Welcome to the 26 days of Happiness! Today is day 9. Please meet featured author Shannone Holt from the soon to be released book: The Wellness Universe Guide to Complete Self-Care, 25 Tools for Happiness, sharing their inspiring story!
You deserve to be happy. Let me say that again. YOU, reading this right now, deserve to be happy. Just like you have the right to breathe, you have the right to be happy.
Now, I realize that the overwhelming majority of us do NOT know this; do not feel it in our bones; do not feel that they or others they know are worthy of being happy; and this for various reasons such as guilt, shame, victimhood, or simply because of a past they may not be too proud of.
Our Prison
Whether perpetrator or “victim,” you deserve happiness. There are many far-reaching reasons as to why we don’t innately believe this, but I will not get into them here.
Nonetheless, the deep-seated feelings of unworthiness to pursue one’s happiness has violently thrown many of us into the corner of our own prisons, so much so that we don’t even realize the prisons we have allowed ourselves to be locked into, contain no walls and no bars. We can leave our limitations at any time!
The only key that is necessary to break out is our recognition that the only thing stopping us from pursuing and attaining happiness is us.
Learning
I don’t care what you’ve done, what has been done to you, what you have taken, or what has been taken from you, you deserve happiness. We are all here to learn. We are here to experiment with what we do and do not like, with who we currently are and who we want to be. There are no mistakes. There is only learning from our experiences.
For example, if we are the antagonist in any given situation, we are provided with the opportunity to observe how our actions make others feel; the results of our behaviors; and how the effects of those behaviors play out in the lives of those who have been affected by them, and ultimately how those behaviors affected our own lives.
Changing
If we do not like the outcome, having seen the effects, we now can compare the results and change the behavior to have a different outcome.
In other words, if we observe that our actions did not land favorably on someone and we do not like the burden of feeling “responsible” for the unhappiness of others, we can choose to change that behavior when the opportunity presents itself again.
On the other hand, if we were the protagonist and were treated unfavorably, we can decide to cower in a corner fearing victimization again, or we can and say, “That really sucked. No way will I allow anyone to treat me that way again and get away with it!” Either way, we have the opportunity to learn and to grow from our decisions.
Learning
Have you ever noticed that once a lesson is TRULY learned, the circumstances that led to it are often not repeated? The only way to break a cycle is to learn the lesson that life is persistently bringing you. Once the lesson is learned and the response changes, the cycle gets broken!
Training
This beautiful gift we call life is a training ground and it has a wonderful way of helping us learn by giving us the general lesson over and over again until we finally change our response to that which continues to repeat itself. In other words, we are in “trial-and-error” mode throughout life!
Tools to Achieving Happiness
In my contributing chapter of The Wellness Universe Guide to Complete Self-Care: 25 Tools for Happiness, I discuss self-love and detachment as one of the vital, two-part tools for achieving happiness.
What I really want you to feel in this chapter is how much power you have over your happiness.
When you realize your ability to be happy has absolutely nothing to do with what is going on around you, you will then understand how much power you have over your happiness; how you can and must orchestrate it on your own.
Once you recognize that, you can begin to allow your happiness to evolve and shock you with its presence in even the most difficult circumstances. When you realize this, you’ll find yourself smiling through great difficulties and will surprise yourself with how easily you can find joy in what others would consider the worst of situations.
Commit yourself, right now, to relentlessly pursuing happiness. Why?
Because it is your birthright and – you deserve it!
Reach for your birthright! Be happy!
Shannone
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A super simple way to happiness! Meet the Author of Chapter 21 Suzy Woo: 6 OR 9? PERSPECTIVE VS. PERCEPTION|LIVING ON PURPOSE
Mark your calendar, 2021 will be a year filled with happiness! February 11, pick up your copy of The Wellness Universe Guide to Complete Self-Care, 25 Tools for Happiness!
Join us in the Wellness Universe Book Club Group to take part in our special events and connect with all the authors!
WU Best Help
Most notable as a model on Bravo’s Project Runway & VH1’s Model Employee, Shannone’s own healing journey awakened her passion to help others heal and she is now also an intuitive healing detox, breath & meditation coach, Yoga Teacher, and Reiki Practioner at Heal With Shannone.
