“Happiness in a Relationship” The Delusion

I grew up believing that my mission in life was to get married and have children in order to feel fulfilled and happy. The search began when I was a teenager. I fell in love with a boy. I felt like I was wanted, like I was special, like I was beautiful. I was fulfilled and happy, at least for a few years. We became disappointed in each other as we grew comfortable and our “flaws” emerged, yet we still hung on to our 'love' and our dream and became engaged. As time went on and we bored of each other I realized he wasn't as perfect as I had dreamed him to be. In fact, he became quite an angry and mean person. I also discovered he had cheated on me. I was very upset, for my life plan for happiness and fulfillment had crashed.

From then on I stayed on the search for the perfect man, going from one boyfriend to the next. A few of them really did seam like “the one”, yet they never asked me to marry them and we would end up in a nasty breakup.

Even though I would have a blast with my friends while single, I usually felt the need to find a mate. I felt like I wouldn't truly be happy unless I found the man I was supposed to live the rest of my life with.

I eventually did get married and I was elated for the first two or three years, but we also found many things to be disappointed and angry about with each other and almost divorced a few times.

As of today, 10 years after our wedding, with the help of Desteni, we both now realize that happiness is not to be dependent on each other, or on anything outside of self for that matter. I believe this realization may be what is keeping us from leaving one another. We are much more relaxed, not elated, yet not pissed off. Expectations are thrown out and along with them so are the disappointments. We have brought back the power of self joy within our selves.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that happiness exists.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realize that happiness only exists because sadness exists.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define happiness within being in a relationship with a boyfriend.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define happiness within being married to the one and only perfect man for me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define happiness within spending time with my husband/children/family/friends, instead of realizing joy within self, as is, with no dependency on relationships to make me happy.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define happiness outside and separate from me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to desire to be happy, for when I have a desire for happiness, I am only stating my unhappiness and a need for something outside of me to make me happy.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to try to 'find' happiness somewhere 'out there' separate from me, instead of investigating why I am not happy with who I am in every moment and to change whatever it is that I am not happy with.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to only care about my personal happiness.

When and as I begin to expect to find happiness in a relationship, or to depend on a relationship for happiness, I stop, I breath, and realize that when I am searching for happiness outside of myself I am ignoring what it is that I am not accepting within myself because happiness derived from outside of me is not real, but only a temporary diversion. I commit myself to take back my attention and reliance of happiness from outside stimulation or diversion, such as relationships, to myself and focus on being self honest, paying attention to what it is within myself that I am not happy with, and make necessary changes to live my word, where within myself I can find the expression of joy of life as equal to all life.

“Ignorance is Bliss”

I used to avoid watching the news, (local and international) because I didn't want to feel sad and afraid. I chose to ignore what was happening to people around the world, I would ignore their suffering because I felt that I could do nothing about it. I decided that for me, it was better to stay focused on all the good/positive things that make me happy. I didn't want to feel guilty for doing nothing, or be afraid of the same despair possibly happening to me or my children, or fall into a depression. So I just ignored all the horrors of what we all have been accepting and allowing, and distracted my mind with my circle of family and friends, with entertainment and planning vacations, with appearance, with having fun.

I also turned to religion to give the load to God to bear, since I didn't feel I could take responsibility. I found a nice little mental solution that helped me to feel like I was taking responsibility and to feeling guilty, I learned to pray. I felt that I was able to actually do something about the suffering, somehow to take control by praying to a higher power, to tell Him to take care of things. But in doing so, I was not taking responsibility, I was living a lie, and focusing on what would make me feel better. In religion, I was taught to always help others, to be like Jesus, and if I did enough good deeds, I would go to heaven. I questioned how selfish that was when after all, I was helping others, while telling God to take care of the suffering instead of me standing up against the abuse in this world, to earn a spot in heaven, and to erase guilt from my conscience.

I was still ignoring the abuse of children across the planet, saying that God had a plan, and fooled myself with believing that my country was better than the others, and that God felt the same way. That was a nice little lie I told myself to justify war. It is all over the Bible, God approves of war as long as His people are the winners. I didn't understand how an all loving God could kill innocent children, but I learned to ignore that, and put faith in my religion, that God knows what he is doing and he is going to make everything all right. I learned to ignore the part of religion I disagreed with, and even fooled myself into believing I didn't need to completely understand it. In this religion, we were taught to not question the law but to have blind faith instead. We were taught to ignore what we didn't agree with or understand.

It is easier in the short run, to fool self with the mind, to ignore the stuff we don't want to admit too, yet it is neglectful and abusive. I will not allow myself to be ignorant any longer. I will do whatever I can to end the abuse, to be my living word, and stand up for life as all as one as equals. I will no longer chose the side that best cares for me, but chose what is best for all life.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to live the statement “Ignorance is bliss”.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to what exists in this world- and only care about my own well-being.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think and believe that 'as long as I'm okay, everything is okay'- herein saying that only if I suffer, I will take responsibility for myself and this world.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to ask for pain and suffering to motivate and move me to stand up- instead of me moving myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to deliberately ignore what exists in this world because I don't want to face the consequences of my acceptances and allowances.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that if I just turn a blind eye and a deaf ear, I can continue living in deliberate self-dishonesty because 'I don't get affected by it' and 'my life is okay'.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use distractions such as focusing on my own circle of family and friends, and to focus on entertainment, vacations, having fun, and on vanity, to ignore what I have been accepting and allowing in this world.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear the same horrors that are happening to others, like slavery, and lack of food, to happen to myself and my children and family, and within that fear, to use the fear as an excuse to ignore what is happening to others, and do nothing about it.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that fear is real.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use emotions as an excuse to be ignorant, and ignore what we have been allowing to happen to others in order to be in a state of personal happiness.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to experience and be so easily controlled by emotions instead of me stopping the cycle of emotional reaction, and taking a stand as life by breathing and bringing myself out of the mind and into the physical.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be absorbed in my thoughts, feelings and emotions, and to constantly be in search of the delusion of temporary happiness through ignorance, by using distractions such as entertainment and vanity, while ignoring what is happening in this world all around me.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to take responsibility, but instead do nothing but pray, in blind faith, in order to believe that some higher power would make everything all right.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to place blind faith into something I didn't understand in order to feel relief from responsibility.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that talking to an imaginary friend, God, would save others from despair, while ignoring that fact out of all of those years of praying, the world is still in hell, and that is why we need distractions, entertainment, vacations, vanity, to ignore the suffering and ignore the fact that we are doing nothing about it, but focusing on self pleasure and happiness.

When and as I feel desire to ignore what is going on in the world, I stop, I breathe, and I realize that everything that exists in this world exists due to our acceptance and allowance, and our justifications that lead to our personal happiness, and therefore within not wanting to face the world, I am not wanting to face myself. I commit myself to follow what is going on in the world, be aware of everything that is happening, and face myself, what I have been accepting and allowing within myself so that I can take a stand and no longer accept or allow the dishonesty, greed, and suffering within self and throughout the world.