Change and happiness

Jefferson Breland

(12/2024) Last month I wrote about gratitude as a gateway to inner peace. I wrote, "At its most profound, gratitude is a statement that we are all in this life together and we that we are not alone."

I recently came across another wonderful quote about gratitude. It is by the American writer, William Arthur Ward. "Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings."

I wrote about gratitude as means of relating to everything and everyone around us.

One quality of gratitude I did not mention explicitly is that it begins as an internal, personal feeling. You create your gratitude in the presence of someone or something. No one else creates it for you. It is yours and yours alone You don’t need to share your gratitude with anyone for it to exist or for you to get the benefit from it. And, yes, sharing your gratitude with its source helps them feel better, too.

Michael J. Fox said "With gratitude, optimism is sustainable. If you find something to be grateful for, then you can find something to look forward to, and you carry on."

Optimism is an internal mechanism, a mind-set, which affords you the opportunity to continue to make meaning of your life and participate more fully in the world. When you participate in the world, you can continue to create opportunities to be grateful for.

This time of year has a distinct association with the act of with giving, receiving, and many things to be grateful for. Of course, I am speaking of giving and receiving presents and good tidings during the holidays in December. The more obvious holidays being Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and New Year’s Eve.

By the way, there are many more holidays in December. Did you know there is a National Pastry Day? A National Llama Day? A National App Day? A Wear Brown Shoes Day? Who knew brown shoes needed more love?

This time of year offers a host of opportunities for you to spend time with friends and family. With all this giving, receiving, and visiting going on, how do you prepare for the surge of activity with friends and family. You do it by making space in your life materially, emotionally, and spiritually.

It is a fundamental law of nature, that in order to receive, you must let go of someone or something. One way of beginning to let go is to acknowledge who or what has purpose in your life.

On one level you can look at material goods in your life and ask, "Do I love it?" Is it broken?" "Have I used it in the past 12 months?"

Do I need more stuff? You only have so much room in your home for ugly Christmas sweaters, Ugg boots, Cabbage Patch Kids, tacky ties, stinky candles, and gizmos that never get used or break within the first week of use.

If you love something and it brings joy into your life, acknowledge the joy and keep it. If something is broken, let it go. If you haven’t used something or worn a piece of clothing in a year, let it go.

These concepts come from the ancient Chinese practice of Feng Shui (pronounced "feng shway"). It is a way of organizing our physical environment, the interior and exterior areas of our homes, to create smooth flow of Qi (pronounced "chee").

I believe you can apply these same ideas to relationships in your life. Admittedly, this is trickier. Humans are not things. You have family members, friends, business associates, members of your church congregation, and members of your community with a wide range of relationships to consider.

Let’s try this.

If you love someone and they bring joy and happiness into your life, continue to love them. Acknowledge them for bringing joy and love into your life. Tell them to their face the specific details of the joy and happiness you experience in your relationship with them.

If the relationship is challenging or hurtful, acknowledge this to yourself. Next, shift how you think about them. Shift the story you tell about the person or persons in question. Understand they are doing the best they know how just as you are doing the best you know how. Don’t assume they know what you know. Let that stuff go. What is a more kind and loving story you can tell about them?

When you shift your story about someone, you shift, too. You will feel more compassionate towards them. You may understand your role in the relationship better. You may even become more compassionate to yourself.

In this scenario, there is no need to talk to the other person right away, or perhaps ever. See how the relationship with this person shifts when you change your story about them.

Do they change? Do you change? When you change the way you look at things/people, the things/people you look at change. See if there is more peace and ease in your life. Now what about a person you haven’t seen or interacted within a year?

This is a great time to check in with your old stories about them. Are they the same person? Are you the same person? Do your old stories about them still apply? What if you let go of those old stories and see them with fresh eyes?

Several years ago, I was at a high school reunion and talked with one of my teachers who I hadn’t seen in 40 years. Based on our conversation, I got the impression he still thought of me as the seventeen-year-old me. That made sense as he had no new information or stories about me. I also realized I had my old story about him.

I do not know if he had a new story about me after we talked. And quite frankly, that’s none of my business. I have no control over what other people think or say about me.

The same can be said about any of our relationships. We have no control over what people think or say about us. Fine. That is their business. Letting go of caring about others' opinions about you is the path of emotional freedom.

Another level of letting go is to acknowledge the stories we tell about ourselves.

This is not about judging ourselves. It isn’t helpful to say, "This is good and this is bad." It is about examining the stories we tell ourselves. I love the expression, "When the map no longer matches the landscape, it is time to get a new map." The stories we tell ourselves are a map of our life. They can help us on our journey or take us in the wrong direction.

Are they even our stories about us? Or are they stories that we received from our parents, our siblings, our friends, our teachers, or anyone in our life we respected and didn’t know we had a choice whether to believe them or not.

It is interesting (and potentially frightening) to examine our beliefs about ourselves. Am I really stupid? Am I really too short? Am I really a clutz? Do I really have cooties? Am I really not good enough? Am I unlovable?

It is helpful to ask, "What is a story I can tell about myself that is big enough to live into?" "What story is big enough that expands my possibilities?" "What story can I tell about myself that is joyful?" "What is a more kind and loving story I tell about myself?"

How will you know it is a more helpful story about yourself? Your body will tell you. If the story serves, you may notice you begin to breathe more deeply. You may notice your body relaxing. You may feel calmer.

Or not. In the presence of this new story you may feel uncomfortable. You may question whether you have a right to feel good about yourself. Hang in there. Profound change is not necessarily easy even when we know it is the right thing for us.

A very wise woman once said, "This is just scary enough to do." This woman is my wife, Stacey. Life is worth the risk.

Jefferson Breland is a board-certified acupuncturists licensed in Pennsylvania and Maryland with offices in Gettysburg and Towson, respectively.
He can be reached at 410-336-5876.

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