Allowing myself to admit what I desire, getting in touch with the small things that matter to me, these aren’t insignificant moments.
They’re triumphs of the self. Exercises in meaning.
Like singing karaoke on the commute to work every morning, for example. That’s an act of joy that helps me feel a sense of delight and blissful expansiveness in my body. It’s my emotional on ramp to the workday.
Who cares if the people next to me think I’m crazy? You do what you have to do to lock into the right mindset.
It reminds me of a helpful question from cognitive behavioral therapy. Patients use it to confront their guilty tendencies and gain greater agency over joy.
By not having this thing, who is it I’m getting revenge on? Who is it that I’m getting back at?
This is a helpful exercise for each of us. Because we all have somebody in our lives that we’re still rebelling against. We all silently acquiesce to some archetype whose opinion we’re still giving too much weight.
Like a parent or a bully or an ex lover who judged and shamed and scolded us for acting in a certain way. We’ll show them, we think.
But the problem is, to let our current happiness rely on the past behavior of others, only causes more suffering. To depend on others to give us a definition of ourselves, only causes more suffering.
And so, we let go of that power struggle. We forgive people, freeing both them and ourselves.
And we sing our hearts out, remembering that our happiness or suffering is dependent on how we relate to the present moment.
LET ME ASK YA THIS…
By not having what you truly desire, who are you getting revenge on?
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Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.
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