anupturnedsoul

Repost: A Happy Place

Do you have a happy place? Do you let others into your happy place? Is your happy place a space outside of you or is it a place inside of you? Is your happy place a person?

This is a repost of a post I published in October 2015 which was titled –  A Secret Silent Shangri-La. That was quite a year for me, some old issues came to a conclusion and some new issues arose due to new leaps into the unknown taken.

In some ways every year is like that for everyone, and when it is more bad than good we seek out our happy place for rest, comfort, recharging our batteries. But even in good times, we need to take refuge somewhere calm, known, safe, as good can overwhelm especially if the good is something we are not used to.

I’d forgotten about this post until someone read it and mentioned it in a comment-chat yesterday. Thank you very much for doing that, it is much appreciated… you reminded me of a post which is a happy place for me!

They also drew my attention to a reply I made to a comment on that post, it was a superb comment, made me laugh reading it today because I was thinking something similar to the first part of what they said: “your mind goes a million thoughts per minute but you can so eloquently get through each second of them and tie them back together making sense all the time”. My reply was an intriguing flow of words about writing, about how to get going when you’re not sure how to start. I might turn it into a post… or maybe it is better left as is where it is in that moment there.

I’m going to link this to – Kira’s Sunday Scribbles – for the – Word of the Day Challenge, because her drawing looks like a happy place to me, the capturing of her own secret silent Shangri-La, of which she kindly shared a glimpse.

Without further ado:

The first unofficial rule of owning a Happy Place is – Don’t tell anyone else about it.

Let them reap the benefits of what your happy place does for you, share your happy with them, but don’t share your happy place with them.

It doesn’t matter how trustworthy they are, how respectful, thoughtful… and if they take off their shoes before entering it so as not to bring their mud in with them.

This place is yours, your haven, and the moment you let someone else in, it will no longer do for you what it does. You have irrevocably changed the dynamics of it by letting someone else in.

Have other happy places which you’re happy to share with others… but always keep one secret silent Shangri-La all to yourself.

This is mine:

  

moonvoodoo was my deviantart

    

I can show you a picture of it, in fact I share many images of it in my photographs and in what I write, as it is the place from which all is created within, and it pushes itself outwards wanting to be shared.

Sharing ourselves is a natural impulse.

An impulse which often leads to pain.

Pain is natural too. It’s part of living, being… we can’t get away from experiencing it as much as we all try to do so.

Sometimes we seek to evade our pain by taking refuge in the happy places of others… and sometimes we may destroy their happy place:

1 – accidentally, without intending to do so…

Q: What’s your favourite colour?

… someone asks

… maybe we asked it of someone else, to break the ice or perhaps because we were eager to share ours but we did it indirectly, the socially acceptable way.

A: Purple.

… a pause ensues.

What comes next will trespass on the sanctity of a favourite colour either through someone expressing their dislike for the colour or their love for it. Both can alter our love for that colour by subtly adding their own shades and hues to it. Once their colours run into ours… ours changes, and theirs does too.

2 – deliberately, intending to do so… some people’s happy place is ruining those of others.

  

  

Most of us learn rule #1 of owning our happy place the hard way…

We are born with our arms open, exposing our hearts to the world, welcoming one and all to our happy place known as being alive, wanting to naturally share in the joy of life

… and we gradually learn to cross our arms, protect our hearts from the world, as we realise that welcoming others isn’t as easy as it seemed, we’re not as welcome as we thought we were, and being alive isn’t as happy a place as it felt at first… life can be a killjoy.

Our beautiful simplicity is seen as something to be used against us by those mired in complications… they’re caught in a tangled web and they drag us in when they try to use us to get themselves out.

Once we’re caught in the complex knots… we become the ones who pull others in while trying to pull ourselves out using them.

This is my favourite film… I said to someone.

If I could slow the moment down every nuance could be seen of what happened next.

