Maintaining My Happy

Happiness is your original nature. before you begin to identify with anything--your race, your nationality, your social status, even your body--it is the first thing you experience. Genuine happiness is being committed to your true nature. The more you know yourself---what you love, what you dislike, what inspires you, what makes you who you are--the happier you will be. What I have come to realize and unfortunately have lived is that when you forget who you are and WHOSE you are, something crazy happens, you start to search for happiness everywhere.

Happiness is what you experience when you truly accept yourself, when you relax and when you stop obsessiong about being a size zero, about why he/she hasn't called and about what I should be doing with my life (my personal favorite).  You must accept that the happiness you hope to achieve--after you find your true partner, get the dream job, buy the ideal home and earn the right money---is already in you. Happiness is the natural state of your soul. It is not something you achieve; it is something you accept. 

I have been faking my happiness for awhile now, thinking that at some point my reality would catch up with the fantasy life I created. Slowly but surely I have started walking in my happy. I'm not 100% everyday, all day, but I am happy because I've decided to be. Yup, I have decided that I am tired of being unhappy and living this exhausting double life. So for the last few weeks I have been reflecting on what helps me maintain my happy. Here are the top 3: 

#1  Mi familia! I truly have the best family in the world, their love for me is above and beyond anything I could have dreamed. They have dragged me kicking and screaming sometimes through life and I can't thank each one of them enough.

#2 Sharing my gifts with others: whether it's singing, being a listening ear, helping someone edit a letter or a paper, organizing an event or throwing a meal together that I know others will enjoy.

#3 My True Friends: You know who you are, the family I got to choose. They have saved me from myself countless times. 

Happiness is a journey not a destination and I am embracing every ounce of it starting with today. 

This is one of my favorite quotes:

"True happiness is to enjoy the present without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not." ~Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Let me end with a line from a song I fell back in love with this year: Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, it is well, it is well, with my soul.

Back to Basics for 2014

It's that time of year again when we all make lofty promises to ourselves including how we plan on finally sticking to our exercise and diet regimen we abandoned somewhere around Febuary. I can't front that used to be my MO for as long as I can remember.

But not this year...I honestly didn't think I would survive 2013, and I know we got a few more days left until the end so lemme go knock on some wood, lol. But seriously, I've let fear and worry cripple me for most of my adult life. I think it started way back at the end of my senior year in college, when I received my first rejection letter, ever, to one of the law schools I applied to. Up until then in my life whatever I applied myself to always worked out without any real effort on my part. High school, college, part time jobs, I had never heard "no" before.  It hit me like a ton of bricks when I didn't get in anywhere. I didn't have a plan B, so I had to move back home and get a job until I figured out what my next move was going to be. 

Over the next year I studied my butt off, got a tutor for the LSAT and I finally got in to law school. I was so so ecstatic and then I started law school and quickly realized it was not for me. Again I was faced with the fact that I had no plan B. I had been preparing to be a lawyer since elementary school...and here I was walking away from the very thing that would make that possible. 

Let me insert here that I am of proud Jamaican heritage, which translates to mean, "Gal yah betta find yaself a job quick, quick!" in my family, lol. So I got a job, and another, and another until I found one that I could do really well. I worked hard and I was promoted through the ranks, but something was missing. You know how people always talk about their purpose in life, well I believe we all have one. And I knew I wasn't living mine but I didn't know how to fix it.

Year after year has passed and events have have occurred in my life that have stalled my progress many times. I would make pledges and promises to myself to change this and that every New Year and then lose focus 30 days in. As we approach 2014, many feel safe in hoping for a change. I know all too well that by the end of January, too many of us will be back to doing our same habits. And it's not because what we want is impossible...its because we don't have a strategy! (lightbulb moment)

Now don't get me wrong I have faith and believe that  God can do the impossible because He has done it over and over again. But, what am I doing to prepare for that breakthrough? It like I have been sitting around waiting for an email from God outlining what my next moves should be...crazy right? I will own up to it, but I can no longer let that be the way I handle things.

I have come to know that there are some key things to consider (thanks to Felicia Scott). :

1. Know Your Greater Mission-  One of the primary reasons we don't achieve our goals is because we don't know the greater "why" behind the "what we want to achieve."

2. Know Your Obstacles- Sometimes we act out of uneducated inspiration, so we don't know what it will take to reach our goals. We will stack the odds in our favor when we understand the potential challenges and obstacles ahead of time.

3. Know Yourself-  The biggest obstacle we will ever face when going for anything we want is "self." We can't afford to be ignorant about ourselves and who we really are at our core. We must know our motivators, our strengths and our weaknesses. If we actively self-manage, we've accomplished the hardest part of an endeavor. 

As 2013 comes to a close, I know for a fact that I blocked a lot of blessings that God tried to send my way. That will not be the case next year. I'm going to put this extremely analytical mind I was blessed with and begin self-reflecting on a daily basis to ensure I am not standing in this same place December 2014.

Be Good To Yourself (B.G.T.Y.)

One of my favorite quotes says: "Be happy for no reason, like a child. If you are happy for a reason, you're in trouble, because that reason can be taken from you." I used to hear people say it all the time, Happiness is a choice, be happy, etc., and I used to say under my breath, easier said than done! But is it really? Over the last few months I have been doing some self-assessment which seems to occur around my birthday post turning 30. I looked at my present state in life, where I was, what I was doing, how far I've come, etc. After considering all those things I couldn't help but smile, because God has truly brought me a MIGHTY long way.

I can remember a time when I was constantly comparing myself to others or even to where I thought I should be at particular times in my life. Everyone makes deadlines, albeit sometimes unrealistic, we still make them. When I was in college I just knew I would have my law degree by 25, meet a fabulous man, get married, buy a nice house, and have some gorgeous kids! NONE of these deadlines have been met! LOL! My wise grandmother used to say, "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans." I may not have met those deadlines, but my life has been a wonderful, wild rollercoaster of a ride. I wouldn't change anything that I have gone through, because each trial has taught me so much about myself and I've come to realize what a strong woman I have become.

 Growing up and up into my twenties I had huge self-esteem problems. Now I grew up in a loving home, my parents are still together and they affirmed me constantly on how beautiful and smart I was. But for some reason I thought I wasn’t worth much, because I didn’t look a certain way or have certain people or things in my life. I compared myself to others and I always found myself lacking. I used the way people treated me as a measurement of how I should treat myself. It wasn’t until I hit rock bottom and realized that this way of thinking had caused me to go through some tough times that could have been avoided if I had known what I deserved and demanded it.

 These past few months since my birthday this year have easily been the happiest of my adult life. I have accepted the notion that you cannot be happy at your destination, if you can’t be happy on the journey, as my way of life. Every day I wake up thankful and grateful just for another day, another chance to get it right. You can ALWAYS find a reason not to be happy, but why would you want to when being happy is so much more fun than being sad. When you truly realize your self-worth and see how wonderfully made you are, I promise you won’t be able to stop smiling!
 Let me share a few things I picked up on my journey back to loving myself:

Never allow anyone or anything to diminish you and your dreams.

Never sacrifice who you are just because someone has a problem with it.

What God has for you, is for YOU. No one has the ability to stop you, but YOU!

You are where you are, at the time that you are for a reason. Don’t waste it by wishing to be somewhere else. 
You’re never in control of what they give you, but you’re ALWAYS in control of what you accept.

 Know your worth. Know when you have had enough. And move on from the people who keep ruining your happiness!

 Always remember to BGTY first, then everyone else. You can't love anyone truly if you don't love yourself!