Afraid To Be Happy!

If you think that this is typical Charlie Brown kind of thinking – and it’s confined to him – then I’m sorry to tell you, that you’re very wrong. In fact, if I had replaced good ole’ Charlie Brown’s mug with mine, it would have been  a perfect fit, a few years back.

Yes, whenever something good happened – I didn’t stay in the moment to enjoy it. Instead, I said to myself, “This isn’t going to last, so don’t get too happy”.  It was really very weird, I’d consciously start thinking of all the worst possible things that could go wrong with a happy situation and become miserable. I was afraid to be happy.

When I analyze it now, I realize that it came from a very low self-concept. I just thought I wasn’t good enough – that I didn’t deserve to be happy. May be, this also came from some messed up spirituality that said I had to earn my way in to heaven (eternal happiness and all that!).

Deep down I thought I had to earn happiness or that it was a reward from God for good behavior! That’s a common misconception, I realize. For example, I heard a very upright (read: self-righteous), Sunday school teaching woman say, in response to some nasty gossip (isn’t all gossip nasty?) about another woman:  “She did that? She’ll have to answer to God!”  I dread to think of what kind of God she’s teaching those poor unsuspecting kids about. She, like me, lacked faith in a God who is the Giver of all Gifts and has no conditions.

With a lot of thinking, reading and praying about it, I now know:

• Happiness is a gift that’s waiting to be claimed – everyone can claim it.
• Only I can make myself happy – it is a choice.
• The more I focus on all the good stuff – my own good qualities and the abundance that I enjoy – the more I am going to be happy.
• I don’t have to be apologetic about being happy when someone else is miserable. Everyone makes their own journey and I’m not responsible when you’re are not happy.
• Most of all, I realized that God doesn’t measure out blessings and happiness based on our ‘performance’ or meeting certain standards.

As I mentioned, I believe that Happiness (like everything else) is a gift freely given by God. Imagine being given such a gift and you turn around and say to the Giver:  “I don’t want it, because I know you’re going to make me pay for it some day?” Sadly that’s what we do with the gift of happiness – reject it.

Reminder to self (and to you, dear reader) Happiness is yours for the having and for the keeping ….you don’t have to wait, you don’t have to work for it, you don’t have to be afraid of it. You just have to enjoy the gift.

It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day-to-day basis. ~ Margaret Bonnano

This is Day 32 of My 66-day Journey of Healing Through Writing and Sharing. As I mentioned in my post , I might be reposting some posts that I wrote a few years ago – mostly personal stories or those shared with me by others which talk about emotional pain and dealing with it.