Are You Cheating Yourself of Happiness?
There is healthy self-control and then there is taking Delayed Gratification too far…to the point of cheating ourselves of happiness.
We all learned Delayed Gratification from an early age.
We couldn’t have the cookie until we put away our toys.
We couldn’t go out to play until we finished our dinner.
We couldn’t go swimming until we waited a half-hour after eating.
Delayed gratification makes sense in that sometimes we do need to complete one thing before moving onto the next…healing from one relationship before beginning another.
And sometimes we need to accomplish one thing before receiving another…forgiving ourselves before being able to forgive another…making the money then buying the Louboutins.
But then there is another kind of Delayed Gratification that doesn’t make sense.
The ‘When…then..’ Delayed Gratification that limits us instead of adding to our lives. This kind of Delayed Gratification punishes us until we have achieved a certain goal, mandate, requirement or accomplishment.
This kind of Delayed Gratification says…
When the kids are grown then I will take time for me.
When I have a boyfriend/partner/husband then I will feel content in my life.
When I lose the weight then I will like myself.
When I am successful then I will take time to enjoy life.
When I have more money then I will live the life I want.
I call this type of Delayed Gratification an Affliction because it comes from the belief that we don’t deserve to feel happy, content, relaxed, fulfilled, accomplished, complete, whole…until…we have satisfied some requirement.
This Delayed Gratification Affliction takes the point of Delayed Gratification – to motivate and inspire us – too far. It turns Delayed Gratification into a punishment that diminishes our enthusiasm and defers our life enjoyment for a later time when we have “earned” it.
By buying into this Delayed Gratification Affliction we are investing in struggle. We are agreeing that we don’t deserve to feel the way we want to feel in our lives until we have sacrificed and suffered.
When the truth is we don’t feel good by being hard on ourselves. Never has struggle, sacrifice or suffering felt good. And all we got from it was struggle, sacrifice and suffering.
It is time to drop this antiquated conditioning of struggle, sacrifice and suffering and go straight to experiencing how we want to feel in our life.
Because if we are really clear – it is not the ‘thing’ the boyfriend/size two/success/money that is the ultimate reward – it is HOW WE WANT TO FEEL having those things in our life.
So let’s cut out the middle-man (no pun intended) and go straight for FEELING THE WAY WE WANT TO FEEL NOW!
If we want to feel joy in our life it makes sense to stop delaying the experience of joy. And making our experience of joy contingent on a ‘thing’ is true crazymaking – we are giving our power away to a ‘thing’! The ‘thing’ gets to decide if and when we will feel joy – really?
No. WE GET TO DECIDE HOW WE FEEL. Always. Including right now, tomorrow and the day after that.
And this is the irony of it. When we allow ourselves to feel the way we want to feel we actually begin to draw into our lives the ‘things’ we previously believed we needed first to feel the way we wanted to feel.
Feelings are the horse and the ‘thing’ is the cart. And now that we got the horse before the cart we are going places!
To put the horse before the cart ask yourself:
- How do I want to feel?
- Am I experiencing this feeling consistently in my life, relationships, body, home, career?
- Where am I denying myself this feeling? Why?
- What actions can I begin to take to experience this feeling more consistently?
What if you don’t know how you feel or how you want to feel in your life, relationships, body, home, career?
First of all I want you to know you are not alone. This is the biggest struggle many of my clients have in creating and experiencing the life they want – they don’t actually know HOW they want to feel.
Quite often this is because they learned to suppress their feelings as a child
- to be acceptable to those they needed love and care from
- to keep the peace
- to avoid having their emotions discounted, ignored even ridiculed
- to survive chaos and dysfunction
- to endure abuse
- to exist in a home with parents with big needs who over-shadowed their own
Even without childhood trauma many adults have beliefs…
- That it is selfish to focus on themselves and their feelings
- That it is unrealistic to get to feel the way they want to feel in their life
- That feeling good has to be earned
- That feeling good is a privilege reserved for the accomplished, the deserved and the worthy
These beliefs keep them disconnected from how they want to feel. These beliefs hold them back from experiencing the life, the relationships, the health, the creativity, the career and the abundance they desire.
Everything we desire must first be desired. We must have the clarity to FEEL IT first within to ignite the creation of it with-out.
Desire IS emotion and it is individual for every person – but for every one it is the key that unlocks their greatest potential and experience of the life they want to live.
