Chasing the Deadly Inner Tube of Happiness? Stop.

Here’s why and how.

Having happiness as a life goal reminds me of being a kid at the beach. I was 8 years old and happy as a clam. Or at least I was clam-happy until my flamingo inner tube headed out to sea.

Panic-stricken, I splashed in to save it. But each time I put my hand out, my object-of-desire moved out of my reach.

Idiotically determined, (A trait I have retained, unfortunately.) I began dog paddling after it. Mind you, I’d never made it out of the guppy swim class at the YMCA. Yet I kept on dog-paddling until I was going under.

The powers that be decided to give me another chance. An observant stranger plunged in to save my pink birdie floater and me from a watery demise.

Happiness is a little like that, isn’t it? I keep on reaching for whatever I think will bring it, like, for example, a pink flamingo inner tube.

“Enjoy everything that happens in your life but never make your happiness or success dependent on an attachment to any person, place or thing.” — Wayne Dyer

So, time to ask yourself the crucial question…

Do you have the “Deadly Inner Tube of Happiness”?

Meaning…

Is ‘feeling good’ perpetually just around the corner or perpetually out of sight?

Could you be too focused on becoming, achieving and attaining?

Do you believe that with a house or a title or a car or a whatever you’ll feel better, fulfilled, good enough or complete?

Or is it another person — a lover or children or parent — who’ll bring happiness to you?

Are you often trying to get somewhere or be someone thinking life would be better ‘if only…’?

A yes to any of these questions and you, my friend, are dog-paddling after the Deadly Inner Tube of Happiness aka DITOH. That is ditto as in we do it over and over and over.

This is not what you had in mind, is it? It’s not our fault that we swim after happiness. We’re taught to do this from a very early age by almost everyone.

But it is our fault if we keep at it.

How I let my DITOH go.

It was time to wake up. One day I decided — “Enough! No more worrying, fretting, resisting or denying. Instead, I’m going to use them to break free of my emotional heaviness/numbness/nervousness. I’m going to sit in my gloom and watch it. It will change.”

OK, I didn’t think it out so neatly. Here’s how I stumbled on my system.

I used to be in advertising. May that life rest in peace. For a long time, I spent my days loathing my job and my nights grinding my teeth.

After making myself miserable for, oh, about 10 years and accumulating astronomical dental bills, I noticed I didn’t always hate the job. It changed from day to day.

Now I had a little space to breathe.

Then I realized I didn’t have control over the job, but I could shift what I was feeling. For starters, I could stop resisting. Resisting only held me in misery and gave me codeine level TMJ.

So I let it go and, just like the cord that zips back into the vacuum cleaner, my angst disappeared. OK, on most days. But what happened next was even better.

Magic happens when you let go.

With all my new free time and less grouchy mood, I found myself considering what else I might do. As I was musing, I scheduled a shiatsu massage. I not only loved it; I was fascinated. (It did not hurt the practitioner was a total hunk.) I signed up for classes.

Two years later, a miraculously timed layoff liberated me from advertising. I asked to be fired and left with a generous severance package in hand. So cool, I saved myself and someone else’s job. Two birds, one stone. I went on to build a successful Shiatsu practice and make fewer trips to the dentist.

“Happiness, as a pursuit, is suitable only for pigs.” — Albert Einstein

Thank you, Albert.

Here’s how you can stop the eternal pursuit of DITOH.

• Sit down and feel what you are feeling.
• Don’t seek the feelings out. No need. They are always lurking somewhere close by.
• Don’t shove them into/out of existence. Just observe them.

When I did this, my oppressive state changed all by itself. Miraculous!

• Spend a few minutes paying attention to these shifts.
• Let everything pass through. Don’t add any — yeah, I remember — or — it’s always like this — etc. Just let it pass through. It will lighten.
• When it does, remember your favorite color or natural setting or your pet, something you like.
• Sit with that for a few moments.

And…

Hallelujah! You’ve released your fixation on the DITOH! Now you’re not stuck in the heaviness of yesterday or trapped in fears about tomorrow. Which was kinda useless anyway.

I did this a number of times for my job angst. The results varied. Sometimes it got a bit worse. Often it got better. Occasionally, it even disappeared altogether.

But it always changed and eventually the changes led to the way out. Try it. This technique is a way of staying in the moment, which means…

Suddenly we can breathe and life is more generous.

Now a word from the mindfulness master.

“Don’t seek happiness. If you seek it, you won’t find it, because seeking is the antithesis of happiness.” — Eckhart Tolle

You see? He agrees!

Here’s the special added bonus that’s discovered only by doing.

Once you let a little space into the situation, solutions and help arrive much more readily. Why? Because now you’re ready to find them and not your fears.

You’ve also created a more receptive environment and a more receptive you. You’re more likely to see and respond to new opportunities and they are more likely to arrive.

It’s a win/win situation.

Before you go, remember…

It’s not the events in our lives that create pain, it’s how we deal with them that tightens or loosens the screws. So start noticing the lighter moments within your trying times. Then open to accepting the rest. It brings great relief.

And when you see change happening all the time, you’ll believe it can happen. Suddenly, you’ll discover that you have other choices.

Et voila! You’ve created a space where insights, intuition, and new ideas can enter. You’ll be amazed at what possibilities, now unfrozen, will come into your life.

Happiness is like the tide, it comes in, it goes out. You’ll always find it again. Usually when you stop looking for it.

Wishing you a beautiful day at the beach or wherever you might be. Time for me to get back to shore.

Try this out and drop me a line at [email protected] or ask a question in the comments.