I should be happy

It's been so long since I wrote anything here, I kind of forgot how to even navigate my way through to write this post. But here we are and if you're reading this, consider it a miracle.

Firstly, Happy New Year! Everyone is entirely glad to see the back of 2020. It's been a shocker, I know. But in amongst the chaos and heartache there's been small moments of joy to be found. I like to keep that perspective nowadays, albeit that it's harder to uphold somedays.

A word of warning, this sequence of ramblings likely won't be the most uplifting and you know what, that's ok. It doesn't always have to be all singing, all dancing, because 2020 has shown us all that life is in fact just sometimes like that. My intention here is to reassure. To hopefully come alongside you and say, "yeah me too" and for you to be able to close your eyes, take one massive breath in and exhale in a way that somehow makes the boulders you've been lugging around fall gracefully from your shoulders. I really do love those moments myself, so I want to help create that for someone else here in this space.

I'd really like to release an unpopular opinion. I don't really enjoy New Year. In fact, it makes me anxious. It really feels like it's the start of the competition. Like everyone has taken their mark and the claxon has sounded to signal the beginning of the race to success. I hate it. And to be honest, sometimes it's really tricky to avoid succumbing to the pressure and panic. In the coming days, you will be overwhelmed with "New Year, New Me" content as your social media overflows with "well intentioned" people seeking to dramatically overhaul their life, as if the 1st of January alerted themselves to the apparent need to transform their life within the year. Brace yourself, because this month will promote so much comparison as people strive to mostly lose weight yet gain more materialistically, while they tell a world full of people who didn't ask. Ok, that's a bit harsh, but you know what I mean. If you've been here a while, you'll know how I feel about social media these days. It's all smoke and mirrors. AKA, it's establishing yourself in the technological world to appear more successful and happier than your real life actually is. In effect, we're all playing Sims by the masses. We create who we want ourselves to be in the eyes of others. Everyone wants everyone else to think they are happy and that they're "winning at life". Got the job, got the nice house, got the new car. But what no one talks about is the stress of the job, or the loneliness they feel in the nice house, or the fact they now have a huge monthly payment for the next 5 years on a car they could never really afford in the first place. See? Smoke and mirrors.

However, I'm not naive enough to think that knowing this is enough to avoid feeling the inferiority against what you see of others online. We can genuinely be our own worst enemies sometimes. I am horrible to myself. I'm not a friend to myself sometimes. And then when I catch myself doing that, I get annoyed for allowing myself to do that. Sooooo...I'm still mean to me? Go figure. I believe social media is potentially one of the biggest causes of sadness today. I mean, I have no data or specific evidence to back that statement up, but what I do have is the knowledge of how I feel within the online world and the knowledge of what I know in real life about people compared with what they post when they play Sims...sorry, I mean what they post on the gram. We can't get away from this ideology that we're expected to be happy all the time. We've created this for ourselves and all we've done is shoot ourselves in the foot. For this to change, the whole of the human population would be required to participate; to stop faking online and to just let their Sim be seen for what they really are. Call me a pessimist, but that isn't happening anytime soon, is it?

What I can tell you though is this, you don't have to be happy all of the time. In fact, it's humanly impossible. I am so hard on myself when I don't feel happy, as if I'm letting everyone else down because I'm actually feeling an emotion other than happiness. And yes, I did feel silly writing that, but it's a reality. And I know it isn't just me. We need to irradiate the guilt that is associated with emotions. God made us to be beings who feel and for some of us, beings who feel deeply (helllllooooo, guiltyyyy). I bully myself for feeling so deeply. If I'm going to feel upset or excited or embarrassed or angry or anything, I'm going to feel that so intensely or not at all. There isn't another option. So this year, I'm making a non-numerical goal and I'm aiming to just embrace that for what it is. I'm Charis and I feel my emotions intensely. There I said it. We were made with emotions and feelings so that we can empathise, uplift, celebrate, grieve, enjoy; the list goes on. We need our emotions, they make us better people. Happiness would simply be unnatural in certain situations. My wee Gran passed away in April and I do feel happy knowing where she is and the joy she will be experiencing with her Saviour, but it would be concerning if that's all I felt and I couldn't grieve her life too. I'm allowed to be angry when something bad happens. I'm allowed to get excited about the small things. I'm allowed to feel embarrassed. Begin this year giving yourself some slack.

