Inhabit your happiness
A strange thing happened to me. Two of my adult kids shared essentially the same thought with me. Liam shared that he appreciates college and that he has to remind himself to “inhabit this happiness” rather than continuing to feel as though he is still working to arrive somewhere happier. He’s arrived. Time to be happy.
Then just this morning Johannah talked about how she’s considering the truth of the idea that there is no other moment to get to. What we need to feel content exists already within us. What prevents us from feeling the happiness is our belief that there is some other space to go to before we can allow ourselves the feeling of contentment.
I was struck by the similarity of these ideas. We all have objectives and goals. We all want to see evidence of growth in our children. We are looking for signs of happiness and beauty in our children.
What if today we simply chose to be glad about where we all are? What if it were okay to not know the times tables and to have to do visual processing therapies with the middle child and to skip naps and to make sandwiches for dinner?
What if we could exercise the “happy muscle” for a few minutes today? Not gratitude necessarily (though gratitude can be a good place to start). More like this:
“I’m going to choose to find genuine happiness in a moment today. I’m going to let that moment surprise me. I am hereby on alert for a surprise of happy.”
During the darkest year of my life, this is one of the ways I got through each day. I couldn’t feel happy, but I chose to stay open to a surprise of happy and then to inhabit it, even for a moment.
Let me know how it goes for you!
Cross-posted on facebook.
That is such an important and lovely reminder. You could substitute the word “contentment” for “happiness”.
It is so hard sometimes while in the trenches of homeschooling to remember this.
Is it any wonder that your children picked up on this, as you modeled it for them during the darkest time of your life? 🙂 Way to go!
Thank you. 🙂