Episode Transcript
We Americans enjoy a wonderful and powerful way of life, but internally and in relationships, we may wish for better. Join me as we look beneath the surface and gain insights to transform every aspect of your life. My name is Dr. Ann O'Hare, and this is The Spiritual American. Welcome to the spiritual American. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare and I'm your host and today we will be talking about happiness and authenticity. I wrote in the title, Happiness, No More Faking It. So we're going to talk a little bit about that, and I'm going to share from my own experience. So if you've been watching these episodes, the last two episodes were really going deeply into some painful experiences. One of them was exhaustion and another was disappointment. And today, as I was thinking about this topic of happiness, I want to share my journey with this topic. I don't think I ever knew what happiness really was. I knew what excitement was. I knew the happiness of, winning a contest or the happiness of, my team winning the ball game or the happiness of somebody getting a promotion or getting a new dress or something like that. There's all kinds of circumstances in life that are positive, that we have a positive feeling about. But the internal happiness, like happiness from within. If somebody says, are you happy? That's kind of a question that people take seriously. I can only speak for how I grew up in the area and the time that I grew up. Other people may have a different relationship to what I'm talking about. But everybody says, I love you, but nobody says I'm happy. Where I came from, right? I love you. I love you. I love you. But are you happy? What you can say? I'm not happy, but we wouldn't really even talk about happiness. So today I want to talk about how I came to happiness through One extreme, which is excitement. So I'm going to search for happiness. I'm going to do it through relationships. I'm going to do it through eating. I'm going to do it through, this is like addictions too, right? Looking for happiness, looking for satisfaction, personal happiness and satisfaction. Obviously that doesn't work at anybody who. Has some kind of control over their life. Maybe they tried to do some of those things and it didn't work. Okay, so we can be clear that that doesn't work. So going after external physical things definitely doesn't make me happy, right? Second thing is when I got together with my husband right now, I was married previously, but my husband now, he's been practicing meditation for 40 years plus. And I would ask him, he's very calm, right? So he has a very calm exterior. So I would ask him, are you happy? And he would say, definitely I'm happy. And I would be like, well, where is it? Where's the happiness? Cause I'm used to like seeing it. Like, where's the excitement? Where's the happiness? Where's the energy? And he said to me that happiness also could have a peace in it. Like contentment, like a peaceful happiness. Now, I believed him, I love him, so I believed him, but I didn't have any relationship to that for myself at all. For me, it was all about how this isn't working, that's not working, I can't quite measure up to the goals I set for myself, and therefore, how can you be happy if you're not measuring up? The other thing is, it's like a joke, but I've shared this too on the podcast, like I don't do things that I'm not good at. So why would you do something if you're not good at it? So, because if you're good at it, you'll be happy. If you're not good at it, you're going to be unhappy. And I remember going bowling and there were people who would go bowling and get gutter ball after gutter ball and laugh and have fun. And I'd be like, how could they be having fun? If I'm not succeeding and I'm, it's not working and I'm not doing well, how can I be happy? How can it be fun? So those are the kind of background. experiences I've had with happiness. It's either externally related with excitement or this kind of unrelatable peace that I didn't really understand. So what I want to talk about is authenticity as an alternative. So if, if you are out there, And you have the same experience as me. Like it's excitement, excitement, excitement, and now it's driving you crazy. Or you see other people that are peaceful and content and whatever, and you just can't relate to it. I'm going to suggest what I have gone for is authenticity. Tell the truth and be responsible for yourself. And what that does, I'm going to say, is build my self respect. I'm getting emotional as I'm talking about this. I can't think of a topic more personal and deeper than what I'm sharing right now. I didn't feel good about myself because I was either comparing myself to external stuff, which I could never sustain or I was always going after the next thing that I could achieve or this idea of peace and being content or being happy with myself, comfortable in my own skin, all this stuff, totally unrelatable to me. So I really didn't have any other option. So what I did was I started meditating. And I had to tell the truth about where I was and thank goodness, you could say, God or the universe or whatever, created a circumstance for me that I had a safe relationship or