Stop Outsourcing Your Happiness
When we expect others to make us feel better, we become the outsourcer of our own happiness. And while it can be very healing to have close people in our lives who we can share our problems with, sharing can all too easily turn into dumping.
When we dump all our problems onto others with the expectation of them making us feel better, we are not valuing the other person in the relationship like they deserve. Instead of seeing them as individual people with their own things going on, we see free therapists who exist solely for us.
We aren’t just dumping our worries on them either. We are also unloading the responsibility we have to ourselves.
When we unload all our expectations onto others, we lose touch with our own resilience. Even when external circumstances crumble, the true source of peace and stability always lies within.
“Only you are responsible for the energy you carry into a room.”
Ask yourself: Are you adding value to the lives of the people you love, or are you constantly taking it? Whatever we take is more likely to be taken from us. Whatever we give is more likely to be given to us. That is the way of the world.
If we tap into the happiness within, we become an example for the people we care most about. If we deal with our own stuff, if we love ourselves, and if we do the work to heal, we become happier, we’re able to give more happiness to others, and more happiness invariably finds its way back to us.
The I’ll Get Mad Later Strategy
Here is a very simple technique that I’ve seen help people immensely who have struggled with temper, anger, stress, and dumping problems on their loved ones. I call it the “I’ll Get Mad Later” strategy.
Whenever you’re upset at someone, or you’re just upset about something that’s on your mind, and you really don’t want to lose your temper and yell at anyone, just say to yourself:
Later can be at the gym, on a walk, in a sauna or cold plunge, in nature, or anywhere else you can go to decompress, recenter, and let it all out.
Usually, you’ll find that when later comes, you’re not still mad after all.
Instead of letting anger control your words, try witnessing your thoughts quietly. By giving yourself room to decompress, you’ll usually find the anger has passed by the time ‘later’ comes.
The Secret to Not Depending on Other People For Your Happiness: Rediscovering Internal Space
Sometimes we have to take a step back and look at the big picture.
It can be done in every moment by simply being aware of the space between objects, the silence between words and thoughts, and of the stillness.
We usually miss these moments, but they are always there and these spaces are from where all forms arise.
In some sense, space is more important than the stuff because without space, there could be no existence.
The more we see the space, the more we see connections and how things exist in relation to one another.
By moving beyond form, we move beyond the senses and into the expanded consciousness of energy and relationships, intuition and instinct.
The easiest way to experience this spacious dimension is to close our eyes, sit in quiet, and turn our attention inward. Here is where we will discover our deepest sense of being and a perspective of the entire universe within us, and of which we are a part.
We don’t have to look up at a starry night to sense the awe and wonder of the infinite. It lies within each of us and is available to us anytime.
Before You Cut Someone Out of Your Life
Whether it’s friends, family or strangers, everyone is going through something. Every single person is at a different level of development. Some children seem to have the wisdom of a thousand lifetimes, and some adults act like this is their first trip around the sun. That is the nature of reality.
I personally am a very clear and calm communicator (I hope you’ve noticed). I’ll lovingly share when someone’s hurt me or another family member, rather than keep silent and let anger stew and boil inside me. Sometimes, my loved ones do not respond in the loving and reflective way I would hope for them to (afterall, we’ve all got egos).
It’s moments like these that some people create conflict, and others remain in peace. See, I accept people where they are. I accept that everyone is different. I accept that everyone is on their own journey and that it won’t necessarily look like mine. And I accept that they have their own opinion and way of seeing things. It is reality, and I don’t fight with it. We can either cut out of our lives everyone who is at a different stage of growing up and live alone; or we can choose fun, chaotic, exciting and messy companionship that makes life so rich.
I speak my peace, but I don’t need to win a debate. I share my thoughts with love, but I don’t need to be heard. I am not responsible for other people, only myself. Yelling, fighting, and trying to impose my views on someone who is unable to listen benefits no one. To me, it’s much more important to live in love, and that is always in my control.
A lot of well-meaning and good people will not and cannot love us the way we sometimes need to be loved. So the question is, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to cut off the people who do actually love you? Are you going to get angry and bitter at reality? Are you going to try and change and control people who cannot change or be controlled? Or are you going to meditate, go for walks, take care of yourself, meet new people, stay loving to those who love you, and love yourself the way you need to be loved? To me, there is only one obvious answer.
This reflection is a part of my weekly newsletter, Path to Peace With Todd Perelmuter, on peace, awareness, healing, and living more consciously in the modern world.
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“The heart always knows; the mind only thinks. When we stop grasping for outer security, we find that we are held up by the universe.”
