You can’t make other people happy.
If they aren’t happy it’s because of something within themselves. If you aren’t happy it is because of something inside of you. Maybe you have had negative experiences that have created beliefs about yourself or the world that then make you feel unhappy. Maybe you are drawn to do something that no one else supports you in so you don’t do it. Maybe you don’t feel like you have the power to make your own choices and so you feel stuck in a life you don’t want. Maybe you’re scared of failing so you don’t try.
Whatever the case may be — happiness is available to you and you have the ability to create that within yourself.
You can’t make other people happy. If this is where you are trying to find your own happiness — in making someone else happy — your chances of inner happiness are probably not so probable.
You might think you are making someone happy sometimes. But the reality is, it’s not you that’s creating their happiness in those moments. They are. You could do the exact same thing on another day and have a very different outcome.
Why?
Because you didn’t create it the time before. They chose it and maybe the next time they aren’t in the same headspace.
If you stop putting your energy into making other people happy and start putting that energy into your own life. If you focus on building a life around the things that bring you joy, that make you feel good, healthy and happy, you will have more moments of happiness.
This isn’t selfishness — when you feel good, when you do things that light you up the people around you tend to rise with you. Not because your happiness makes them happy, but because they see that happiness exists and if it exists in you — maybe it can exist in them, too. A new possibility has just been created.
Who can you show? Who can you lift up? Who in your life needs to know happiness exists? Do one thing for yourself today that brings you joy and watch how it affects the people around you.
Copyright © 2020 Chelsey Fjeldheim, Courage Speaks Counseling
