It's up to Us Now...
In the midst of creating an online program, I keep thinking about its underlying message and purpose—what shift do I feel is most important at this time in human history in order to thrive despite the diminishing choices made that we see all around us? Does the essence of this “happiness” program speak to that evolutionary potential and our current and conditioned barriers to that? And of course, what is my part in this?
If you look at our world, our history, you can see that for a long time the masses have been operating by a particular paradigm that has been cultivated since the beginning—looking toward power establishments and governments for more safety, more regulation, more services, more technology, more product…even more happiness. Many have been looking to the innovators of the world to feed them with opportunity and a sense of aliveness, forgetting that we ourselves are the innovators. The paradigm that many have been living by is one of reliance on others to provide key life experiences, both personally and professionally, resulting in a feeling of less power, not more—travel, internet, jobs, schools, homes, children, technology, fashion, art, media, body awareness. They look externally for someone to provide something important in life. And when things go wrong, they tend to blame that external force, without considering that there is another paradigm that I believe is essential to creating a happy life. This paradigm is what we are all being asked to step into now. It’s a self-generating, life-affirming, personal-to-collective orientation of designing our lives in ways that feed and attract and affirm happiness. It’s less of an external search for happiness and more of an internal co-creative relationship with meaning and purpose that emanates from the inside out, reflecting as happiness. And fueled by these internal resources we are driven to connect MORE with our world, not less. Because we have something to say, something to offer, something to share.
One of the things that is driving so much depression in our world is that we are stifling our voices, not offering what we have to offer, relying heavily on things we cannot control and relinquishing what we can control, so it is stagnating and festering inside of us. This creates dis-ease on many levels. After a while, frustration and anger sets in about the things we cannot control, and often we don’t even know it. We keep ourselves so busy with tasks that don’t add up to the sum of our life meaning, and at the end of the day we can end up feeling lost and pointless.
We must flip the coin and shift into the self-generating space that brings to our lives and into the world more creative energy, more spark, more unique expression, more aliveness, something real to share that keeps feeding us with inspiration, never stagnant. It is a different orientation to life. This is a muscle that requires strengthening, because our tendency, driven by the paradigm we have been conditioned by for so long, is to wait until someone offers us an opportunity. But we have it in our power now to begin creating that opportunity for ourselves, creating a life that we want with an outcome of happiness. In time, this muscle grows stronger until it becomes the paradigm we live by. There are those who have strengthened this muscle already and are living deeply fulfilling and happy lives. It doesn’t mean life is perfect, but it does mean the person feels in control of renewing and stoking the fires of their their aliveness every day. They aren’t waiting on an external force to do it for them. And if we were all to do this, our world would look incredibly different. Our governments, our educational system, our relations with the earth, our relations with each other, our future, would look radically different. Imagine that.
How do you do this? First, ask yourself in what area of your life you are relinquishing your own voice and waiting for someone to create an opportunity for you. Next, write down ways that you can take ownership of what you want to do in this area by identifying achievable actions you need to take yourself to move the dial. Practice strengthening the muscle of engaging with what brings you most alive, what feeds your values and what is most important to you. And when you find yourself getting frustrated by the external forces of the world, mindfully bring your attention back to yourself and what you can do to shift into your own generative energy right now since that is what makes real change. What you do in this shift and what you generate will ripple out into the world, I promise you that. What you generate will have an effect like the wings of the butterfly. You may not see it immediately, but you will feel it, and you will be buoyed up by it. You will be stronger and happier for it. And you will be making the world a better place.
To a happier life…Melanie
If you would like to read more blogs by me, visit my “Peeling Back the Layers” Blog page at www.innertegrity.com/blogs. And if you are feeling challenged to find your “happy place” and need support, please reach out to me by visiting www.innertegrity.com/sessions or emailing me at melanie@innertegrity.com