Have you ever caught yourself in “I’ll Be Happy When…..” Land?
I did, this morning. I hate when that happens. 🙂
“I’ll be happy when…..” is an insidious epidemic in our “can do,” “have it all,” “make it happen” culture. So we can’t judge ourselves when we slip into it.
But the question to me, is: Is this the way I want to live?
Do we really want to live in the prison of, for example, “I’ll be happy when….
- I’m fully healthy.”
- I feel more prosperous.”
- My X is repaired, or I have a new X.”
- I meet my soul mate.”
- (something changes in my life)
- (and, perhaps, one of the most challenging ones) Something is different for someone I dearly love.”
I call this Gap Management. There’s a gap between where we are and our happiness.
Then, we unwittingly spend our lives trying to change or fix things, ie, trying to manage the gap. Or, we wonder how we will make things different, or how we will create something else, because then we will be happy.
What we are really saying, and it is subtle, is: “I can’t be happy now, right in the middle of what is.”
What does living in Gap Management cost us?
We’re not living our lives fully right now, because we are focused on the “need” for something to be different. We’re not valuing or appreciating our lives as they are right now, because we’re perceiving them as flawed or not good enough in some way.
This is a particularly tricky one for me as a Life Coach, because I’m in the business of helping people change their lives, or to move successfully and happily through life transitions.
One way through this is to perfect the art and practice of “Both/And.”
You gently hold a desire, lightly, and unattached, as something that you might like to experience in your life. But, you’re not dependent on it for your sense of happiness or well-being.
That’s the “And.” You’d like to grow or change in some way, and you are able to find that feeling place of truly loving your life just as it is right now, also.
True freedom, however, would seem to be that I am happy for life itself. For merely being alive, however it is. That whatever is, in any moment, I trust my deepest wholeness and well-being.
While I completely get that intellectually, I’m not there in living it full-out. Some days, I catch myself in Gap Management. And when I do, I practice bringing myself back to the knowing that my deepest well-being doesn’t depend on managing a perceived gap. That’s why they call it practice.
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