A multitude of books, internet sites, articles and TV shows have been created on the pursuit of happiness. And we naturally desire to be happy, it feels good! But danger lies in feeling that if we are not constantly happy there is something wrong with us, we aren’t good enough, or aware or loving enough! Light and dark feelings are natural.
If we risk opening to love and becoming more aware, we risk opening to both light and dark feelings. There are times when we are not on top of things, feeling anything but joyful or purposeful, or not ‘succeeding’ in our desire to create a better world. This can be hard to tolerate and made worse by the recent trend of ‘expecting happiness’.
But is being always happy and upbeat a realistic goal? And does that goal create the type of depth and love that is fully human and touches the divine? Or does it feed the ego’s impulses to create the illusion of safety by overriding, going numb, not feeling, maintaining an image?
Instead, we can practice relaxing into the darker aspects of life, feeling through our shells of protection and fear, dropping deeper and deeper through the layers of painful experiences into the wisdom and soulfulness that comes from embracing it all, both the light and the dark.
As we take the freefall into opening as Love, feeling wider than our individual self, it means feeling everything and everyone, not just the happy bits!
In relationships we want our partner or beloveds to be happy, and yet this can set up pressure for them to ‘get over it’, find a solution to stop the pain, end the suffering, rather than giving them the loving space to ‘be’, to feel, to experience it all. Often its our own discomfort we want to stop.
In the masculine/feminine interplay it can go two ways – let’s take it as an exchange between a man and a woman, although the same interplay happens inside our own psyche and between masculine and feminine energies. The painful scenario is when the woman is feeling strong emotions and shame about that, met by the man who wants to find a solution and get her out of her emotions, which he sees as making her unhappy – if only she would take his advice! However she seems to prefer to ‘wallow in drama’ (his perception). His need for her to change increases her pain, confusion and shame.
A better scenario is for her to honour what she is feeling herself and allow it to settle and be fully felt, trusting her feminine essence, while the masculine brings his depth and wisdom to allow her to feel even more fully and be with what is. This supports her feelings to arise and pass, to flow, as is the nature of life – nothing gets stuck, solutions appear if necessary, the atmosphere becomes soulful and real, full of rich beauty and humanity. He too is then free to feel himself as needed. This improves the sexuality as this flow of feeling makes it rich and full.
Personally, my take on happiness is the ability to be so real and fully feeling in compassion and bright beauty that there is no resistance to whatever is appearing, even our resistance.
with love
