Meditation for March 10th, 2016
Leaving It Behind for Happiness
We can’t always be happy. Life can be a battle sometimes, but when we get through the tough times and find ourselves enjoying a little sunshine after the rain, we feel happy. Why can’t we feel happy more often? We suffer from depression and anxiety so happiness is just farther out of reach for us than other people. What if there were things that we could change or just give up for more happiness? There is, traveller, there is.
Environmental stressors:
These are the things around us at our home, work, our car and anywhere else we spend time that cause us stress. First off, make your bedroom a sanctuary. Get as many pillows as you possibly can. Only use candlelight, for electric lighting is sending negative vibes into your skin and then into your blood carrying them into your brain. Learn the art of Feng Shui, the art of keeping everything in the right order or fucking madness, man! If there is just one little thing out of place, you are running the risk of total meltdown. Keep your eye on wrinkles in your sheets, a corner of your yoga mat sticking up, a drawer slightly ajar or any other kind of joy interrupter and fix it.
Bring a dinner centerpiece of seasonal flowers and plants accented with crystals and candles to every restaurant you go to. Don’t hesitate to move furniture around to fit your needs, you’re doing this for you and you deserve it!
Put your stuff on the seat next to you on public transportation. Personal space is a huge step towards spiritual happiness.
Sleep:
One of the reasons the Buddhas were all so spiritual was because they slept twenty hours a day. The less time you are awake dealing with life’s stresses, the more chances you have to be content. I would recommend sleep medication for those of you that get nine or less hours of sleep a night to make sure you get the dream time you need.
Dreams are very important. They are the subconscious singing to our conscience. Write down those dreams and if you interpret them right, you can cut what your subconscious wants out of your life and start adding things it does.
Eating:
One of the reasons a lot of us are so sad is because we eat too much, then we are sad because we are fat so we eat more to drown our sorrow. The biggest reason for this is because of body image. We live in a culture of more, more, more, but look less, less, less. We see commercials of skinny white people enjoying KFC, but not reaping the consequences of eating extremely oily fried foods. Remember the fat happy Buddha? He ate whatever he wanted whenever he wanted and when he wasn’t slopping mush into his fat drool and food soaked mouth, he was laughing because he was so full and happy. Eat! Eat till you want to puke and then puke so you have even more room and eat more! Laugh!
Social stressors:
People are the biggest stressors of all. They want things from you. They want answers to hard questions like where you want to eat tonight and if you want to get gas on the way to the place or on the way back and if you want to drive over to that one station to save .03 cents? Whew! That is a lot of stress! Why don’t people just make up what they want to do inside their own heads and then leave talking to the more interesting things like talking about us.
The best thing to do is cut a lot of people out of your life. They are just getting you down. Save the political, sports, religious conversations and arguments for Facebook and stop having coffee with people you could make your blood pressure rise. If you have a job that puts you in front of people then it’s time to look for something you can hide behind a wall because people just want stuff all the time. I work in a grocery store and all people want to do is come in looking for stuff and if they don’t find it, they ask me for stuff, then if they find it they come up to me who then gets asked if they can buy the stuff and I have to let them buy it from me because I have the machine and the job to use it. I have to do this hundreds of times a day. I am extremely spiritual so I can handle that kind of stress, but to the novice human, this is possible suicide worthy.
This is why we have started Portland, Oregon: Service Industry Camp. People who are complete passive tools come from all over the world to learn how to cope with being in the service industry by getting jobs here and learning how to overcome that complete lack of self-worth and be of service instead of sighing that you have to be at work and not writing your novella on steampunk zombie Aaron Burr who has a time travel romance with Abigail Williams: Witch Hunter or drinking PBRs on some bluff overlooking the Willamette and making out with boys. The few and the proud can move back to their homes or other cities and be mediocre servers.
Prayer
Kuafu,
make me happy.
Let me cut some of these things out of my life that keep me from being happy.
Work,
Family,
Most friendships,
Love,
anything I’m not the best at,
ever watching a disappointing TV show or movie,
ever knowing the lyrics of any American pop song,
ever having any expectations for a movie that is based on my nostalgia,
from ever taking the chance of hearing any new music that might be exciting and inspire me,
so let me just hear the best songs of the 60s, 70s, 80s, 80s, 90s & 00s –
- I can dance to them and I already know the lyrics. I can look at a friend, furrow my nose and laugh about how dumb this song is while dancing like idiots. Haha.
No more books in case I start a series of books and end up waiting years for the next book to come out.
I just want things that make me happy.
Just people that make me happy.
Just songs, shows and books that make me happy.
I want to wake up when I’m ready to wake up and coffee is made, breakfast is ready and I have money without stressing at some kind of job.
Nevermind that due to technology and the fighting of Unions and other worker rights before us it is never been easier to live.
Is that so hard to ask?
Amen.
Craft
This takes a little acting on your part, but whenever you have to do something that you don’t want to do, or anytime someone asks you to do something that is inconvenient or slightly off putting, respond with, “I would LOVE to!” with enthusiasm and gusto.
Instead of saying you have to work tomorrow 6am till 2pm and how much that sucks and how early that is and please feel sorry for me, say, “I think I’ll go in tomorrow around sixish, probably stay till around 2 and then take the rest of the afternoon off. Maybe go in this weekend too and catch up with a few things.” Make it sound like you make your own schedule. If you do make your own schedule, shut up about your job and just do it. Learn some discipline cry baby.
Instead of saying, “Ugh! I hate hanging out with [so and so]!” say, “I fucking love [same so and so from last quote, you know an annoying person that your friends like but you find off putting so you spend your days shit talking that person in hopes that your friends will not hang out with so and so anymore, but so and so just keeps being well liked while people keep telling you that you have resting bitch face]!”
Basically act like you’re happy about things that you don’t and you might trick yourself. Lying to yourself is the biggest spiritual gift you can give yourself, so positively gaslight yourself mindfully. Ohm.
Goal
Happiness just can’t happen all the time. You’re lucky if you feel it because life is terrible and you are just wasting time before cancer or a meteorite gets you. Enjoy the slightly less than happy making things more and work hard so that you can play hard. Don’t just sit around grumbling that things suck all the time because you are basically saying, “Instead of enjoying this game, I’m just going to look at my phone and suck. I’m boring and I suck and I wish people wouldn’t notice so hopefully the bottom lip stuck out and the furrowed brows will make them not notice that.”
When you enjoy things other people enjoy things.
Except pool and bowling. Those things are super dull.