Unblocking Our Pathways to Happiness
Any of you who have either worked with me or read my book The Garden of the Soul know that I believe every human being is a born hero. However, all too few of us step into our hero’s calling. For some of us, it is simply because we don’t understand the call when we hear it. But for many others it is because we resist the call we are hearing. And when we continually resist our own call, we cannot feel truly fulfilled in life. We get a sense that our lives are put “on hold” as we wait for the “some day” when our “big break” will arrive that will turn our lives around.
But all too often, “some day” and the “big break” don’t come. This isn’t because we are unlucky or have “bad karma.” It’s because we are looking in the wrong direction to find the solutions to our lack of fulfilment. After going through my own transformations in life, teaching thousands of students over the years, working with hundreds of coaching clients and interviewing dozens of fascinating people on my radio show, I have learned one thing: the circumstances of our lives cannot be blamed (or at least not 100%) for our unhappiness. What are some of the worst circumstances you can imagine? Try to imagine being a 6-year-old boy and being exiled with no possessions and left to starve to death in the Siberian wasteland. Or how about being a teenage girl whose father murders her own mother in cold blood, marries her mother’s sister, and is then acquitted by the court? Can you imagine living with such things? Can you imagine surviving them to such a point where you felt so full of joy that you have made it your life’s work to spread joy to others? But it’s true. I have met these people,* and so many others, in my work. And happiness, I have found, is 100% a matter of allowing it to happen. But if we are blocking the pipeline to our own happiness, it will never flow.
There are many ways we block this pipeline to happiness. One is the unconscious way we talk about ourselves. Most of us pay little attention to the subtle ways we verbally undermine ourselves, whether in our heads or aloud, on an almost continual basis. Another way we get in our own way are all the “old stories” we tell about ourselves, such as “That’s just the way I am” or “I’m really bad with x, y, z.” A third way we block our own happiness is the almost autonomic way we tend to slip into “roles” in different circumstances. We might unthinkingly adopt a powerless, voiceless or even aggressive role in certain family, social or professional scenarios, for example. Both we and others begin to mistake these roles for ourselves, and we end up feeling drained and misunderstood. The end result of all these “monsters” is that we become disconnected to both our real emotions and from our bodily awareness. We can even become weakened or ill on a physical level and we certainly become desensitized to the “hero’s call” that is always around us. When we reach this level of disconnection, we can become resigned to our “lot” life, and lose faith that we can ever truly be happy.
But as I said, I passionately believe that every human being is a hero, and all of these things are part of the hero’s journey—even the struggle to come back to the Self. Every hero is a hero because he or she has faced the “monster” no one else had the courage to face. All the old stories, all the roles, all the self-talk, all the feelings of fear, anger, blame and loss—these are the monsters. And when we face them and come out the other side with the wisdom that only a true hero knows, we find the elixir that makes our lives, and the lives of those around us, truly magical.
This month at the Bedford and West Herts Wellness Circle I will be doing a mini-workshop about the hero’s journey, so you can get a tiny glimpse into where you are on the path. And if you’d like to step fully into that journey, be sure to sign up for the “Transformation Trilogy” that is starting THIS Saturday and Sunday (17/18 Oct) in Bedford. The Trilogy is a set of three weekend workshops spread over three months. You do NOT have to attend all three weekends, as they are completely separate courses, but you see the progression from course to course if you do. This weekend, we’ll be “Making Friends with the Monsters Under Your Bed” where we will be looking at all the things I have spoken about in this article, so that you will be REALLY ready to step into your inner hero in Workshop 2, “Becoming the Hero of Your Own Life”, in November.
NOTE: We urgently need 5 more people to sign up for this weekend’s “Monsters” to give the course “buzz”. PLEASE book with me via telephone no later than 8pm Wednesday 14 May. Click HERE to read all information AND to book your place.
* The 6-year-old boy is author Andrew Bienkowski, and the teenage girl is actress Brenda Adelman, both extraordinary people I interviewed on my radio show. Click links above to listen to those great past shows.
Tags: emotions, Growth, hero, Inspiration, life purpose, Workshops
