BECOMING You.

Do you struggle with happiness? Long lasting, deep-rooted, enduring Happiness? We all know temporary Happiness can be easily served up with a drink with a friend, with a good plate of food, a funny movie, an evening with family, or doing your favorite hobby… But where does your spirit sit in the slow moments? Do you default back to depression and anxiety about your situation?

In my mind, its a simple answer. Simple to underatad, Difficult to achieve…

Learn how to praise God in the low moments, in the weeds, and through the droughts. People who forget how to be happy have an unhealthy relationship with perfection and expectations of the experience life “Should” be giving them.

When you know, and expect, and “look forward to” (not necessarily in excitement, but in expectation) the Highs AND Lows, you begin to  let go of this false sense of reality of –

“Life should look like this”

“I should feel like this”

“The economy and market should be like this”

“I should be able to afford this”

Once you take out your unhealthy use of the word SHOULD, then you allow life to be what it is, and then the constant disappointment starts to dissolve out of your every day, and you start to be able to handle the ups and downs with grace… and you’re able to access a happiness that for so long YOU YOURSELF held at an arms length. It’s like the whole old cartoon scene with the dog chasing a treat on the end of a stick that’s forever held 5 feet away. It’s always in view and you wreck havoc trying to get to it because you can’t see anything around you but THAT while trying to get to it, but you never will, and it’s all because YOU put it at that distance.

Start to praise God in the good and “bad”… but truly, once you start considering that the “bad” is usually the good stuff, that builds character, that makes you hone in on what’s important, that helps strip out the unimportant stuff, that chips away at that unhealthy expectation on life’s experience and what it should be, that humbles you, and creates a stronger, wiser, more balanced version of yourself…. Sometimes its hard to see it as bad… or a low.

As I have expressed before, Garrett and I have been in what feels like a hamster wheel…. But at the end of the day, we look across this life we have built and the ONLY things standing, are the most important things. We have God, our kids, family, and Real friends, our ability to get up everyday and make our own choices, freedom, work…. All the things that really matter. Through this we have gained:

• More peace, because our peace now is hinged on ‘how we are doing in life’ but rather our acceptance of what we can and can’t control.
• More love for each other, because we aren’t in this unhealthy exchange of what date night looks like, or what makes our relationship well rounded.
• A Much greater, deeper, wider, more expansive relationship with God.
• The ability to get comfortable being uncomfortable… if you can harness that skill, it will have Unbelievable results in every part of your life, business, relationship, etc.
• More of a stripped down, ‘quality not quantity’ version of our life. Still the wonderful, amazing, blessed life but without all the unnecessary things. Things we may have again, but when we have them again, we will have an even healthier relationship with all those “unnecessary things”.

While GAINING a wonderful, beautiful life with abundance of income, stuff, travel, great food and drink, sometimes we learn to create that attachment to that as if THATS what creates happiness… and that’s where we go downhill. Garrett and I are so thankful for this drought and for all the things God has provided to us in the midst of the storm. 

So, this is my invitation…. The invitation to life, to God, to the ups and downs to do what’s necessary to align us in our callings, carve us into the people God created us to be, and take away anyone or anything that doesn’t serve us. REAL, FULFILLING Happiness is truly a decision away… whereas Temporary happiness is all around us.

The choice is Always yours!