“What do you want for your kids?” I asked the parents assembled before me. In a rag-tag sort of unison, they all replied, “Happiness!”
“Well, they’re watching!” I countered. So many times we as parents give a not-so-subtle message to our young: “I want you to be happy so much, that I’m going to make myself miserable just so you can be happy.”
Of course, what the child hears is, “People must be unhappy in the name of love to be a good parent,” and they will surely give up their happiness for the next generation, just as we have given ours up for them.
Until the cycle is broken.
Happiness begins within us. When we are truer to ourselves we can be truer to those we love.
Things do not change. We change. - Henry David Thoreau
We can being our gentle return to happiness with this question: If I had no fear what would I do?
Hint: If your answer was to quit something, i.e. a job or a marriage, then take a deep breath. If you had no fear, and more hope, you might sit down with those involved and share from your heart what’s going on inside of you, asking for changes clearly and calmly. Or you might make changes immediately. Only you know.
“You seem unhappy,” I said to the executive at the large corporation.
“Oh, I dunno,” he replied.
“If you had no fear what would do?”
“I don’t have any fear, MK! I just negotiated a multi-million dollar deal!”
“Okay, so if you had no fear, who would you be?” Then he told me a dream he’d never told anyone before.
We cannot deny who we are. It is oozing out our pores. When we find the integrity to speak from our hearts and align our lives with our values, we have taken the first steps toward living happy and giving our children the greatest gift of all.
