This was one of those obvious realizations that really, really, REALLY sank in for me, recently.<\/p>\n
Like many people, I had a lot of objections towards ideas like these, because my mind simply wouldn\u2019t have it.<\/p>\n
We believe SO deeply that in order to feel good, life has to be good, it has to treat you right, it has to be stable and filled with stuff that you like, and it\u2019s just not true.<\/p>\n
Now the mind will probably start to object straight away, and tell you that\u2019s ridiculous.<\/p>\n
And na\u00efve.<\/p>\n
And immature.<\/p>\n
And not realistic.<\/p>\n
And maybe even dangerous (I hear that one quite often).<\/p>\n
The mind can only relate to things in a really conditional way, so that\u2019s how we behave and that\u2019s how we regard the world and our being it.<\/p>\n
The mind can\u2019t just BE, it has to be busy all the time telling stories and coming up with problems and force you to worry and keep vigilant and on your toes.<\/p>\n
But have you ever REALLY investigated this, explored this, experimented with this, not just intellectually, but in a practical, direct way?<\/p>\n
Because j\u00fast behind the many objections and the \u2018can\u2019t be done\u2019s\u2019 and the reasons why it\u2019s impossible, lies the freedom.<\/p>\n
Oh man.<\/p>\n
I am dead serious!<\/p>\n
I\u2019d never thought I would be saying this but here it goes:<\/p>\n
Feeling good is a choice.<\/em><\/p>\n (Yeah, I\u2019ve come a long way.)<\/p>\n It\u2019s like a simple choice you make, a deliberate, conscious decision.<\/p>\n And you do it over and over again.<\/p>\n The mind suggests \u2018Yay, let\u2019s worry a bit!\u2019, and you just don\u2019t give in.<\/p>\n The mind serves you a piece of anger, and you tell it \u2018no thanks!\u2019.<\/p>\n The mind comes up with this elaborate story of how this shouldn\u2019t have happened to you, how the future is nothing but darkness, how this person was supposed to treat you a different way, and you just smile and let it go.<\/p>\n The mind creates whatever experience that will eventually make you feel like shit, guilty, anxious, hopeless or any other thing that is mostly a waste of your precious time (because it will give you nothing sustainable), but you learn to catch it, straight away, before it builds momentum.<\/p>\n You choose joy, consistently, all the time, because you want to, and that is the only reason you need.<\/p>\n I used to be the person who continuously points at life, furiously, totally exhausted, blaming it for everything and everything, always ready to defend my misery, always ready to prove my dark demeanor with worldly examples.<\/p>\n I felt useless because of<\/p>\n My drinking.<\/p>\n My smoking.<\/p>\n My use of drugs.<\/p>\n My depressions.<\/p>\n My incapability of maintaining a loving relationship.<\/p>\n My anxiety.<\/p>\n My feeling of not belonging.<\/p>\n And my total lack of confidence (that I tried to hide by being very loud and harsh, like most of us do).<\/p>\n But while I totally believed my cynical worldview and would defend it with everything I had, it didn\u2019t bring me anything except more crap.<\/p>\n Until I started to see that this would go on forever, and I simply couldn\u2019t take it anymore.<\/p>\n You can do that too, right now, right this moment.<\/p>\n But before we go any further, let me be really clear: I am not saying that if you feel bad and lost and confused, you are to blame for that, not at all.<\/p>\n That would be completely reversing the whole point.<\/p>\n What I am saying is that I NEVER truly and openly and genuinely entertained the possibility that I could feel good, regardless of the circumstances.<\/p>\n It just didn\u2019t enter my mind (or maybe it did, but it didn\u2019t stand a chance).<\/p>\n It was just way too far away from how I perceived life, as a professional victim with a chronically troubled mind.<\/p>\n I am also not saying it\u2019s particularly easy, if only because of the extensive training you had feeling really bad and unsafe and insecure.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s very doable.<\/p>\n It is.<\/p>\n Because it\u2019s something you were born with, an innate natural quality, and it WILL take time to build back up and hang out with you consistently, but it\u2019s already there, it’s still there, buried within you.<\/p>\n And what I am most certainly not telling you is \u2018Just get over it, your problems and suffering can\u2019t be THAT big\u2019.