I’ve lived long enough – and consciously enough – on this earth to know that unhappiness comes from one of two things:
- You’re either hinging your happiness on an outcome you can’t control (which means you’re out of your lane and trying to force things to be the way you want) … or …
- You actually have the power to shift your thinking and make a change … but you’re haven’t. (This is where you’re IN your lane but choosing not to do what’s necessary.)
In option 1, you’re identifying with the Victim/Conqueror archetypes by turns, and in option 2, it’s the Victim/Martyr energies. The important thing to note here is that in both scenarios, you’re caught in a codependent, shadow dynamic that will never allow you to get the traction you need to stand in your God-given power.
Hate me yet? Can you stand some more truth?
Your emotional state is nothing more than how you’ve decided to feel about the limits you’ve accepted.
So rather than seeing yourself as a Victim, Martyr or Conqueror of chance and circumstance, see yourself as the driver of your own car in your own lane.
Reorient yourself to the emerging truth that when you get – and stay – within your own lane of living, you are in as much control as you’re ever going to be in this world. You’re as detached as you can get from outcomes you don’t control.
And you’ll come to see that how you choose to engage your unfolding life from this key place is what determines your happiness. Not anything or anyone else in any other lane.
Certainly, other drivers affect us. Sometimes massively. Especially when they don’t stay in their lanes. But that’s why you have to become aware of your own sabotaging patterns: to minimize your negative effect on others.
This begins and ends with you accepting whatever your responsibility is – no more, no less – and living within your legitimate boundaries.
Because that’s your jurisdiction. Your kingdom. The only rightful place you actually rule. The only place you have choice and control within the Divine order.
And as Sovereign of it (another archetype), you always get to decide how you participate in what arises – and in what you’re going to make it all mean. You can either weave for yourself a powerful story of potential or chain yourself to an ever-constricting, can’t-do reality.
As you create your own meaning, though, understand that you don’t get to rewrite the facts. (Developing a robust respect for the truth is one of the best defensive tools in your toolkit. So develop it faithfully and don’t cross it.)
But when you do this and rule your own kingdom from within your lane, you get to decide:
- How you’re going to RESPOND to Life’s events
- What core lessons you take away from them
- What over-arching values you choose to extract and amplify
- What actions you take to leverage your best potential inside the circumstance
This attitude and practice is the best Happiness-Maker I know. It’s not the easiest, but it is the most efficient and enduring.
And once it’s established, it’s a throne, a right-rulership, that no one can legitimately take away. Because you ruling yourself and your kingdom from the inside out?
That’s your very Birthright.
Catalyst Questions to Journal to Ponder
List the ways that your happiness hinges on what other people do or don’t do or on other cues from the external world.
A great place to start with this is in your core relationships. Because they mean the most, they exert the most influence on us.
How could you start to shift any unhealthy influences so that you’re more inside of your own lane of control – and leaving them in theirs?
Because it’s not just about how others try to control us, but also about how we try to control them to get the outcomes we want. This inescapable dual nature of pain/pleasure is part of what makes a dynamic ‘co-dependent’. As opposed to the inter-dependent dynamic we’re going for here.
But as to the question, another way to ask it is: How could you shift your thinking/feeling/responding so that the outcome is based more on what YOU do or don’t do or about what YOU do or don’t believe about YOURSELF?
Does it feel selfish, extravagant, or out of (spiritual) order to consider yourself first in this way?
List all your fears and issues.
Now list all the ways your life could change if you only started being responsible for your own choices and emotional state – and allowed other people to be responsible for theirs.
A transformative thought experiment: pretend it’s Judgment Day or something like it. Every human being who’s ever lived has to have their words and actions weighed in the balance. When you’re called to give an account of your actions on the Earth, you look around and realize that you’re standing alone before the Divine Counsel … because ultimately, no one other than you had control over these things. Your mother, father, sister, brother, husband, wife, children, heroes, villains won’t be called to account for the choices that were yours alone.
So why do you feel guilty in the here and now for requiring that all the people in your life take on the responsibility for their own life and choices?
What small, daily practice, prayer or mantra could you do that would make it more comfortable to only be responsible for your own happiness and choices?
Like for me, one barrier to this was being brought up in fundamentalist Christianity that taught me that other people’s responses to me – particularly my husband’s – was mine to manage or in some cases, capitulate to entirely. Even if I felt that the assessment or expectation was off-kilter or unjust.
So what I started doing to mitigate this is to pray what I call an “Insurance Prayer.” It went something like:
“Father, you know I want to do what’s right in your eyes. I want to see the truth and I don’t want to cause anyone else problems. BUT. This [whatever] doesn’t feel right to me. It feels [whatever it feels like that’s a problem.] I’m not trying to exalt myself or get out of my lane. Rather, I’m trying to be in my integrity. So until you show me that I’m wrong about this and show me a different way to go, I’m going to do what appears and feels good, right, and just. And while it’s not my intention to make anyone else upset, I’m not going to overthrow what I believe to be right in my heart. I humble myself to you, and thank you for revealing what is true to me if I’m wrong. Thank you and Amen.”
And if you’re not a believer, you could still say something out loud to yourself as a kind of check-in ritual:
“Ok. Here’s the problem, and here’s how I see it. I’m being as truthful as I know how to be (make sure this is true – at least to yourself), and I feel that [whatever] is the right course of action. I’m not trying to tork anyone. I just have to do what I think is right. It’s important to me. I release other people’s responses back to their own care, to become their own responsibility. I will work to stay compassionate and humble, but I’m not going to give in to pressure just to keep the ‘peace’ because that would feel like a lie and get me out of my lane of integrity. If I see down the road that I was wrong, I’ll adjust my steps and chalk it up to not being perfect and be thankful for the lesson.”
As you practice self-compassion, self-governance and acceptance, the more your joy will be free and clear to reveal itself.
“Happiness is an inside job.” – William Arthur Ward
In the Hard & In the Easy,
