HAPPINESS
Can You Handle It?

by Marie T. Russell

We all want to be happy! At least, we all say we do... yet, how much happiness can we handle? How much happiness are we willing to have in our lives before we sabotage ourselves? Let's look for a minute at some of our "accepted programs". One program is recognized by the thought or statement "It's too good to be true." (Cancel that!) Another is "I knew this couldn't last!" or "Something is bound to go wrong." Another popular one "I always..." or "I never..." followed by some negative thought. (Cancel those too!) How can we say we truly expect happiness while we have these beliefs that come to clog up the works?

Something happened in my life recently which was the culmination of many prayers and affirmations. I was even heard to say that this was a dream come true—I was grateful and happy. Yet, the very next day I became ill with one of those violent headaches that I had experienced in the past.

Now at first, this seemed to be unrelated to my happiness, but rather to indigestion and stress. At least that's how it seemed. Yet, when I reflected on why I had this pain, I realized that the illness was an offspring of "my dream come true." Was I ready for happiness? Or was I still caught up in a belief in "Murphy's law"—that something will always go wrong.

You see, there was a part of me that still believed in sacrifice, pain, and things being too good to be true... and consequently, that "doubting Thomas" part of me had to manifest some negative occurrence to prove it was right. After all, our ego wants to be right, so it will create occurrences to prove to you that your beliefs are indeed true.

Therefore, to answer the question — do we really want to be happy? — the answer is usually "yes" BUT we don't believe it is possible! We all have been programmed in different ways to believe happiness is fleeting or that we don't deserve it! Consequently, as soon as we start being happy, really happy, we manifest something to destroy it or at least mar the perfection of it all... because our old beliefs do not allow perfection. You've heard it—"Well, nothings perfect." Who says? Simply an old program.

The good side of all this is that once we are aware of our limiting beliefs, we can change them. We do not have to be stuck with any old program. We have free will and can select our beliefs -- with patience and persistence, we can re-program those old happiness-aborting beliefs to happiness-supporting beliefs.

Start by telling yourself everyday, I am a divine being and I deserve happiness! That is a truth. The doubts are errors in perception... they are misunderstandings. We have misunderstood who we are and our purpose here. We are not - I repeat - NOT sinners, nor are we here to suffer and become martyrs! We are a Divine Expression of Life and can choose to experience life as a joyful, loving experience. We can be loving beings, giving and receiving love and living joyfully and harmoniously in accordance to Divine Order.

And can we handle Happiness? Yes, yes a 1,000 times yes! We can be happy when we release barriers, fears, doubts, self-judgments, criticisms and beliefs in punishment. We need to change the programs we are listening to. Then we will discover that happiness has always been there -- we were simply tuned in to a different frequency.

Marie's favorite book on this topic: 

"Soulful Living: The Process of Personal Transformation"
(Joan Borysenko, Deepak Chopra, Sam Keen, Jack Kornfield, Bernie Siegal, Marianne Williamson & more)
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