The person who heard my confession of a film which was a happy place for me… the micro-expressions flitting across their face, turning a bored smile into a slight snicker. Their mind suddenly lulled out of apathy as their ego spotted an opportunity to stand on someone else’s head to gain some height.

It’s too simplistic… they said feeling rather good about being able to put something down with such a simple trick.

That’s why I like it, because it is simple… I replied, without adding the rest of the thought because sometimes it’s best to keep things simple.

This was the rest of the thought:

  

  

Ah, the person’s ego probably thought, you like simple things because you have a simple mind. But I have a more evolved mind than you and therefore simplicity is tedium, I need everything to be too complicated for others to understand as that way I prove to myself that I am of superior intelligence.

Ah, I thought, you’re one of those who confuses intellect with intelligence, and who uses your superior intellect as a buffer, a protective boundary, a hard border which hides your soft insides.

You’re really a rather kindhearted soul, but life has battered your heart and now your arms are firmly crossed – none shall pass the tricky tests, the gauntlet which your mind has devised to stop people from getting into your happy place.

Stopping others from getting into your happy place has become a happy place.

How’s complicated intellectual complexity working out for you as a happy place?

Good? Good.

I’m good too with my simply being a simpleton simplicity.

We’re all good then. You in your happy place, and me in mine… what? You want to discuss the border issues of our respective places?

These are my boundaries:

   

does this look familiar? where have you seen this before… sometimes you have to repeat yourself because people aren’t listening to you, they’re too distracted by the conversation going on in their mind while you’re talking to them.

   

I know, they’re a bit of a strange shape. I can attempt to explain why, but I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to do so simply, it might get a bit complicated. Not sure if it’s your kind of complexity, but maybe it is.

I grew up with people who were afraid of simplicity, who complicated everything, who used intellect to protect themselves from the world of people around them who frightened them, and they confused their superior intellect with intelligence and passed that confusion on by gleefully poo-pooing the pleasures of others and then tediously explaining with interminable length, highfalutin words, and rigid adherence to strict guidelines of some master or another (those THEY that said something and now we all have to live by what THEY said) why that happy place of others just wasn’t allowed to be a happy place… especially if your happy place didn’t make them happy when they pushed their way in and tromped their muddy boots all over your happy.

We all do that a bit with the happy places of others.

We don’t mean to, but we do. Sometimes we’re so happy when someone lets us in… our enthusiasm makes us clumsy. And sharing is a balancing act that takes time to learn, and we learn more efficiently when we make mistakes. Errors are an erogenous zone for learning.

At times we mean to and so we do.  Sometimes we’re just passing on what has been done to us, we can’t help ourselves so we help ourselves to what others have that someone else took from us while helping themselves because they couldn’t help themselves… compulsive taking due to the urge to own a happy place.

It’s a twisted version of sharing.

   

   

I can’t share my secret silent Shangri-La with you. Even if I wanted to. It has a security system with lasers that disintegrate anyone who isn’t me. It’s funny that way.

However, I can share a version of it, the benefits and other aspects of it with you. I’m happy to do so on here… this is a reflection of my happy place.

You are all welcome here with open arms. Sometimes those arms flail, so be careful of accidental slaps occurring.

Take care of yourselves.


14 comments

  1. Fascinating idea. I will make my happy place a no go area for others. Your analysis of the motives of others, trampling and trying to destroy your happy place is spot on.

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  2. I went back and read our comment-chat from three years ago. Interesting. 🙂 I read through your post first and wondered if my comments would be similar to what I am thinking three years later. I’ve made some progress – which is what the updated me is thinking today. I used to find it really hard to say what I wanted, but I’ve gotten better about that (M commented on that a couple of weeks ago). I still don’t want to do it, but I do do it, and now and then I don’t think of the discomfort … Thank you for the retrospective. 🙂

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    • Thank you, Lynette, for being you and sharing yourself with me 🙂

