Suffering or Joy

In the current hustle culture, it is easy to get swept up in trying to prove how hard you’ve worked by suffering and sacrifice.

As if it’s wrong to create from more ease.

This idea of sacrificing one thing to get another is very ingrained into society and you may feel wrong or bad not living that way when you see many friends and family pushing, proving, and struggling. 

Perhaps you have the very common fear of not wanting to stand out.

You may think if you're happier and have more ease people will notice and resent you for it.

Perhaps people were envious, spiteful, or jealous in the past.

If so, those experiences likely caused you to expect more of the same.

You likely started to shrink and hide as a protective mechanism. Or you became overly defensive knowing that people were going to have an attitude towards you at some point so you better toughen up!

But, keep in mind those things happened to an old version of you.

You don't have to keep thinking and expecting the same things out of people.

Trust yourself that you're now attracting people who are genuinely happy for you.

People who encourage you and love you.

You have to know that you deserve this! Be kind to yourself.

Stop looking over your shoulder for someone to be critical of you.

Decide now that you will be even happier for others when they have amazing things happen in their lives too.

Open yourself up to even healthier expansive relationships.

Assume people want the best for you and assume that you bring out the best in others.

Sure, there might be someone every now and again who doesn't like you. But in general, you will experience way more love and ease in your world.

If you felt any resistance to all that. Check and see if you have any of these thoughts going on that could be causing you to avoid ease:

1. Notice if you are being jealous, envious, or competing with others. It is not always the case but it’s worth checking in to see if you are happy for others. Or does your mind go into thoughts like; Why did they get that? What about me?  I can do that better than them! Assuming that others experiencing good means there’s less for you. What if it actually means there’s lots of good coming your way?  

1. Wanting people to be envious- Ok, so this one is interesting. You may think you don’t want people to be envious of your accomplishments, success, etc. But is that true?  This world often teaches us that it is the goal to have others want what we have. It somehow means we have succeeded and are special and better than others. Striving for approval and validation from others is a common human pattern. Just be honest if you have this energy going on. Reframe what it means for you to be successful. 

3. What do you love about problems? Are they fun to create? Solve. Helps you relate to other people. Gain sympathy. Just notice if you are more comfortable with problems than with ease. Now some of us have jobs where we help people solve problems. But we can still invite more ease and even look at our job and customers as empowered and capable. 

Awareness isn’t always comfortable but it is a powerful catalyst for change.

Drop the judgments and choose the life you truly desire.

Whatever that is for you is perfect and valid.

I’ll personally be having more ease please!

Lots of Love, Althea