what makes you happy? a little life update

Good morning, all 🙂 

My name is Danielle and I really enjoy story telling. Like, dramatically so. If you have ever heard my house sitting stories then you know how exaggerated everything is. So sit tight, because there is a lot of story telling to unpack in this particular post 😉

About a year ago, I asked some friends what they wanted me to write about. One of the prompts was, “what makes you happy?” 

No, it didn’t take me almost a year to actually find an answer to that question. But, it did take me almost a year to figure out what the role of “being happy” meant to me.

Cinnamon toast.

Swing dancing. Or rather, dancing in general.

Baking or cooking. 

Witty friends.

Schitt’s Creek and the Great British Baking Show.

Chip & Joanna Gaines. Like, everything about them. Fixer Upper and beyond. 

Jamming out with my brother.

Kicking mom’s ass in cribbage.

Getting my ass kicked by Lydia (a dear friend) in cribbage. 

(Most) music.

Lifting heavy loads. 

Peeling oranges. 

Cutting my fingernails. 

Fuzzy socks. The kind that you don’t slip around in.

Driving. 

Playing with cats and dogs.

Reusable straws.

60 degree weather and sunny.

Comfortable silence.

LITERALLY ANY PLACE WITH A BODY OF WATER. 

These things make me happy. 

But, is being happy always the end goal for me? 

I think happiness is a wonderful emotion to feel, but isn’t necessarily an emotion to cling to or strive for all of the time. Because in that pursuit, I think I can miss out on other emotions or experiences that can continue to build my character and sculpt me to be the best person I can be. 

Just like sadness- sadness is not an emotion to steer clear of, nor is it an emotion to dwell on, either. I think happiness falls in that same category. Feel it, deal with it, heal from it.

Like any emotion, these feelings serve as indicators of ourselves: what does this emotion I am experiencing say about me? Not about the person or thing that is involved with me, but about me. 

So that’s what I have been exploring.

What is it about the things that make me happy say about me? 

What do the friends I have in my horseshoe say about me? 

What does the result of my work say about me?

What does my obsession over Fixer Upper and Schitt’s creek say about me? Other than the obvious fact that I spend too much time dreaming about building my own house and getting a dog just so I can name her Stevie. 

I’m so serious about the dog bit…

What I have found is that the things that make me happy are a reflection of how I thrive and am inspired to live my most true, beautiful, and free self. 

Allow me to unpack this one a bit.

The biggest thoughts that have occupied my mind during quarantine are those surrounding Glennon Doyle’s recent book, Untamed. I know I have mentioned this author various times within my previous posts, but something about Glennon’s authenticity really strikes me. 

And inspires me. 

Of the multitude of themes that are conveyed throughout this memoir, the idea of living our truest, most beautiful, most free selves strikes me the hardest. Like a sucker punch to the face hard. Like Mike’s lemonade hard. Like … you get it. 

What does it look like to live this way? To live our most true, beautiful, and free life, while also being held?

Being held by our loved ones, tethered to folks who support, encourage, and love us unconditionally. 

And, what does it look like to empower others to do the same for ourselves?

I don’t think there has ever been a time in my life prior to now where I truly felt the convictions of living a life that feels the most true, beautiful, and free to be me. A life that doesn’t worry so much about pleasing other folks and helping them paint a picture of what they think about me, but rather, inviting them into a shared space that lets them know they can be their most true, beautiful, and free self, too. 

I also don’t think I have ever felt more relaxed. 

More relaxed and less anxious about living presently, enjoying the little things, and big things, that make me happy. And worrying less about what I have lost in the process of figuring out what these things are for myself.

Like a scaffolding, God has a way of bringing events and people into our lives to build us up to be who we are intended to be. At some point, that scaffolding goes away and leaves us standing strong within a firm foundation. We don’t ever forget the scaffolding in the first place and we needed it- what it was made of, who it was made of, who made it, etc…

But, we certainly don’t dwell on that scaffolding when it leaves us, when it is time for it to go, when we no longer need it to stand tall. There is no room for restlessness and anxiety between me and the scaffolding if the scaffolding is no longer tethered to me. What’s the point in growing tall and strong if we never let that scaffolding go?

In terms of emotions, that is kind of how I view happiness. I let it come and go when it needs to. I let it build me up, remembering what it was that built me, and let it fall away, preparing for the next scaffolding that will help me grow taller and bigger- aka, wiser and stronger.

But thing is, as frustrating, and liberating, and challenging, and rewarding, and restless, and restful as this season of chaos with covid-19 has been, it has gifted time to look inward. To sit with what it really means to live a true, beautiful, and free life; and, also figure out who is there to hold me through it all, and experience the moments of happiness.

And also, who do I get to hold when s/he gets to live their most true, beautiful, and free self? What does that even look like?