      In my stats you’re the top commentor, and I’m blessed that you are. We’ve had some wonderful comment-chats, and I think we’ve both gotten better at saying what we want to say. It may still be hard sometimes but communicating is hard, so what matters is to do it, say what you want to say as it might be just what someone needs to hear (maybe that someone is you). I have definitely benefited from you saying what you have said to me ❤

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      • Thank you Ursula. 🙂 I’ve been having some tough days (I’m learning a lot at a fast rate as well as how to deal with some difficult people, so sometimes I forget why I’m up to my ass in alligators) and your comment was a wonderful grounding elevator. Contradictory, I know, but that was the effect.
        The feeling is totally mutual. 🙂

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        • TY ❤

          The other day I found a book in my library which I keep forgetting I have (partly because that book likes to hide itself in between bigger books, it made me chuckle because it was wedged between two books about understanding the dynamics of power), it's called – How To Cope With Difficult People by Alan Houel with Christian Godefroy. It's an interesting read. It gives scenarios, examines the difficult person and explores the different reasons why people become or are being difficult, and then suggests ways of making them a little less difficult for you. You might find it worth a read (it's a slim book, an easy read) since your new position makes you stand out as a 'power' for others to rebel against, and other stuff humans do with people in authority.

          As they say in K-dramas when cheering someone on, giving encouragement – Fighting!

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          • Thank you. 🙂
            I found that book on Amazon and have ordered it. It will go to my home in BC (Amazon doesn’t ship to NWT) and then will get sent here. It will travel a bit. 🙂
            I’m starting to think that two of these people that I’m dealing with are quite narcissistic. I hesitate to use that label because having read and thought about it so much, it’s a bit like I’ve got an N-hammer in my hand and everything is starting to look like a nail. 🙂 However, sometimes the nail is an N-nail, you just need to be cautious about tossing people into categories like that.
            I don’t think they’re narcissists, they just lean that way. One of them is a millennial, and there’s a lot of entitlement going on (yup, I used a category again). The other has serious control issues with manipulative overtones and there’s a lot of anger underneath that haircut. 😉 I’ve been chewing on this a lot, so thanks again for the suggestion. 🙂

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            • If you think they’re narcissistic then they are. Don’t doubt your impression.

              This isn’t about applying a label to them publicly to influence others to be pro-you and against-them, you’re not running a smear campaign, etc, that’s not what Lynette does, never has never will.

              You’re making a note of what you’ve noticed for yourself so that you know how to approach the situation, dynamic, with them. That’s a very logical, practical and necessary tactic for your own sake, to possibly help reduce stress, and definitely help find an effective means of dealing with people who are being difficult.

              If entitlement is going on, then you need to label it for what it is to then deal with it as it is. If you don’t label it, categorise it, then it becomes hard to assess it and formulate a solution for the problem it is causing. Millennial entitlement is different from the entitlement of previous generations, it is often a result of that person having heaped upon them the entitlement of previous generations plus added extras.

              This is an interesting look at that – Why Millennials Are So Entitled (Parents Are Partly Blamed)

              You are a fair person, who mulls everything over making sure to observe nuances, you try to be balanced and understanding, but this is not always possible and may do more harm than good – in a workplace one or two negatively inclined people can infect everyone else who were fine until they were infected.

              Narcissistic behaviour/attitudes are particularly harmful in a workplace because if the narcissistic person isn’t happy they tend to make everyone else miserable, and won’t stop doing it because they’re not happy!

              Best wishes, Lynette, trust yourself!

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  4. I know what you mean by not being able to totally share the ‘happy place’…mine is happy because it’s mine and no one else’s if that makes any sense? I nominated you for an award tonight…because I think you fit the parameters really well (them being informative, unique and interesting blog)….I hope that’s okay.

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    • Thank you very much, Melanie 🙂 it’s more than okay (and it’s also a beautifully witty repartee to what I said in my Q and A post the other day), it’s lovely and generous and such a wonderful compliment!

      And what you said about your happy place makes a lot of sense, in fact it is the essence and an essential of a happy place!

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