There's a hole in my bucket.

One of the therapeutic goals I often hear as a therapist is “I just want to be happy”. Nothing wrong with that, in fact I attain to have happiness in my life as well. So why do many of us struggle to actually feel sustainably happy in our lives?

Here is one pattern that has become apparent to me. We let the external world dictate what SHOULD make us happy. Get the car, buy the house, wear the things, lose the weight, find the partner, have the baby, hustle, grind, spend. Implying that life is not ok as is. Conditioning us to believe our lives and purpose in life will be fulfilled if we just do the things and buy the things.

If it’s our happiness why do we let others or society tell us what we need to feel it? Why doesn’t the feeling of happiness last after I do “the thing” or buy “the thing”? Why am I always left wanting more? Why doesn’t my bucket of happiness fill up? When we act from the foundation of ‘not enough’, it doesn’t matter what we do, the experience of happiness or enjoyment of ‘enough’ will not be sustainable.  Why? Because we’ve been conditioned to believe that we are not enough. There are billion-dollar industries that RELY on us not feeling enough. Not feeling enough always leaves us wanting “more”, which bodes well for the billion-dollar businesses and policy makers, but leaves us feeling unfulfilled and increasingly discontent. We’re trying to fill a bucket with a gaping hole in it. No matter how much you keep pouring in, it will never be filled.

So, here is my life hack to true happiness. Get to know YOU. Really get to know, love and trust yourself. If we make decisions for ourselves based on self-love and following our intuition, from the place of “I am already enough and this is best for me” as oppose to “This is what I’m told is best for me to be enough”, our lives will shift dramatically. I am not kidding. When I work with clients who ‘want to be happy’, I am not telling them how. I teach them how to tune into and trust their inner knowing, and support them to make choices from a place of self-love. How to plug the hole in the bucket before they decide what they want to fill it with.

Two years ago, I made the choice to have Botox injected into my face. At the time I was going through a period of struggling with my body image. Here was what my inner critic was telling me at the time: Maybe if you look young and have great skin, it won’t matter as much that you’re not “skinny”. This inner dialogue is from experiences from my childhood and what I was told about my body being “too big”. I’ve been conditioned, like many of you, to believe if you are not skinny you are = unattractive, unworthy, undesirable and unmotivated. Although I have done a lot of work to heal this limiting belief and my heart knows this to be untrue, my head doesn’t always course correct. Sometimes there is a slow leak in my bucket that requires mending.

After a brief period of excitement over my vanishing wrinkles and creases, I started to notice other imperfections. The hole was actually expanding! Perhaps I need MORE Botox, or lip injections too? Skin tightening? Oh yeah, and weight loss too . . .because I’m still not “skinny. One day, as I was trying to budget for all this “self-improvement”, I had a revelation which was preceded by a slight meltdown. It was apparent to me that I was actually MORE discontent that I had started off before the injections of “self-worth”. This is when I decided to stop getting Botox and refocus on loving myself for who I am. I made a conscious decision to tend to the hole in my bucket instead of trying to put more in it to compensate for the leak. In my heart I know a person’s value is not dependent on size or wrinkle count but clearly, I still get stuck in old patterns of conditioning. As with most healing, it is a continual process.

Now, I am not judging Botox or saying it’s bad or that everyone who injects is, has low self confidence. That is not the point. The point is that I made the choice from a place of “not enough”. There was no self-love or intuitive wisdom at play. It was my fear of growing old in a world that celebrates youth. I was guided by fears of not being perceived as good enough and the end result was feeling even worse about my value. I won’t promise I will never get Botox again but what I do promise myself is that the choice will come from love, not from lack.

Here is the truth society doesn’t want us to believe: We were born enough. We were born with inherent value to this world. We are lovable. We are powerful. We know, deep down, the truth about what makes us happy. We don’t need to buy the damn Limited Platinum Edition of Happiness for 3 easy payments of $999.99. We already have what we need within us. What we need to discover our own personal happiness, is free. Love.

Repeat these words to yourself: I love you. Again. I love you. I love you. I love you. Not if . . . Not when. . .  I LOVE YOU. Repeat these words until the conditioning has melted away and you feel the power and truth of it in every cell in your body. Repeat through life. Repeat on the tough days, the good days, the miraculous days. I LOVE YOU. There is no ‘cheese’ factor here, I promise you. It may feel weird or uncomfortable saying this to yourself. If it does, you are deserving and needing to hear it even more. When we give these messages to ourselves, it reinforces the truth. You are enough already. End of story. Period.

Loving ourselves doesn’t necessarily mean we have to live like monks and give up all worldly possessions. When I buy the things or do the things from a place of love, there is a sense of peace, enjoyment, and gratitude. The different is the platform from which we make decisions. Is the choice born of love or lack?

If you were to truly love yourself, how would your life look or feel different? What holes need mending in your bucket? 

Stay precious, wild & beautiful,

Sheila