<\/p>\n Because I know who big they can look, and feel.<\/p>\n I only want to offer you an alternative, an opportunity, not a tool to beat yourself with.<\/p>\n I want to give you something that might interest you, that might open up even the tiniest hopeful doorway for you, and I am not judging you for how you handle life (which would be a pretty ridiculous thing for someone who has fucked up so many times).<\/p>\n I am just here to tell you this:<\/p>\n The only thing that’s in the way of feeling good, is the idea that it\u2019s impossible.<\/p>\n Well, impossible and na\u00efve.<\/p>\n And immature.<\/p>\n And just not something that fits the situation AT ALL, of course.<\/p>\n I know, I know them all.<\/p>\n But here\u2019s another confession, another realization I already pointed out to you:<\/p>\n After decades of struggle and misconceptions, I found that feeling good is a natural skill, some amazing nourishing talent we are born with and then slowly but harshly dismiss because we learn to value the dubious wonders and promises of the intellect way more than the unspectacular subtle hunches of our intuition.<\/p>\n I fought it with a vengeance, the idea that I could be joyful without any reason and no matter what, because if it turned out to be true, I obviously had fucked up a big part of my life for no good reason!<\/p>\n I felt like shit most of the time, and the mere idea that there was and always had been an alternative felt like a direct attack to my being, an insult to my integrity and intelligence.<\/p>\n Until I realized I HAD to change shit, and just started to play with it.<\/p>\n And you can, too.<\/p>\n What if, after all, it really, really IS a choice, and the self-help motherfuckers were right all along?<\/p>\n What if you CAN drop the shitty energetic inclinations that try to wrestle their way into your life, what if you keep going back to joy, no matter what, regardless of anything\u2026 simply because you want to?<\/p>\n It works, it works wonders.<\/p>\n You just have to start doing it, and keep doing it, and do it again.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re ready to finally let go of all the restrictive ideas you have around worthiness and earning it and \u2018maybe someday\u2019 and \u2018if this or that comes to fruition, I\u2019ll be finally free\u2019 and feasibility and \u2018this sounds too simple\u2019 and \u2018yeah, that is easy for him to say!\u2019 and all the other objections and reasons that keep you glued to feeling bad, then it\u2019s time to start the best experiment of your life.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t wait another day.<\/p>\n Changes and revelations and insights like these (that FEEL really real, that really make sense and are not just intellectually interesting or probable), mostly happen in times of enormous crises and deep despair, when you are so fed up with life and your way of living it, that you can\u2019t hold on anymore and surrender.<\/p>\n But you don\u2019t have to wait for that.<\/p>\n I urge you not to.<\/p>\n The change can start right here, right now, if only you have at least the slightest bit of doubt that it\u2019s impossible to feel good just because you want to.<\/p>\n That\u2019s all you need.<\/p>\n I promise you.<\/p>\n All you need is the realization that if you have felt good even ONCE in your life, you obviously, physically, technically have all it takes to feel that way again.<\/p>\n Feeling good is waiting for you, patiently, lovingly, powerfully.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s time to let it back in.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n –<\/p>\n <\/p>\n (Photo by @merittthomas, for Unsplash)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Have you ever tried feeling good, just because it feels good? This was one of those obvious realizations that really, really, REALLY sank in for me, recently. Like many people, I had a lot of objections towards ideas like these, because my mind simply wouldn\u2019t have it. We believe SO deeply that in order to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32953,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[99,97,96,117,100,105,116,113,107,103,112],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32952"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32952"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32954,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32952\/revisions\/32954"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}