Allowing ourselves to be Happier

The most common regret that dying people expressed according to a survey I read is, “I wish I had allowed myself to be happier”.

What struck me was the volitional element. They had come to see at the end of their lives that it was and is a choice. 

I keep revisiting this topic as I think it is of enormous importance. I often use the metaphor I found in Gay Hendrick’s book of the idea of an ‘inner thermostat setting’.

As children we are given an inner thermostat setting of how much love, success and happiness is normal and expected for us. It is determined by those around us largely, what we observe in our role models and our experience of them, how they treat us. 

We then we live our lives according to that setting, not getting too much above the thermostat setting. If we do go above the setting it can feel uncomfortable and even dangerous as it is unfamiliar territory to us we have no experience of being happier, more successful or allowing more love into our lives. What happens then is that we often sabotage ourselves back to the familiar setting. 

So the challenge is to edge up this inner thermostat setting and allow ourselves in a gradual and safe way, to learn to get used to a higher setting. Doing this exercise may bring up some fears, or feelings of resistance in the form thinking of ourselves as undeserving or unworthy of more than what we are used to. 

These blockages need to be worked through and understood to be overcome….sometimes it can take a few sessions of therapy or coaching. It helps to have someone to accompany us as we experiment with change and face any fears that arise. It also helps to be around those whose thermostat setting is set higher than ours in the area we would like to expand into. Those that allow a lot of love and happiness into their lives or are comfortable with wealth. 

I am not sure how much help friends can be, especially old friends, as we tend to choose people who have a similar inner thermostat setting to our own so that we both feel comfortable. And family, well that’s where we got the original setting from. 

It’s a delicate surgical, exciting, enjoyable and rewarding process, one that requires some courage and willingness to experience change. And we can learn to encourage ourselves along the way and as we experiment, little by little we can learn to feel safe and expand our capacity for the good things in life.