When it feels too good to be true...

Was your next thought is that it probably is? I often overhear people say "Oh, come on, it can't be that easy," or "It's too good, there's got to be a catch." What if that's not the case?

Last week I wrote a post on claiming happiness as part of the Redefining Happiness series. In it, I claimed how good it felt to be happy in my new location and how hesitant I was in sharing that with people. A small part of me actually felt scared to come out of the closet as a happy person. Fearing I'd be bombarded with "Screw this chick, she's too happy, it must be fake." Or that somehow I'd lose credibility, that I'd then be lumped in with all the other law of attraction pimps, because somehow I no longer "got" what it was like to be unhappy or to feel the hardness of life. Not true.

When I was younger, happy people with no drama or trauma baffled me. When folks would say "It's simple," I'd want to debate them about that (they weren't interested). I could point to all sorts of examples of how life was hard and complicated. I'd put myself into situations where it was unsafe, hard to make a decision, emotionally layered, and so on.

Having had my share of enough drama to last a few lifetimes, my internal optimist always held on to a glimmer of hope - for myself, others, and the world. It was through educating myself and my own healing, including reclaiming my health, that I began to unlearn all the drama, victim based behaviors I so expertly knew how to do. Then, I began to learn how to make empowered, conscious choices, after I realized that the drama and how I responded to the trauma was a choice.

I am forever grateful for my education. It taught me how to recognize and tell the truth to myself. Not only did that save my butt, it gave me the tools to save other people's butts too. Don't you need a supportive, truth telling, helping you live a life you love, coach in your life? I know I did.

After my initial giddiness of moving here began to subside, I started to freak out a bit. Nothing major. But I noticed that I began complaining about little unimportant things. Or would sleep in hours past my normal wake up time under the guise (read: excuse) that I was settling in. I procrastinated on completing anything, whether work or house related. Have you done any of these inane behaviors before?

I whimpered and whined to my husband, "What am I doing?! What's going on with me? I'm acting weird." His response, "It's because there's no drama. You're being resistant to life and creating distractions that get in your way of really accepting that your life is good." Dang it! And God bless a man that can be a heartfelt truth-teller too. 

I have worked so very hard and have done my due diligence when it comes to processing old wounds so they no longer have a hold on me in present day reality. I am also deliciously skilled at daydreaming and envisioning the "perfect" future where I'm living my ideal life. To have it? Hmmm, that's a whole new ballgame.

As a coach, it's baffled me when I'd work with clients to move the resistance, transform the obstacles, and watch them respond to how the good stuff shows up. They'd downplay it. Or excuse it. Or say it wasn't really what they wanted. The hardest part (for clients) wasn't creating what they wanted, it was actually receiving it. Was I doing that? Yup.

So I say, let's practice together - allowing for life to be good to us. To be gracious receivers when we start to notice that grace is, indeed, showing up in our life and always has.

✿ ✿ ✿

This is part of the Redefining Happiness series which will wisely (and sometimes wise-a**ly) explore the ins and outs of happiness not belly buttons.

Comments

[Brenda Horton]

Great Post Vanessa! Well Said! Glad to see that you are letting go of old behaviors where they will soon become a unrecognizable! Keep up the fantastic work! So proud of YOU!