safe friend, my husband now, but he was my friend. I had a safe friend who could be with me exactly as I was while I tried to figure this out. So, where does happiness come in here? I am going to say that the fact that I'm sitting here talking to you right now and telling the truth about this brings me a deep sense of self worth and I feel valuable because I'm telling the truth and I can't be the only one out there that feels this way. So what does authenticity do? What is it? What happens when you start telling the truth, start telling the truth to myself, start telling the truth to others, start telling the truth. What happens? I start getting a little braver. I start getting some courage. One of the things I was thinking about was the Westerns. Like the Clint Eastwood Westerns. And I had shared on the podcast before. How I never liked Westerns growing up because I didn't understand them. Like they, the guy, the men would be standing there and they would show the closeups of the eyes and the closeups of the eyes and the, and I'm like, what's going to happen? Nothing's happening. They just spent 20 minutes looking at everybody's eyes and nothing's happening. I didn't understand it. I didn't get what was actually happening. I didn't understand the subtext. And the subtext I understand now is self respect. Who has the most self respect? Who has the most personal fortitude in that moment? So for me, happiness is connected to authenticity and connected to self respect. I'm proud of what I'm sharing right now. So I'm proud. And in that pride, I guess you can call it happy. I'm proud. It has worth to me. And that is a way to build self respect and be comfortable in my own skin or be able to be, engaged with others without feeling like I have to hide, not having to be afraid of others, freeing myself up a little bit. I don't have to always be quote unquote perfect or anything because I'm learning that I can be honest about how I really am and that's okay. I want to suggest that authenticity is better than happiness. Happiness is something that comes and goes. I would say the word happy. It comes and goes. I'm not always happy, right? But I can always be authentic. The word authentic comes from authority. Authority. I'm an authority over myself. Do you know what a big deal that is? I can't be talking just for myself. How many of you out there feel like, even though you have money and you have a job and you have a family and you have, how many of you still feel internally like you're not in control? How many of you still feel like you're not happy with yourself inside. There's a sadness inside. There's something not right. Even though everything on the outside is okay. You can't put your finger on it. There's nothing wrong, but you don't feel right inside. And then I keep saying to myself, oh, well, I need to be happy. I need to be happier. I need to be peaceful. I need to be peaceful. I need to be happy. I need to be peaceful. I need to be happy. I need to be okay. Guess what? Let's be authentic. Let's tell the truth. I don't want to be excited anymore and I'm trying to be peaceful, but I'm not that successful at it yet. And that's the truth. I can be with that truth. I can stand on that truth. I can share that truth with you out there who don't want to meditate, too busy, too scared, too whatever. Maybe not aware of scared, but too busy, too, it doesn't make any sense to you. It doesn't hold any value to you. It doesn't seem to be that it would have any practical use. If we keep doing the same things every single day, we're going to have the same experience. I'm suggesting here today that happiness is fine, but I didn't really relate to it. Much. I mean, I could be happy anytime. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I, I got the thing to work. I'm happy. I'm doing a new podcast. Yeah. I'm happy about that. But how do I feel about myself? Am I ultimately content and peaceful with within my being that I'm radiating this peace and light and love all the time? I would like to say yes, but that's not really true. So what is true? What is true is that I'm practicing meditation every day. I'm studying every day because I want to experience more and more authentic me, whatever that is. Share another thing. When we're on a journey, sometimes we compare ourselves to others. Like maybe this is how I should be, or that's the way I should be, or this is the way I should be. And then somebody will tell you, don't compare yourself to others. And then intellectually you say, oh yeah, I shouldn't compare myself to others. But if I don't have an internal sense of who I am, how can I not compare myself to others? I'm looking for some stability inside myself. So authenticity and stability, authenticity helps build stability inside. Stability of self respect. And I'm going to say right now, if I have self respect, happy is just fine. But if it's happy is not there, I'm still just fine. Peace is fine. But if peace is not there, I'm fine because I know who I am and I'm telling the truth Back to the Westerns. Of course, in the Westerns, it's all about revenge and justice and all this stuff. In this case, it's about self respect. It's about standing and saying, this is who I am and this is how I feel. And