The Art of Buying Yourself Flowers: Stop Outsourcing Your Joy and Start Creating Your Own Happiness

Recently, I have found myself getting caught up in deriving my happiness from the people closest to me. 

When it works, this can be lovely. 

When you are thoughtfully complimented by your significant other, receive a bouquet of sweet smelling flowers, or spend a blissful night camped out with your dear ones talking about

            stardust,

                        cosmic nebulas,

                                    your childhood memories,

                                                your dreams for the future,

                                                            how to become better people,

then life is grand.

However.

More often than not, when you have expectations of other people, they will let you down. This isn’t because people are bad and are not to be trusted with your precious heart. Rather, it is because people are human, with their own concerns, priorities, bad days, and forgetful moments. 

Let’s consider what this might look like. Perhaps you are excited to cook dinner with your partner and in your head beforehand, you dream up the perfect scenario, wine, romantic music, and blissed-out kitchen dancing included. However, when your person comes home, maybe they let the door slam and brush past you to change clothes with barely a muttered hello. Maybe something happened at work, or a negative phone call had been received, or they slept poorly last night.

I have often found myself trying to force the people in my life to behave in the ways in which I had hoped they would. I had planned a romantic cooking date, dammit! Be happy! Adore me! 

Here’s the thing darling:

You cannot control other people. 

Period.

But here is the other thing:

            You can control your own happiness.

Sure, if something doesn’t go your way, you might spend a minute feeling pissy and stomping around. Ultimately though, you need to take responsibility for how you are feeling and put yourself back into a state of feeling good.

Babe, stop outsourcing your joy.

Your joy is your own responsibility.

When I realized this truth and really stopped to recognize how often I was allowing other people’s moods and actions to dictate my emotional energy, I felt a little bit freaked out. Suddenly, the weight of my happiness could no longer be offloaded onto others; I had to stop blaming my family and friends for how I was feeling and behaving. This can be a big, scary revelation. Frankly, I didn’t know how to be in charge of my own happiness. How can I be okay when my best friend doesn’t respond to my important message for days? I was counting on her! How can I be okay when my roommate comes home too late for us to watch that movie together? I had a plan! Instead of getting upset and letting my attitude be soured and my day be ruined, I had to figure out how to feel good regardless.

For me, joy doesn’t mean that I am exuberantly jumping up and down; for me, joy is a much more stable, internal, and calm state of being. A state of gratitude. A state of contentedness.

Slowly wending my way down this path of self-discovery, I have begun to learn how to create a beautiful day for myself, regardless of what is happening around me. This is a facet of self-love. This is the art of buying yourself flowers. Mostly, I have found that they are simple things, the acts I do to keep myself joyful. 

I go to my favorite café to journal and people-watch.

I mediate or practice tapping (there is an abundance of legitimate research on EFT!).

I roll out my mat and do a yoga flow.

I write a gratitude list or send a thankful message.

I take a solo walk, headphones in, face upwards toward the sun.

And I always, always, buy myself flowers.

Why? Because I love the delicate, ephemeral nature of flowers and also because I love myself enough to bring things into my life that make my heart light up.

Darling, you don’t need other people to make you happy. This isn’t to say that others cannot be a source of joy; of course they can! However, you and I both need to remember that at the end of the day, we have the power to buy flowers for ourselves.

We have the power to create our own state of contented joy. 

            Love,

                        Lola

P.S. If you are looking for some more suggestions on how to lift your mood, try reading this: http://thegirlbecoming.blogspot.com/2018/07/40-ways-to-lift-your-mood.html