Taking a Chance on Happiness and Knowing We Deserve It

I like to tell the story of how I changed my mind about myself and what I deserved, and how that change almost brought me to my husband - or, rather, how it could lead him to me. On Craigslist.

But unlike fairy tales, we did not go straight to point A (a boy meets a girl sometimes in a shady website) to point out B (a boy marries a girl in the church he was baptized in and grew up in, across the street from his childhood home) and always happy.

We planned the suspension at the beginning. And it was all my fault.

You see, even though we hit it off a lot and immediately started sending emails, like, twelve times a day (seriously, I kept all one email and kept it all), I was never completely sold out.

I didn't think we had a chance to date. Or a poor person doing everything but skipping burning hooks to get the point that working days full of emails were just below what he expected, I caught him.

I paid close attention to her phone calls after work at night. You called me "Beautiful" as if it were my name, and I could just ignore you. There was a big old wall between us, and I was a builder.

Finally, after a month of nonsense, the truth hit me like a bus (funny, since I was sitting on the bus at the time).

I heard a voice ask, “What is your problem? You have everything you said you wanted and you fired! ”After looking around and making sure it wasn't weird to talk to me (you'll never know on the bus), I gave you that idea.

Oops. Yes, I was completely like that. I was removing everything with both hands.

This was another turning point in my life. Right there on the 36th bus route.

I explored the idea as I walked home that night. There was once a man in my life who was clearly interested in me, who obviously wanted to take our relationship to the worst level of love. There was no struggle, no game to play, no confusion, no chase (at least, not mine).

And we have a lot in common - our values, our religious and spiritual beliefs, our interests. Sure, there were differences too, but it is enough to keep things interesting, to keep us growing and learning from each other. Suffice it to give us endless navigation articles with multiple emails, of course.

As long as I was telling the truth, I too was totally addicted to talking to him. I was looking forward to every single email and would get angry if I didn’t hear from him right away. I had to go in and wish him a good night before going to work, and I had to check my inbox as soon as I got home to see if he was writing.

I was obviously beaten. But here I was, holding a poor boy about an arm's length, or trying so hard to get into my heart.

So what was my contract, anyway?

It was this: I was miserable with my life the way it was, but it was all I knew. That’s what I was so comfortable with. I hated being alone, but “being alone” was the only way I could know for the rest of my life.

I still needed to accept the fact that I should have loved you. No matter how much I told the world who I was, I needed to believe that there was someone out there who would like my wacky self as-is, no strings attached, no restrained grips, no weight loss required.

To put it bluntly: I had never known a man who needed to be transformed in some way to be considered an expert. This was a real challenge for my self-esteem.

I also needed a large shot of the liver. After all, I've been injured in the past - too many times to count.

And I had never been in a relationship with one of these guys. I could share my heart, but I wasn’t sharing my body. I had not shared my secrets.

They could not hear me sniffing in my sleep.

What if I start dating this person and we break up? How could I handle that, knowing that someone else out there knew everything about me? This was a whole new world, and I did not know how to go about it.

However, in all of this fear and doubt, there was a small voice in my heart that indicated that the simplest thing in the world would be to let go. To stop fighting it, which required a lot of effort rather than letting things take their natural course. To believe that I am lovable, as long as this man sees me as I am, and I hope he never hurts me.

And he never did.

I can see now that this way of thinking affects people in more ways than the example I have given here.

Most of the time we crave something, something new, something better, but when the opportunity arises, we may completely miss it or come up with a million reasons why it is not worth it.

We’re too busy, not smart enough, not lucky enough, or connected enough, we don’t have your money. And so on.

We let great, potentially life-changing opportunities pass us by because at the end of the day we don’t believe we deserve them or that we can handle them if we shoot them. Even if we seek them with all our heart.

It is not that we deceive ourselves with what we want. It is because we let fear become the deciding factor.

It takes a lot of work and self-awareness, but if we can identify these negative beliefs - all based on fear - we can work on being bold, on a daily basis.

Our job is to stop standing in our way. To give up our limited beliefs, stop wasting time and energy talking to ourselves about what we deserve so much - fulfillment, love, abundance, joy, peace. We simply open our arms and our hearts and accept the presence of something more, right there within us.

This is when things start to move and digest. I promise you.