How to be happy
This week’s question comes from Stephanie Reith:
Looking back on your life, what was your biggest obstacle to being more balanced and happy?
First of all, Stephanie, let’s not look back on my life just yet because I’m still quite busy living it. And hopefully my death bed (or more likely, death bike lane) is still quite a few years away.
The short answer about my biggest obstacle to being more balanced and happy is that growing up I didn’t believe I deserved to be more balanced and happy.
For the longer, and hopefully more interesting answer, we’re going to have to dive into how those beliefs came to be. Strap in, we’re dealing with family trauma!
Growing up, there wasn’t a lot of love in the house. Where there should’ve been love there was rage, there was rejection, there was humiliation. As a special treat, my main escape from home was going to a catholic school that reinforced all the same behavior, while also telling me that not obeying the people who were abusing me would damn me to an eternity in hell.
A child who grows up being deprived of love will ultimately believe it’s because they don’t deserve it.
I eventually escaped my childhood home by going to art school, where I was taught that all my trauma was “fuel for my creativity.” I was taught that my traumatized self was my honest authentic self.
This is a stupid and very irresponsible thing to teach someone.
A child who grows up being deprived of love will ultimately turn into an adult that sabotages every relationship they’re in.
And so I did. I sabotaged every relationship in my 20s and my 30s until, for reasons I will keep my own, I ended up face to face with a therapist who was willing to work with me. And we put in the work. It wasn’t always pleasant. It was by no means easy. We’re basically rebuilding a human being from scratch. But that human being is a more balanced and happy human being.
And, look, I know there are a lot of people who don’t have access to therapy, which is criminal. We absolutely need to fix that. But I’ve also met a lot of people who refuse to go to therapy because they think it won’t work on them, they think they’re too smart for therapy (these are almost always men), they think they can find happiness in material possessions or luxury vacations, or they think therapy will turn them into someone other than who they “truly are.” These reasons are wrong and stupid.
Everyone deserves to be happy, and to spread happiness to those around them. Everyone deserves to feel safe, and to provide safety. Everyone deserves to be loved, and to love right back.
Therapy has helped me to find the happier and more balanced person I always deserved to be. I just had to work a little harder than I should have had to to get there.
It was worth it.
Got a question? Reply to this email with it and I just might answer it.
Hey, I finally put together a site with all the paintings I’ve done in the last few years. Please visit and enjoy. (Yes, amazingly that URL was still available, and I was enough of a jerk to get it.)
Workwise, I’m doing a workshop next week and I’ve got some slots still available.
Buy a zine. Visit Chicken Town.