while sitting down to eat lunch, I tuned to the DVR recordings of Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday. Guess who was being interviewed. That’s right, Gretchen Rubin. A second touch of grace.

           

As soon as The Happiness Project arrived in the mail, I sat down to read it and knew immediately that I had found my calling. I am, after all, a teacher. The thought of teaching happiness fills my heart with joy.

           

I received the third touch of grace while enjoying lunch with some friends in early December. I told Shirley Wible, from whom I took a poetry workshop and now consider a friend, about my desire to teach The Happiness Project. Shirley is in charge of adult programming at the Sun City Library in Menifee. Excited about my project, she found an open slot for me to hold a monthly three-hour workshop at the library.

           

Things were falling into place. I felt as though this was truly meant to be. Even as I write those words, I smile. Becky calls herself the “Happiness Whisperer”. I love that, and I can attest to the fact that the title suits her. I explored names for myself as well and doing a Google search realized that many of them were already taken. I really liked the idea of sparking or igniting joy and finally settled on the “Happiness Igniter.” People who know me say it fits my personality. I think it does too, and I am now joining my new friend Becky in the work of spreading happiness.

           

           

My friends, I invite you to follow along with me in 2016. I plan to write about my experiences not only with my own happiness project but also to share some insights from my workshop participants. I will offer words of inspiration found in happiness research as well as pains and joys I encounter along this journey. I am looking forward to interacting with you as you contemplate happiness this year.

Bev Siddons, Happiness Igniter

Certified Career and Life Coach

happinessigniter@gmail.com