Greetings my lovely readers and welcome back to my blog. I hope everyone is doing great. I have been doing some self-reflection all week long and I got inspired to write about this new topic today. I hope that you’re ready and excited to read my article and that you will be able to relate.
A few days ago one of my good friends/sister randomly sent me this text :
“ A reminder
You’re very beautiful never doubt that
What’s for you nobody can take it
But Stop pushing it away
But fight for what’s important for you
Be patient and optimistic always.”
When I first saw the message I was so happy and grateful to have someone like her in my life. A few minutes after replying to her I started my self reflection journey. It took me a few days to try and understand every little details on that message and I came to the conclusion that most of the time we are the enemy of our own happiness. Sounds weird right? Hang in there, I’ll explain.
How many times have you asked yourself one of those type of “What if…” questions? How many times have you chickened out and refused to do something that deep down you know you could do? How many times have you made a decision out of anger or fear? How many times have you gone to bed angry over an argument that could’ve been fixed in one text? So many scenarios, so many questions… None of these scenarios have resulted in a positive outcome and they all project situations we’ve all been in and where we’ve willingly destroyed our happiness. How do we become enemies of our happiness?
1. By overthinking. I have repeatedly said this in my articles, overthinking is a poison. The minute you start overthinking it will be hard for you to be happy. You drain all your energy focusing on things that you have no control over. This will only increase your stress and anxiety level.
2. By refusing to let go. Some things happen in our lives so we can become stronger. These experiences are considered as a lesson and if we don’t let go we will never be happy. Happiness comes with a sense of freedom. When you can’t let go of something or someone who’s no longer in your life, you are somehow imprisoned by that. Can you be happy in prison?
3. By putting other’s happiness before yours. This one is for me personally. I always tend to put other’s needs before mines. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing but there’s a limit. If you spend your entire time making people happy who’s going to take care of your happiness? Most of the time when we spend our time pleasing people, we don’t get the same energy in return. You need to take some time to treat yourself.
4. By lying to yourself. As humans we tend to ignore the facts and create our own reality because it’s “easier for us”. We may see the red flags everywhere yet we decide to ignore them because we’re afraid of the outcomes, we’d rather focus on how we would want the story to go. Not everything is under our control and the sooner we accept that the easier it will be for us to find our own happiness.
5. By focusing on the past. The only thing we need to remind ourselves about the past is this quote from the lion king “ The past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it or learn from it.” We should not dwell on things that happened years ago, heck we should not even dwell on things that happened yesterday. By focusing on the past you miss the good things happening in the present moment and you miss opportunities for the future. Remember the story of Lot in the Bible? When God was destroying sodom and gomorrah, He decided to save Lot and his family as they were the only righteous people there. God’s angels told them to leave the city and not look back. Lot’s wife didn’t follow the rule and looked back and she became a statue of salt. On a daily basis when we focus on the past we act like Lot’s wife and we become paralyzed, unable to look into the future and move forward.
6. By refusing to forgive. Why is it so difficult to forgive people? Is it because we don’t ever want to forget what they did or because we love the power that we have when people are apologizing to us? “We forgive but never forget” is a clear example of how we always look into the past. We refuse to move forward because we’re afraid of getting hurt again. Sadly you will get hurt eventually no matter how hard you try but if you only focus about the possibilities of you getting hurt then you’re just fueling your anxiety and ruining your chance of being happy.
7. By comparing yourself to others. I have repeated this so many times in my articles that I’m seriously thinking about writing a book about it. Comparison is the thief of joy. The quote is self explanatory. That’s all I’m going to say.
8. By being ungrateful. Enjoy everything in life and always give thanks as gratitude brings positive emotions, reduces stress and anxiety, and overall brings happiness. Stop looking for the one thing that isn’t perfect but give thanks for the 99 flawless ones because you have a chance to fix them.
9. By surrounding yourself with bad people. Your surroundings affect your mood more than you think. If you surround yourself with people who carry bad vibes, bad energy, then this is what you’re going to project unto your life and vice-versa. Find friends who lift you up and make you feel loved and appreciated. Nothing makes you happier than feeling and knowing that you are loved.
10. By being your own worse critic. Being your personal critic is not necessarily a bad thing but when you’re in a situation where you need to judge yourself you become really picky. Sure we need high expectations and we always need to aim to the moon but sometimes we need to take a moment to pat ourselves in the back when we mess up or when we fall. “Negative self-talk will only hurt you and keep you from realizing true happiness.”
11. By refusing to fight for what you want. That was the whole point of my friend’s text. If you want something you have to go get it. No one will care about your happiness more than you do. I always choose the easiest route when I want something and if I can’t get it I quit, I’m not a fighter. We’re scared to go after what we want because we don’t know the outcome. We are scared of rejection and failure. Sometimes we also let our ego control us, we want something but we think we’re too precious to go get it, like it has to come to us. It will never be that easy, we need to humble ourselves.
In the end all we really want in life is happiness. Being able to live comfortably with people we love and being successful but it will not be so easy. We need to take a minute and think about all the time we’ve blocked our own happiness and what we are going to do from now on to allow ourselves to be happy. Fight your insecurities, find out who you really are and what you really want and go for it. Reward yourself for your small victories and believe in yourself. Be careful not to be the enemy of your own happiness.
That is all for today guys. I really enjoyed writing this article and I really hope you enjoyed reading it too. Until we meet again, stay safe and be blessed. Xoxo….