You have breached life's Terms and Conditions...sorry, no refunds.

Do you try and work out your personal challenges and problems? No, I mean, do you try and literally 'work' out your personal challenges and problems?

For the most part our personal stuff is emotionally based (we could argue it all is but that's for another post, for just now let's content ourselves with 'most').  Yet, our default, and very western, approach is to try and fix it. To logic it out; 'this thing is broken and I will fix it' even when this 'thing' is our relationship, our moods or our emotional well being.  

This is what I mean by 'work' it out. We approach our problems and challenges like they are a malfunctioning computer system, a failure to meet your target or a breach of terms and conditions. We look to project manage our way out of them, quoting logical reasons why it shouldn't be like this 'sorry [insert name of partner here], due to your failure to meet my standards of care you have been given a C grade and the following requirements must be met within the next appraisal period or, with regret, you are dumped, pal'. 

Our problems and challenges can't be logic-ed (new word, my blog!) out, they need to be felt, acknowledged and addressed as emotional beings. Not as  project managers!
You can't change your life with a bullet pointed list. 

You change your life by taking action to change the things you aren't happy with and by accepting that life will, undoubtedly, deliver you both ups and downs and that fighting these or thinking you can control them will only lead you to a world of hurt.

You are an emotion machine. You have been made this way. There are no terms and conditions, there is just life. Start living it that way it was designed to be lived. 

Let loose, smile, cry, laugh, blush. The world becomes more fun when you do...

The magic fairies are coming...

It's easy to become fixated on our problems being external to us.  You know, we blame the food, the drink, the fags, the drugs and call them 'the problem'. 

Stop kidding yourself on! The 'thing' isn't the problem, you are!

See the only reason you eat the food, smoke the fag etc. is because your mind has decided that it is the quickest way it has got of meeting a key, unconscious need.  The question is which one.  Here's a very basic model that you can use to diagnose which need your 'thing' meets - 

Stability - the need to have peace, quiet and to stop the noise, stop the stress

Variety - the need to get the buzz, to alleviate the boredom

Connection - the need to not feel alone, to be part of something

Or finally,

Status - the need to feel special/cool/different, like you are an individual who makes their own choices

It doesn't matter how 'sorted' you think your life is, you even do the good stuff like exercise, ambition and creativity to get these needs met.

So ask yourself, which are you?

Once you know which fits you.., stop bloody blaming the 'thing'. The cake doesn't eat itself! The hangover isn't delivered by magic fairies during the night! The dodgy pill didn't just soak through your skin. It was you that did it, you chose it. 

However, the realisation that it's not about the food, drink, drugs or whatever and that it's actually about your unconscious needs gives you the freedom to make one more choice.

What would be a better thing to do instead?

Anyway, for many of you the magic hangover fairies are probably due in a few hours so think about this once you've promised yourself you'll never do it again!!

Are you too stupid to be stressed?

How much effort do you put into being a 'happier' person?  When i say 'happy' i mean whatever 'happy' means to you e.g. richer, more relaxed, sexier, bigger, smaller, together, apart, different, the same, cleverer, quieter...the list goes on.
Anyway, the simple fact is that the more effort you put into being happier the less likely you are to get it! 

When we 'effort', push and 'try' it tends to be that we try to think ourselves happy. Tying to out manoeuvre life as if it's some sort of intellectual, tactical sport. "maybe I can do this thing, life won't notice and I'll be happy before life catches on. Then I can sit back and go 'get it right up ye, life.  I'm the pure champion' and laugh cos I'm cleverer than life itself. I'm the life tactician"

But it simply doesn't work like that. Happiness is not a tactical move, it's not about thought or ambition or even about being clever.  It's actually about the total opposite. 
Happiness, in whatever form, requires no effort, lives with you right now and requires so little thought you've probably met many people who act to stupid to be stressed or worked up about life!! In that particular case I need to ask, who's the clever one, really? 

Happiness arrives the second you spend more time accepting what you've had, where you've been and where you are heading and less time trying to wish the past never happened (it did), wish the present was different (it isn't) and wish that someone can give you a magic wand to change the future (this isn't totally impossible).

Happiness lives in you. It lives in a smile, in a moment of effortlessness, in realising that the only thing that matters in any minute is doing your best. 

Happiness is with you now, it needs no thinking. 

Close your eyes and think of something that makes you smile...see, easy :D