Today I am sharing from the book, The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer. “The highest spiritual path is life itself. If you know how to live daily life, it all becomes a liberating experience. But first, you have to approach life properly, or it can be very confusing. To begin with, you have to realize that you really only have one choice in this life, and it’s not about your career, whom you want to marry, or whether you want to seek God. People tend to burden themselves with so many choices. But, in the end, you can throw it all away and just make one basic, underlying decision: Do you want to be happy, or do you want to be happy? It’s really that simple. Once you make that choice, your path through life becomes totally clear.”
My objective for the past year, two months has been to have my home become my retreat, a place where I could be “in the present”, come to conclusions about what I wanted life to be as a single person. Instinct told me to find a place for my grief and to untangle from Tom so I could feel happiness again. I felt I had to do this privately because marriage is a intimate relationship. I did and do appreciate other people’s concerns and love their concerns and best wishes. But I felt they do not know Tom as I do. I wanted my new journey forward to be something I decided on as well. I did not want to bring another opinion into my retreat. I think too broadly on my own at times, and have to reign myself in. I wanted to focus this time. So I guess you could say I retreated and reached out as needed. It takes a while to see clearly after losing a loved one. I will make time to retreat as needed and continue taking care of myself. Now? It’s time to start my new journey. I feel excited about this. It feels good to feel excited! I am happy! I find myself smiling and feeling at peace. I wanted to get to what I really wanted now!
When I feel the need to check in with myself, I’ll create a safe zone where I can feel my feelings again. I have a new cozy space to meditate in, read and write. This retreat has been very worthwhile! I recommend doing this if you should lose a loved one. I feel very good! Light-hearted, and ready to work! I am a bit surprised to be turning towards writing. Never totally surprised as I have always done one or the other, art or writing. I discovered it is what I need to do at this time to make my dream come true.
“Once you make the choice, your path through life becomes clear. Most people don’t dare give themselves that choice because they think it’s not under their control. Someone might say, “Well, of course I want to be happy, but my wife left me.” In other words, they want to be happy, but not if their wife leaves them. But that wasn’t the question. The question was, very simply, “Do you want to be happy or not? If you keep it that simple, you will see that it really is under your control. It’s just that you have a deep-seated set of preferences that gets in the way.” I found this interesting. In the days of the good counselor, I had touched base with this idea. And found it true. Despite my hurt of that time. I wanted__need to be happy. I concluded it was a separate thing from all the things hurting me.
I will break up my thoughts about happiness by writing a series on the topic using this same book.
I think that we all deserve happiness. I think that keeping in mind that we are singular people is a part of the mix. We can’t make other people be happier, we can support and be happy ourselves can affect others. But being happy needs to come from within them, who ever they are. We don’t have to become twins in their unhappiness.
Anisette Studios & Shibui Fine Arts 