When happened my very first experience of sadness as a young girl, I thought to myself, “All I have to do is move on from this pain and I will be happy forever. I was born happy and happiness is my truth.” 

Yet , as I got older and experienced more hardships my view of happiness changed. I thought to myself. “Happiness does not come without a price.”, “Pain will always follow-up after the happiness.”

I had trained myself to wait for the ball to drop.

When real happiness came I did not believe that I would not suffer for it. Sure, wonderful things would happen, but shortly after, I made mistakes, missed the boat, found myself in holes surrounded by the darkness of my own fear.

Happiness was not everlasting.

I kept climbing to reach the top of the mountain and I would slide back down the mud fall.

That’s the way it was for a long time. Happiness = suffering.

Did I even deserve happiness?

Then it happened. I had a good day. That good day turned into the next, good day. Then the next.  I was getting suspicious. Over and over I enjoyed my happiness without a price. I looked around corners for my pain but saw non. I looked over my shoulders to catch pain tiptoeing behind me, but as my happiness grew nothing followed. Day after day no suffering came. Happiness stayed. And then more happiness came. And so I started to accept it. I could be truly happy, and not die from it.

I started to let my guard down. I started to dance in the happiness that was spiraling all around me. I started to think, “I deserve this happiness and I will share it with others.”

But why? Why was I not being reprimanded for my happiness?  Why did I not have to suffer the consequences for my good days? My life had not changed much at all. I hadn’t won a million dollars, become a famous actress or bought that yoga studio I’ve been dying to have. So why was my happiness all of a sudden without a price.

Maybe it’s this, just maybe it’s this; I started to make choices that suited my needs instead of being constantly agreeable and protecting the people around me from any kind of disappointment I may inflict upon them. I started to set boundaries on how much I wanted people to know about me and what I wanted to keep for myself. I started to allow myself to win and do what I want without worrying what could go wrong. I started to say to myself, “I’m doing this because it’s something that makes me happy, not because it’s something I have to do.”

And then I began to trust in the universe. The universe was telling me to soar, not bury myself in fear. The universe was telling me to be free, but not from anyone else, from the boundaries that my own mind would set. To understand that there are limitless possibilities and that I should stay in the moment to experience those possibilities.

I stopped seeking outside approval and started to do what I knew was best. Even when I had the approval and the praise from others, I would make sure that what I felt was most important. I severed the tentacles of pain from my body and started to observe it as scientist would a giant squid.  I had always seen these pains as lessons but I stopped letting the pain attach itself to me.

One day I looked back again.

I saw the universe was smiling. It was saying, you’re doing great, keep going. Experience your true nature, which is, and always will be, happiness.

Forever I dwell in the innate knowledge:

“I was born happy and happiness is my truth.’

Thoughts and observations by Christina Maldia

Namaste.