I Wish I Had Let Myself Be Happier

What do you wish for in your life?

As many of you may know, only about 5 years ago I was working as a nurse, first in hospital with cancer patients and then in a hospice with those coming to the end of their life. I was reminded of these years listening to a podcast recently with Bronnie Ware who wrote a book called “The 5 regrets of the dying”. Two regrets really stood out to me; “I wish I had let myself be happier”; “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

I think we can all resonate with these sentiments. But, why don’t we allow ourselves to be happy? Why don’t we live a life true to ourselves?

The trouble is our brain and our body are primarily designed to keep us safe, to keep us alive. Our most basic human need (except for food, water and shelter) is for safety. This tends to put the perception of safety and survival at the forefront of our experience. Therefore “non essential” brain functions such as happiness and authenticity can be way more elusive than we would wish for.

So if we want to live a life full of happiness, a life that’s true to ourselves, how do we do it? Is it even possible?

I probably wouldn’t have believed this a year ago, but now I am pretty convinced we can live so much more of our lives in happiness and authenticity than we think. You may be wondering how on earth you’d do this; so here are some key steps. Learning to insource our own safety and other basic emotional needs and being willing to face within safety any feelings we may have been running from.  

Fear, anxiety and stress are not only emotions in our mind, but physical sensations in our body; palms sweating, heart racing, chest and tummy tightening are just some examples.

Love, safety, happiness and contentment create physical sensations in our body too; tingling on your skin, a warm glow in our heart are just some examples. We tend to be more aware and attuned to the “negative” sensations, but we can experience and create loving, safe sensations in our body too. This is insourcing, and when we intentionally create these sensations in our body it feeds back to our brain that we are in fact safe and loved regardless of what our external circumstances are.

Can you imagine how powerful it is to feel throughout your body that you are unconditionally loved no matter what anyone else says or does? 

As mentioned, it becomes very difficult to live in or even experience happiness and safety when trying to avoid pain, fear, anger, sadness and shame. There’s a paradox; the more we seek something out, the harder it is to see; the more we push something away, the bigger it becomes. Often it’s subtle how we relate to these feelings and we aren’t always fully aware of how we might be pushing an emotion away; but when we have something that keeps looping, that’s usually a sign there’s something we’re avoiding.

Neuroscience research shows us we only need to truly experience an emotion or sensation for 90 seconds before it integrates into our body. Not fully experiencing it is actually what keeps us trapped in it.  

Through somatic work we can meet these feelings of fear with love, safety and acceptance.  When you can consciously and within your window of tolerance experience the heart pounding of fear along with the warm glow of love and safety; you realise you can face just about anything in life. When you know that feeling scared can also feel safe and loving; your whole world opens up.  

What’s more the carry over into real life can be incredible. You may find yourself in a similarly triggering situation. You’ll feel your heart start to pound, but instead of beginning to feel panic; you’ll still feel safe. The heart pounding, palmes sweating may gently fade away or they may remain, but you won’t be bothered by it in the same way.

If facing your fears looked like this, what do you think would be possible in your life?

There’s a beautiful quote: human potential lies in our willingness to change our relationship with fear. When we begin to face our fears with the safety we can create inside ourselves, our whole world opens up and so much is possible in our lives.

Wherever you are in your life right now, it is possible to live a life you love, a life that lights you up, that’s centered around your values and what you hold dear. It is possible to live a life full of happiness and authenticity. If you’d like to explore how this might be possible for you, then I’m here for you.