this is where I'm at. Period. It's very powerful. I was talking to one of the leaders of the Brahma Kumaris who, has been studying for maybe 50 years and I said that truth is the only thing sometimes that we have to hold on to. If I can't be happy, I can't be peaceful, I can't be generous, I can't be whatever, at least I can tell the truth. And this person said, that's very attractive. The truth is attractive. And I'm going to say authenticity is attractive. Not that we want necessarily that that's our aim to attract, but it's nice for others. If I tell the truth, it's nice for others. They can deal with it. They know where they stand. And also, I'm going to say a little secret. If I'm authentic, it gives others maybe a green light to be authentic also. That's why I'm sharing this right now. So for me, I'm saying happiness versus authenticity or happiness and authenticity. The main happiness is self respect. And one last thing, however the personality shows up. Okay. It doesn't matter. You show up as you show up as you be honest, be yourself. At least that's stable. Now, I'm not saying if you're manipulating or angry or sad or whatever, that's myself. Oh, I'm sad all the time and that's me or, and, and I keep, abusing others or abusing myself. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about without the acting out part, without the abuse, without the, negative side of it, the actual feeling itself. Just tell the truth. I feel sad. And I have no idea how to feel better. Truth. At least you're starting on something real. So the other thing I wrote here was the realness, authenticity and realness. The trueness and realness is better. Authenticity is better. Because what happens if we're not authentic? What happens if I'm not truthful? What happens if I'm not telling the truth about how I really feel and how I really am? What, what happens? I start trying to conform to something else. Or I start blaming myself or start criticizing myself or start saying I'm no good because I should be like that. I should be like this. I should be like, I'm not peaceful. Why can't I be like that? How about trying to be me first? There's this movie, Eat, Pray, Love, with Julia Roberts. And at the end of the movie, she was trying to find herself. She went to different countries and she's trying to find herself. And at the end, she's sitting in this ashram and she's like the spiritual place. And she said, you know what? She saw somebody doing a silence that had a silence tag. Like they're going into silence. And she's like, that's what I need. I need to go into silence. And she's like, I definitely need that. I'm looking forward to this. I'm going to get my little tag. And cause that's what I need to be. So she puts the tag on, and as soon as she puts the tag on, two things happen. The one girl that was in silence comes out of silence, so now she's talking and now Julia Roberts is going to try to be in silence. And then the director of the place comes in and says, Listen, we need you to do a job in the, in the ashram. She goes to find out what the job is. The job is about meeting and greeting and taking care of the new people and whatever, whatever. It's totally her personality and she said, okay, take the tag. She took the silence tag off and put it on the table and said, I'm your man. What does that mean? And then in the voiceover later, she said, I'm not saying it this way. She said, God dwells in you as you, I'm going to say it this way. Nobody can take away what you really are, who you really are, and how you really feel. So why not hold on to that? Give it a chance. See what happens. Be like Clint Eastwood. Stand there. Stand your ground and say, I don't know how to feel better. Or say, Dr. Anne, you're full of it and I don't, I don't believe a word you're saying. Fine. That's true for you. You're great. What I have found is that if I stick with that, the truth, it is painful at times because all the little lies, it's not like lies on purpose, but all the little misconceptions and deception about myself and all the little comparisons and this and that. They all like hurt when they get chipped away. It's like rust getting chipped off the self. It's okay though. After a while you'll get used to being authentic. Authentic is much better. So if you ask me right now, am I happy? Maybe, maybe not. Right now I don't think it's happy. I guess so. I feel happy to be sharing. I feel good about it. But it's not this like nebulous, unrelatable thing out there. I have something to stand on. I'm standing on my own self and my own authenticity. So I'll leave it there. I hope that that has given some of you something to think about. And also again, the, what is the role of meditation in our lives? What is its role? Its role is to help me to pay attention to me. Find out what's going on in my mind, get control over myself, my emotions, my, and control and to be authentic, to be real. And whoever I am is fine. I don't have to be running and comparing and doing all this stuff anymore, but I have to get, I have to use some method to find out what's really going on. So meditation is the method for that. So I'll leave it there. Remember our slogan is heal, empower, and serve. And until next time, take care. You
