Give Yourself Permission to be Happy - Allow Happiness In
“It’s about you, giving yourself permission to be who you are, without giving a rip about what anybody else is thinking about it”
Give yourself permission to be happy
Permission meaning: authorisation given to do something. the act of consent.
How often do we wish happiness on other people? Birthdays, weddings, the birth of a child. obtaining a great job or just signing off from work at the weekend. For most of us, granting other people happiness comes automatically and with real sincerity. Why then do we find it so hard to grant ourselves happiness? Why do we feel that we shouldn’t be happy?
Do you accept happiness if it is bestowed by someone else? Or do you feel that you are not deserving of happiness?
Do you feel that happiness is something that you have to earn? Do you have to have a certain lifestyle, a particular job, family or friends before you can be happy? Or do you wait for other people to permit you to be happy?
Happiness is up to you
The answer is ….. You are the only one who can make you happy. Not your job, family, friends, hobbies or anything else external.
Happiness comes from within, and so it is up to you to permit yourself to be happy.
Happiness is an emotion or a feeling in the body that is generated by thought. The only way we can ever experience an emotion or feeling is by having a thought first.
We don’t have emotions before we have a thought; it never works that way, so to feel happy, you have to have a thought that makes you feel happy.
It’s up to you to have that thought to create the feeling of happiness - it’s nothing to do with anybody else.
Outdated ideas about happiness
All too often, we have an idea that we have to earn happiness, that it is something that has to be attained. There has long been the idea that happiness comes from having money or no money worries.
Money and happiness are so often inextricably tied together that without money, you can’t be happy.
Now, of course, there can be no doubt that having a certain level of income is going to make life much easier.
No one can deny that having the money to pay your bills, buy essential goods, have holidays and afford certain luxuries is not a good thing and something that most people will strive for.
It doesn’t mean, though, that having money is going to bring automatic happiness.
There will be many very wealthy people who do not have a level of happiness equal to someone who is considered poor.
In the same way, there will be many poor people who have extreme happiness in their lives.
Many also believe that our happiness lies in the hands of another person. If they had the perfect partner, then their life would be complete, and they would be happy, or if they had different friends or family, then this would bring them immediate happiness.
The same as with ideas regarding money, it is not the job of anybody else to make you happy. Your partner, family, friends or work colleagues can’t make you happy; it comes internally from the thoughts that you have.
Your lifestyle, home, the way you look and the job that you do also don’t bring you happiness.
To be happy, you have to understand this simple rule: YOU choose to be happy by the thoughts that you have….nothing else. It is up to you to permit yourself to be happy.
“Give yourself permission to be happy. It doesn’t matter what’s going on around you, what matters is what’s going on inside you. ”
Why are you not allowing yourself to be happy?
Are you sabotaging your own happiness by not allowing yourself to be happy? For anyone who feels that happiness is earned or that comes at a certain level of success or wealth, you could be holding yourself to happiness ransom, telling yourself that only when you get to a particular level will you then be happy.
What if that level never appears? What if you don’t become rich, meet your ideal partner, or get your dream job? Does this mean that you will never permit yourself to be happy?
Will you go through your life feeling that you don’t deserve happiness or that you are denied happiness because someone else hasn’t bestowed it on you?
How to allow yourself to be happy
Accept what is going on in your life. Happiness is a choice that you make, and you can decide when you want to be happy and when you don’t.
If you accept all that is going on in your life, whether it is good or bad, you can then decide whether you want to be happy or not.
Stop thinking about what is going to be. We create a great deal of stress in our lives and create thoughts that can make us unhappy by thinking about what is going to happen in the future.
Why do we do this? We don’t have a crystal ball; no one can say with absolute certainty what is going to happen in the future, and yet we constantly live by crystal ball gazing and catastrophizing the future, usually based on past events in our lives.
This is something that needs to stop…NOW. Instead, look to the future with optimistic thoughts, with ideas that are going to bring happiness into your life.
The saying “What you think about you bring about “ is true. If you are going to project into the future, then make sure it is into a place of positivity, where you will have thoughts that bring happiness to you.
Life is short in the grand scheme of things, and during our journey through it, there are going to be many times when things happen that are genuinely sad or heartbreaking.
We know this and accept it as a part of life.
There are going to be many times in life when we don’t want to be happy, such as the death of a loved one or illness.
It is in these times that we choose not to be happy; the situation dictates that this isn’t an emotion that we want to be experiencing.
There are times when we do want to be happy when we have a genuine reason to celebrate, the birth of a child or a new job, and we want to shout from the rooftops how happy we are.
During these times, we will always give ourselves permission to be happy as we feel that we have something to celebrate and are entitled to feel happy.
Knowing this, then, why not give yourself permission to be happy when life is just ticking along ordinarily? You don’t need the grand or amazing things in life to make you happy.
A simple walk in nature, a cup of tea and a catch-up with a friend, or a good book at bedtime can all be what it takes to bring happiness into our lives.
Your happiness is under your control; it is up to you to decide when you want to be happy. Embrace living and embrace happiness….nobody needs to give you permission.
If you would like to listen to the audio version of the blog, press below.
video courtesy of Bob Baker
If you have any thoughts on being happy please comment and share below
