What subtle things do you allow to come between you and your own happiness?
This is a question worth some mindful exploration.
It’s taken many forms for me over the years.
I can’t relax until the dishes are done.
Until the trash is out.
Until the house is less messy and dinner is made.
Until everyone else is taken care of.
I can’t be happy until I’m a success.
Until I’ve done my personal growth correctly.
Until I’ve wrung every last drop of wisdom out of life’s current lesson.
I can’t be happy until my child has the right supports.
Until they feel better.
Until my upcoming trip.
Until I live out my ideals around movement, food, productivity, service…
Until I’ve poured myself into loving the world enough.
Some of the things we put between ourselves and happiness are—if we’re honest—
Others feel justifiable. Even righteous.
And yet, when you really sit with this question, something meaningful can emerge.
It’s not that we actually want life to be neat, resolved, or finally “okay enough.”
Nope.
In many ways, we’re attached to the mess.
We’re attached to the tension—and to the story that says, See how hard this is? See how much I’m carrying?
(See how I suffer?)
I’m not saying this to generate shame. I’m saying it to generate awareness.
It can be genuinely scary to let go of the things that organize our effort and identity—even when they no longer serve us. It’s even scarier to let “okay enough” be called happy.
This isn’t about martyr complexes. It’s actually about our nervous systems.
Our animal brains like having a job. Worry, striving, first/then thinking—they give our energy direction. And even though that’s stressful, it can feel grounding to have somewhere to aim that energy. It helps us feel purposeful.
In contrast, happiness can feel oddly floaty. Unstructured. Even a little unsafe.
Struggle, for many of us, has become a way of being. It filters our experience of life and tells us who we are and what matters. Surrendering our familiar mess in favor of a little happiness can feel deeply disorienting.
So of course we resist.
My invitation here isn’t to force happiness, or to rip away the structures that have helped you survive. It’s simply to notice.
What conditions are you placing on your own happiness?
How do you subtly (or not so subtly) kick it down the road until certain requirements are met?
And what would it mean to soften just one of them—today?
This is real mindfulness.
Notice what you’ve been holding as necessary—and gently ask how real and necessary it actually is. Is this something worth trading a moment of happiness for?
Moments, strung together, are a lifetime after all.
And it’s your life.
– Renee