by Sarah Zink
All too often, I’ve heard one person in a relationship say, “She doesn’t make me happy anymore.” Every single time I hear that, I simultaneously hear the sound of screeching brakes.
For a moment, I’d like to invite you to think about what ELSE might be true.
I believe that we are conditioned to believe that happiness comes from that elusive ‘something’ outside of us – the right car, house, clothing, jewelry, job, etc… which will naturally dovetail into our seeking happiness from the ‘right’ mate. That perfect person who will complement us so completely in looks, brains, and genetics that we can’t help but be happy and content.
And yet – what we ultimately do is set ourselves (and our partners) up for disappointment and failure. Because once I begin to see that I might not be happy – well, it must be one of these external things. And – as is our nature – we will rarely look inside our own barren hearts to find what’s missing when it is so much easier to blame those external circumstances around us.
I am a huge believer in the premise that our success and happiness in life, business and relationships comes down to two things: Power and Control. But it’s not what you think. It’s about power and control over our own selves. We must take responsibility for our own happiness in that we recognize that our ‘feelings’ are often misunderstood; we seldom dig down into the core of our sadness, depression, dissatisfaction or disillusion. Often, we magnify the intensity of what we are feeling because we are frustrated that we don’t understand why we are feeling the way we do.
It is because of this that it’s critically important to develop your emotional intelligence, self-compassion, and observation of patterns in yourself and others to begin to understand the source, direction and resolution of your unhappiness.
In closing, let me encourage you to consider happiness as a ‘loop’… when all participants in the loop are focused on their own happiness AND the happiness of the others in their tribe, that develops the mentality of keeping happiness on an upward spiral. It’s a worthy goal.
- Your happiness
- The happiness of our “tribe”
- My happiness