How the chocolate fudge did that happen?

I was visiting with a dear friend the other day, and we were sat across from each other sharing all.the.things because we hadn’t seen each other in months and so much had happened in our lives and all of a sudden this epic thought popped into my head.

I have not had back to back sad days in months, yes, months (!). And, not only that, but in the last 5 months I might have had a few sad moments that lasted a few hours at the most but my new normal emotional state was happy. I didn’t feel perma sad or filled up with despair anymore.

WAIT. WHAT?

Seriously, I had to stop and revel in this.

MY NEW NORMAL IS HAPPY AND IT IS JUST THERE HANGING OUT WITH ME ERRY DAY.

I don’t have to do 456 leapfrogs or eat 32,000 balls of slime or 17 million dances (although that would be fun). I am just happy, hopeful, open, joyful, calm, peaceful,  and grounded. And, this is my new normal state. I wake up and I feel happy. Sometimes really tired and annoyed at my alarm but other than that, content, grateful + open.

HOLY EFFIN SHIZ BALLS.

[insert mega happy dance, beaming sunlight + kittens falling from the skies landing on clouds]

This is great! It feels like a long time coming, but I feel things that I’ve dreamt of feeling! All that deep soulful work looking at the dark scary stuff and loving my darkness has really paid off. I have to say that I’m really proud of myself. I stuck in there. I did the hard things over and over. I allowed myself to go into the depths of my shadow and I didn’t die. In fact, it’s the opposite! The shadow ain’t so scary. It’s just, well, me.

I had this flickering thought about writing this blog and other people saying to themselves, gosh this woman is just bragging, how lame. That’s when I immediately knew that I had to share this anyway because we need to celebrate ourselves, we need to relish in our wins, we need to share the joy that we feel so that we can pass it on. I want to infect others with hope, with joy, with curiosity. I want to support and stand with others to let them know it can be done.

Just six months ago I didn’t know if I’d ever feel happy. Not the fleeting happy we feel, but the deep deep deep connection we have to know, really know WE ARE SO SAFE, WE ARE SO LOVED ALL THE TIME, AND WE ARE WORTHY.

I have so much capacity for all of you reading this and those of you that aren’t. I know that I’ve struggled with deep feelings of loneliness, despair, emptiness, and separation for the longest time. Pretty much most of my life. I can tell you that there’s no secret formula or 43 things that will get you there but you just need to hold faith that everything you dream of, that you visualize or imagine, can be your reality. You gotta do you.

Figure out what you want, and then take those baby steps to move toward it. We all know what is good for us and what isn’t. If we enable the destructive behaviors or the patterns that keep us stuck nothing is going to change. We might feel temporary relief, and then poof, it’s gone.

What’s one thing you can do today to support yourself?