Common Sense Happiness (eBook)

INTRODUCTION 

This book is meant for those who may be new to the idea that we ourselves have control over our state of happiness. For you who have yet to put your toe in these waters and see how it feels, I invite you to come on in – the water’s fine!

None of the concepts in this book are new. They have been spoken of and written about for thousands of years by countless others who were and are far wiser than I. This is just my way of delivering some of these age-old concepts in what I hope are a few simple, easy-to-understand principles that can help you start creating a happier life. I must warn you, though, I don’t like to sugar-coat things. To be perfectly honest, my delivery, I’m told, is “lovingly blunt.” That’s the way I coach and that’s what my clients expect from me. Just thought I should give you a heads-up.

Got a toe in? Okay, let me introduce myself. My name is Loree Bischoff. I am a life coach. As a life coach, my mission and my passion is to help you accomplish and experience your mission and passion. What I’ve found is that most people’s mission boils down to one thing: being happy. And there are infinite ways in which people try to accomplish that, mostly by trying to add or eliminate something or someone to or from their life. That’s one approach. I have another in mind, though, that I call the Life A-Mazing Principles.

Is your life amazing or just a frustrating maze? Do you keep repeating the same behavior and patterns and then wonder why nothing ever changes for you or why you feel unhappy or unfulfilled? Wish you had a little more control over your life?

Would you go to a buffet and deliberately put food on your plate that you know you don’t like or are allergic to? Would you frequently let another person choose your food, regardless of your preferences, and pile it on your plate? Would you go back for seconds, thirds, and fourths of such foods? Now let’s take it one step further. Would you then get angry at and blame the cook for placing those choices in front of you? Probably not. You would likely choose foods you like and stop eating foods you don’t like or have an adverse reaction to. You certainly wouldn’t hold the cook accountable for the choices you made. So why should the choices you make in other areas of your life be any different? Who are you holding accountable for the way you experience your life?

The Life A-Mazing Principles are about the realization that we have choices – every second of every waking moment. I like to look at life as a giant maze. But here’s the big aha: We have to accept or at least be willing to consider that we create the maze as we go. We weave our way through our lives taking rights and lefts, moving forward and sometimes (seemingly) backward, and going over, under, around, and through people, places, and experiences. What an adventure! Each of us has a life maze and, like snowflakes, no two are exactly alike, even though they intersect, become entwined, and influence and affect each other.

I feel that we can all make choices that help make our lives amazing in our own unique way. That’s why I was inspired to write this book. I love the maze of my life and it is my sincerest desire to help you love yours, too. My life maze has been created by many of the same ups and downs, good times, tough lessons, joys, and sorrows as other people’s mazes. Many of the things my clients have experienced or are struggling with, I’ve experienced, too. I was one of two children, with a lower-middle-class upbringing. My parents divorced when I was a teenager, I dropped out of high school when I was a senior, and I watched my father survive a risky surgery to remove a tumor the size of a lemon from his brain and then proceed to drink himself to an early grave. Those same life experiences have a very detrimental effect on some people – often long term. Me? Somehow I just skipped right on through. Even through stressful and sad times, I managed to remain a happy person.

The difference is in how we view those things, how we let them affect us, and what we decide to do with them from here on out. I’ve learned to wake up and appreciate the opportunity that each day brings to choose how I want to be and how I want to create my maze as I journey through my life. I’ve come to understand that it’s my life, my maze. I own it. I get to decide if I want to go left, right, over, under, plant a flower, plant a flag, build a retainer wall, tear one down, invite someone in, or just sit still for a while.

The maze of your life has been and will continue to be created, even if you aren’t aware of it. It’s happening anyway, so you might as well decide whether to actively participate or simply let it happen by default. You could just ride it out, letting other people and circumstances dictate your path. I personally don’t enjoy being a passenger in my own car. I’d much rather be the driver, deciding where I want to go and what route to take to get there.

Not feeling that your life is amazing just seems like such a wasted opportunity. I mean, isn’t that the point of being here – to create something that makes you happy, something that is your own special brand of amazing?

But just what is an amazing life, anyway? Let’s start with what it is not. It is not based on fame, fortune, or a fancy title. Honestly, you can’t qualify it in specific terms because it’s subjective. Like they say, one person’s trash is another person’s treasure, or in this case, one person’s “amazing” is another person’s “huh?”

I remember living in a tiny studio apartment in downtown Chicago (pre-children) and trying to hold my breath every time I got on the less-than-pleasant-smelling elevator. Thank God I never got stuck in there with whomever was contributing to that scent. Talk about living in the moment – we barely had two nickels to rub together and our biggest concern was what bar had the best happy hour food. But hey, it was Chicago in the early ‘80s, and my husband (then boyfriend) and I were having a ball – stinky elevator and all! We went from there to living in two different houses, in ongoing battles to maintain ownership, as the mice were trying to declare eminent domain. I gave them a good run for their money, but they ultimately kicked my ass. We moved. I remember later on struggling to make the $350 per month rent payment, eating a lot of noodles, bouncing checks to buy diapers, and stressing over money much of the time. But I was with the love of my life, we had two beautiful babies, and in spite of navigating our way through starting a family and trying (not very expertly) to pay the bills, we were still happy! We were having a blast, completely unaware of the combined life maze we were creating.

Then my mom put a book in my hands that really lit me up (thanks, Mom) and put me on a path that would change my life. (It was by Catherine Ponder, and all of her books are fantastic.) Not in a big, dramatic, obvious way, but it provided a critical shift in thinking that at once gave me the best feeling I think a person can have: FREEDOM. Yep – that’s it – the great life-changer for me was learning that my personal environment – my life maze – and my state of happiness were a product of my thinking and the actions and attitudes that stemmed from it. To me that spells

F-R-E-E-D-O-M. You see, I learned that how happy I was going to be, in any circumstance, shouldn’t be contingent upon anyone else – only me.

Once I realized that if I wanted something more or different I had the freedom and therefore the power to try to create it, I had connected the dots. I had been doing that unwittingly every now and then, but now I was doing it ON PURPOSE. I started to learn how to control my thoughts, and therefore my emotions, so that I could consistently be happy under even stressful and trying circumstances.

The freedom to choose how we feel about any given situation is a freedom we all have. When someone says, “I can’t help the way I feel,” or “I can’t change the way I feel,” I wonder, “Really? You really can’t? Are you absolutely, positively sure about that?” It’s all good if the result is that you feel good, but if your thoughts and focus are making you feel bad, then wouldn’t you want to get good at changing them to ones that help you feel better and more in control of your happiness?

How you choose to think and feel about things determines how happy or miserable you are. Even when my husband and I were flat-ass broke and in the fast lane to bankruptcy, I never felt poor, that it was someone else’s fault, or that it was something I couldn’t change. I just figured, “Well, I’m going to get up every day anyway and help figure out how to get to the next best place regardless of whether I’m happy or miserable, so I might as well be happy while I’m doing it.”

All of the periods of my life have been amazing – each in their own, unique way, although I didn’t always realize it at the time. As I look back, though, I can see how the choices I made – good and bad – were each another brick in the foundation and design of my life’s maze. They made me who I am now and helped...