People ask me all the time why I'm so happy. They want to know the secrets to my joy. People want to sit with me chat about how to find a better life. To be honest, I have no idea how I ended up this way, but today, I found one clue to my contentment.
This morning I watched a video I had heard many times before. It was Brene Brown's Ted talk on vulnerability. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCvmsMzlF7o) Every time I listen to her talk I know that I need to be vulnerable, I need to be comfortable with being open to others, but today something struck me that I never noticed before.
In the talk, Brene Brown suggests that because we don't want to be vulnerable with others we find ourselves not living a wholehearted life. And because we don't live wholehearted lives, we start to numb ourselves with food, and alcohol, and drugs. But the problem is that we can't selectively numb. When we numb the things we don't like, we also numb our joy and our capacity to be happy.
It suddenly occurred to me, could my 8th grade taste buds, the taste buds that keep me from drinking coffee and wine, that keep me from going wine tasting, do those taste buds actually keep me happy? There have been MULTIPLE times when life is hard, when things feel overwhelming, when people say to me "If only you like wine..." or "You need to learn to drink." But instead of drinking, I just sit in the problem, I face it head on. I don't escape it, I soak in it because there's no escape for me. On the flip side when things are good, I toast with a Coca-cola. I get to feel it all. The horrible and wonderful.
Maybe the secret to happiness is not numbing yourself from being unhappy, but rather allowing yourself to feel unhappy in order to also allow yourself joy. And maybe, just maybe, I totally did that on accident, by have taste buds that hate the things that numb.
I think the video you actually watched this morning that brought you joy was the one I sent you. Booya
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