Story time…

I have started seeing a structural medicine specialist (SMS) who practices what I want to pursue: structural integration. 

Side note- there is a program that I will be attending come, hopefully, next spring, depending on what is going to happen with covid-19 (it was supposed to start this fall, but has been postponed). This program will allow me to become a board certified structural integrationist. In a nutshell, structural integration is a holistic manual therapy approach to healing the body, looking at different relationships within your body, gravity, and body systems to promote overall wellness. This link has more information if you are curious 🙂 

https://www.theiasi.net/what-is-structural-integration-

Anyway, there is a series of 10 sessions (or in this case, the SMS I am seeing learned a 12 session series in her program) that I am currently undergoing with this particular SMS, and it is teaching me a lot about the mind-body connection: it is amazing just how integral our mental well being is to our physical and vise versa. 

In my last session, my SMS asked me to walk around the room casually, without any prompt: let us call this my ordinary self. Then, she asked me to start walking as if I had to talk to my boss about something important- I will still consider this a part of my ordinary self. She then prompted me to think about being in my most unique self, and walk around according to living in that specific headspace. 

At first, it felt really awkward. And quite silly. 

A part of me just wanted to walk around the room as if I were a rockstar. Like Justin Timberlake, but with less of his macaroni hair and like the female, half-asian version of him. And just really exaggerate the swagger I imagined I could muster up, as if I had a huge audience I was about to party with. Or sing for. Or dance with… Or both? Jokingly. Kind of… 

But what happened was that my shoulders became less rigid and started swaying a little more, my arms coming up as if I were about to start dancing and …snapping? I think? I had a little more sway and a little more smile. It’s all a little fuzzy to remember and to be honest, I probably looked even more awkward than I felt at the time about walking like my unique-femme-justin-timberlake-wannabe self.

Then, she asked me to be even more dramatic and I just thought, “do I not already look dramatic?! I sure as hell feel dramatic!” What’s more dramatic than feeling like Justin Timberlake dressed in jeans, combat boots, and pretend snap-dancing? My goodness.

So I swayed my shoulders a little more, dipped my knees a bit further in my step, and my strides became a lot slower and articulated- as if I were slowly approaching the dance floor. 

If you’ve come to Nashville North with me, you might have a little bit of an image of what this looked like. 

Ugh, so cringy. But stay with me.

Although I still felt awkward, considering I had only had two other sessions with this woman, I considered, “hm. I suppose this is a tangible, physical practice of what it means to be true, beautiful, and free. She is asking me to tap into my unique self. So why does it make me feel so awkward?” 

The point of this exercise was to figure out how to bring more of my “unique” self into my “ordinary” self. Before my session, I couldn’t quite figure out how to marry the two.

After my session, when she prompted me to walk around in my ordinary self, I was still rigid, but I really honed in on how I would walk around as if I were doing chores around my house. When she asked me to walk in my unique self, I felt more fluid, comfortable. 

Then when she finally asked me to bring that unique self into my ordinary self, I felt this shift in my walking. And I heard her gasp. 

She said she could feel the power in the shift that I just made. And I could feel it, too. 

I somehow felt myself hold my head higher, but with a swagger that kept my shoulders in place with a little sway, as if to say, “here I am. You can’t fuck with me if you tried.”

And in a way, it felt… cathartic?

For some, you may read this and think that sounds dramatic or hokey or some other term… but I challenge you to think about why it may make you internally cringe or feel awkward. 

I mean don’t worry, I felt pretty cringe and awkward doing it and then again writing about it, but I suppose that’s all because I am so uncomfortable with consciously practicing being in my unique self. And I can assure you, you don’t feel as awkward as I did when she asked me to do this before my session.

But I walked away thinking again about those prompts from Glennon Doyle- maybe this is what practicing being true, beautiful, and free feels like. So why don’t I feel like I am in my unique self so much more? 

This exercise brought me into a headspace that I craved: I want to know myself in a deeper fashion. What is it that really makes me, Danielle, unique?!

I am still trying to figure it out. 

But what I do know is that being my unique self makes me happy. And I think embracing that kind of self worth and self love is going to serve as a catalyst for more joy and happiness in my life. 

Although happiness and joy aren’t the end goal, I know that by living into my unique self will bring gifts of happiness into my life here and there, whether it through a gut laugh with my coworkers over something really stupid I said or did, or receiving pumpkin waffles from my favorite vegan restaurant in the world from one of my best friends.

Do you live into your unique self? What does that even look like to you… in the home? Workplace? By yourself?

All my love,

Danielle 

“You are here to decide if your life, relationships, and world are true and beautiful enough for you. And if they are not and you dare to admit they are not, you must decide if you have the guts, the right–perhaps even the duty–to burn to the ground that which is not true and beautiful enough and get started building what is…may we all live in communities where every person’s truest Self is both held and free.” Glennon Doyle, Untamed