"I should be happy". I have had these four words float in and out of my head continuously over the past few months. Anytime I've had a down day or I've felt a bit flat and found it really tricky to lift my head, I've thought it. Anytime I find myself feeling a bit upset at something from months ago, I've thought it. Anytime I've been missing home, I've thought it. I've looked at my situation, at my job, my circumstances both physically and financially, my family, my boyfriend and I'm still sad. So the words come to mind and I think to myself, "Charis you should be happy". Does this thought do me any good? No, not at all. But sure I bully myself subconsciously, so why wouldn't I tell myself unproductive things like this? But something has twigged and it needs to twig in you too. The you that doesn't give yourself a break. The you that's constantly trying to fix everyone and everything. The you who is exhausted from painting on the smile every day. Read this next part slowly and word by word. You are allowed to be sad. You are allowed to have low moments. You are allowed to admit to being sad. You are allowed to openly confess that you don't feel the best you have ever felt and that this day just seems a little harder than others, potentially for no apparent reason. Now read that again before you move on. Read it and believe it.

No one is happy 24/7 and if they tell you they are, well that's just another element of the game. It's also possible they've played happy families for so long they've genuinely convinced themselves they're happy as they are. (Been there also, which is a story for another time, but all I'll say is that it is tricky to see, but one day you get tired of it and reality catches up with you). We can't appreciate the genuinely happy times without knowing the pain and sadness of this life as well. I couldn't enjoy getting a job unless I knew the struggle and the rejection associated with job hunting. I wouldn't appreciate my boyfriend so much unless I had experienced the loneliness and hurt both by being single and by being in relationships I was never intended by God to be in. I can't feel so uplifted and content at home in NI, without moving away to know what it is to miss home. I can't have the mountains without the valleys, and neither can you. And in 2020 I realised that the sooner we realise that, the more contented we will be in life.

Sadness is a normal element of life and I have found so much relief in allowing myself to have those low moments. Stop fighting yourself and instead draw alongside yourself by being gentle and loving. It's easier to be nice to a stranger than it is to be nice to ourselves. Read that again too. You will spend the most time with yourself in this life. Yes we have people around us, but we are in our own heads forever and you can't run from that. I've realised that embracing that will actually release so much freedom internally. I haven't mastered it. I still utter the words "I should be happy" more frequently than I'd like to, but it's a work in progress.

This all feels a little bit "negative nelly" as I've read back but I hope you can see that isn't my core intention. I hope you can see that what I'm saying here is that there is no pressure to be a certain way. You're allowed to have a nice, comfortable life externally and still feel emotional some days. It doesn't make you ungrateful and I think that's important to say. I think a lot of my "I should be happy" thinking comes from me worrying about what other people think of me. I'm afraid of people looking at me upset about something and them saying, "what does she have to be sad about?" and thinking of me as unappreciative of the life I have. Generally, when I consider what other people might think of me I am riddled with anxiety. I really wish there was a switch just to stop it all, but there isn't so I have to work at that and learn to let go of trying to get into everyone else's heads. Surround yourself with good people. Anyone who makes you feel guilty for how you feel needs to go in the bin. There's a real stigma around not being close with family members. If family members are the ones making you question yourself, then yes they too can have the privilege of knowing how you are emotionally, removed from them. You can love your family and be private about your emotional wellbeing at the same time, regardless of what is promoted societally.

"Actually, I shouldn't be happy". I've flipped the statement sometimes. When I'm being extra harsh on myself, sometimes I manage to swap the wording. Yes I should be happy about the big things, about the things I am blessed with. But actually, that thing that's happened, something horrible that's been said, someone who has passed away, something hurtful that happened, I shouldn't be happy about that. So I'll let myself feel that. There really is no use denying feelings. In my experience, it's just manifested negative vibes for longer than they need to stay. And that brings me on to my final point.

Allow yourself to feel your emotions, to ride the wave, to enter a little bubble of sadness; but what's important is that you don't just stay there. Once you accept that sadness is a reality, sometimes we can wallow. We linger in the pool of pity longer than we should. Part of life is learning about these balances; learning to embrace our emotions but also knowing when to get up and leave the room. Devise strategies that will help you to lift the cloud. I've found that other people can help me shift the negativity, but ultimately it's me who has to do to internal work. Things like self-care, going for a walk, journalling, a chat with someone I trust, can all really help me to move past the wave of sadness.

Life is hard. It doesn't need to be made harder by forcing ourselves to paint a nice picture for people online that aren't actually that influential to us. Ask yourself this question; does their opinion matter? If the answer is no, if their opinion wouldn't intimately affect your life then abandon the consideration for them. I've talked a lot about online fakery, but it can happen in real life too. It is really lovely to make others happy and biblically, as christians we must show patience, kindness and goodness to others, but you are not expected to people please your way through life.

Let go of "I should be happy" and replace it with something like "I can feel happiness again". This embraces the concept that we can't be happy all of the time, nor do we need to be, and also motivates us to work towards feeling more positive. Feel what you feel and feel it deeply if that's who you are, but know that all things are temporary, emotions included.

All my love,

Charis x