I often used to blame my unhappiness on my husband. He wasn’t doing things right, he was so forgetful, he made me feel unimportant. So I tried to get him to stop doing certain things, and do better at others. So I could finally feel good.
I’ve been seeing this same thing lately with my clients and other people I talk to. Because it’s what most of us have been taught:
We think we need to change the external things in order to feel happier inside ourselves.
We think that if the world around us would just change— like when we find the right spouse or get him to treat you right, or we get that lovely house, or more space, or figure out how to fix our hair better or reduce our wrinkles, or get our kids to behave better— we will finally feel better.
But trying to control these things is totally exhausting, and completely frustrating. Because our spouse doesn’t behave just how we want him to. And certainly our children don’t. My hair never does— maybe you have better luck there?
We just can’t control those things outside of us, no matter how hard we try.
But we keep trying because we are confused about where happiness comes from. We’ve never been shown that there’s another way. A way that actually leads to feeling good. About our selves, about our partner, about our children, and even how we look. About everything in our lives.
So... I’ll tell you! (If you scoff at first, like I did back in the day, try to suspend your disbelief and hear me out): Your happiness always comes from inside, from taking charge of your own inner world, your own mind.
What determines whether you feel good or not is never an outside circumstance. It is always about how your mind is interpreting that circumstance.
And you have dominion over your interpretations.
You have control over your own thoughts. (I know it may not feel like it, and that’s because you may have not been taught how yet. But you can learn.)
So stop blaming your unhappiness on things outside of you. Like your partner. Take back your power over how you feel and what you create in your life by taking charge of the one thing you actually have control over: your own self.
If you want some hints and concrete examples of this, here’s an older article I wrote about how I stopped the habit of blaming my husband for how I felt and took back my power to feel loving connection with him.
And if you are ready to feel way better in your relationship and life starting now, I’m here to show you how. Let’s talk about what that will look like for you.