We are constantly running around, going from one technique to another, just to finally become happy. But do we actually know how to BE happy?
Do we know how to enjoy life and, most importantly, are we ready to give ourselves permission to do so?
Most of us were never taught that life can be enjoyed. Usually, we absorb deep into our core with our mother's milk that life is about have-to rather than want-to; that it's "business before pleasure"; that first you eat your main course, and only then, maybe, you get dessert.
And with every belief like that, we internalized more and more that the good stuff is for sometime later. Sometime when all the "have-tos" are done, all duties are fulfilled, the main course is eaten, and the floors are scrubbed until they shine.
And then we grow up. But we still haven't learned to enjoy. We desperately run from one "have-to" to another, checking off items on our daily to-do list, reaching yet another goal. Yet there is still no enjoyment in any of it.
Now ask yourself a question:
- Do you have permission to enjoy? Can you give it to yourself?
- Can you allow yourself not to eat what you don't want?
- Can you enjoy food at 2 a.m. with absolute gusto?
- Or ignore the dirty dishes and go watch a movie just because you want to?
- Or snort-laugh in the middle of the street because you remembered a funny moment?
- What about enjoying sex and taking everything you want from it, without thinking about how to arch your back to look prettier?
"But how can that be… that's shameful, that's wrong, you're not supposed to do that!" your inner voice might object.
And to that I'll say: until you give yourself permission, until you decide for yourself that you MAY, feeling enjoyment in life will be almost impossible.
