And then the walls started to bend…and I wondered whether I could take this, whatever this was, anymore…

It turned out that I couldn’t take it anymore. And to prevent it from getting too terrible, a big change needed to happen…but that change wasn’t easy. In fact, what I knew needed to happen absolutely terrified me…

Letting go again

But eventually I let go. I let go of trying to control life. Of expecting things to be a certain way…a lesson, it seems, I will have to keep coming back to. But then, this time, maybe it was her letting go of me really…it’s been a difficult year. A very difficult and painful year…my happiness scores confirm so (see below). The worst since I began tracking my happiness daily about 5 years ago.

It got very dark and scary in August and September. I thought something was going to break. It was far more challenging for me than the year that the pandemic began. But wasn’t my book finally published this year? And there was the new job too? Yes, but as I say in my book:

“There is often much more than we can ever know going on beneath the surface of another’s triumph. If we are not aware of that possibility, then we might easily become distracted from our own process – to doubt whether how we are feeling is how we should be feeling.”

Happiness involves looking deep sometimes

As any happiness expert will know, especially one who cycled to Bhutan, happiness is not all singing and dancing. Sometimes it needs to be, and we must make space for some song and dance. Yet, other times there is deeper work to do. Where we must look at our habits and behaviours, and at how our environments and societies encourage those habits and behaviours, and acknowledge that they do not serve us. And then make some changes – for our own happiness as much for the happiness of others…

And now to dance

I’ve got a feeling this year will be a powerful one. Something is afoot. And I’ll be dancing my divine sweet body into the new year to help make it so…a deep ceremonial dance that will get to the very core of life…

Blessings to all beings for 2023…

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Thank you for reading my blog. There are more posts on measuring personal happiness here.

And if you’d like to get even deeper into happiness, then consider getting a copy of my book about my journey to Bhutan on a bicycle.