Have you ever noticed that moments of happiness are often short lived, while less enjoyable feelings like sadness or anger can last what might seem a lifetime?

I don’t see too many folks getting hung up on joyful events, whereas it seems more common for someone to dwell on an experience that brings grief, anger, resentment, or other emotional pain.

I’d never given it much thought until browsing the bookstore yesterday I happened across this intriguing title: Working On Yourself Doesn’t Work.

The authors share three principles to transforming your life, including that

• whatever we resist persists (we know that one well) 
• you can only be with what is right now (theme of allowing, being present, and no judgment, although I could be remembering this one wrong)
• and the third one I especially liked: Allowing yourself to be with it will complete it

With that third principle (which clients will recognize from the Tom Stone homework I often assign of feeling your feelings fully), the authors suggest releasing any agenda of getting rid of something, and rather letting yourself be with it fully.  Then whatever it is will complete.

They told a personal story that involved the experience of physical pain, but shared that we also see this with emotions as well.  Like how happiness is often fleeting, while sadness can last for weeks.  Or longer.

What’s gives?

The reason, they say, is that when we don’t let ourselves feel something or be fully present to what is, it will continue.  Conversely, when we do allow ourselves to feel it fully, it completes. 

(Whoa, thinking of the physical examples of orgasms vs. headaches.)

Anyway, since happiness is easy to feel fully, it completes faster than things like sadness or grief or anger which we might not be as willing to fully feel.

Interesting, huh?

Some of you have heard me tell the story about how I accidentally practiced this several yeras ago when my dog Sophie died at home: 

It was the first time one of my animals died at home when it was just the two of us.  Usually I’m either at the vet’s office, trying to keep it together.  Or the vet is at my house, and I’m trying to keep it together.  Or I’m with a (human) friend, trying to keep it together. 

This time there was no reason to keep it together.  After Sophie died at the front door, I walked to the back porch, sat down on the top step in the sun, hugged my knees to my chest, and let myself be sad.

I was REALLY sad.  I was so sad, I remember being in absolute awe of how sad I was.  I actually observed it with the thought, “Man, look how SAD I am!  I didn’t know anyone could BE this sad.  This is really sad!”

I felt it intensely; it was the saddest I’ve ever been. 

For about four minutes.

And then it was gone.

Just that like that.

There was no more sadness.  Instead, just peace.

It was really bizarre – and cool – that the sadness could be that strong, without being overwhelming.  And then be gone, just as fast as it came.

When I ran across Tom Stone’s “feeling fully” work a few years later, I realized that’s what I had accidentally practiced that day on the back porch.  I let myself feel the sadness all the way.

And when we do that, it completes pretty quickly.

I thought it was a useful awareness when it sometimes seems like happiness can be so fleeting while other feelings seem to drag on forever.  This seems like a pretty good key as to why that’s the case, and how we could work with it differently if we wanted to.

Anyone else have experience with this? 

Ha – or does anyone have any experience with resisting happiness to make it last longer?  (I’m not sure I even want to attempt that experiment.)

Yesterday I had the rare treat of sharing lunch with dad and brother at the same table.  How fun!

We went to Macaroni Grill and I ordered the warm spinach salad.  (With garlic and goat cheese – mm mm!!)

But I only ate half to save room for dessert: “rich chocolate cake topped with homemade ganache and pecan pieces” with chilled whipping cream on the side.  Seriously, the description doesn’t do it justice – it’s delish!

Dad orders some lemon cake thing that sounds good, but I know he’s gonna wish he had chocolate.

My brother doesn’t order dessert; I’m thinking it’s because he’s happy to share ours.

The fabulous waitress brings two desserts and three forks and I can hardly believe how mouth-watering the cake looks. 

(I’m such a smart girl to have only eaten half my salad!  And what was dad thinking?!  Lemon?  Sure it’s good, but compared to chocolate?!  Oh my.  Rookie move, dad.)

Dad and I offer to share with brother, but he fends off yet another invitation by responding with a finger pointed to my cake, as if it were poison straight from the devil, “This is 1,000 calories” and pointing to dad’s, “That’s 200.”

For a moment my head spun.

He knows the calorie counts?!  That’s bad enough.  Even worse: he cares?!   

It spins even more when it registers: wait, this cake is a thousand calories?  Oh, that sounds like a lot.

Who brainwashed my brother into believing chocolate cake or 1,000 calories are bad things?!  Did his skinny wife trick him into not enjoying food any more?!

Apparently so.  He’s not having even a single bite.  He’s for real.

Did he die and go to hell?

Or maybe is an alien?

Or … was my brother the only smart one at the table?

Maybe I was a bad influence, running amok in life.

His wife is very thin, even after five kids.  Is that how she does it?

I thought about it today as I finished the rest of my (now deliciously cold) spinach salad.  (He was right that it would keep well.)  I realized that chocolate cake was important enough to me that even if 1,000 calories were a bad thing – I’m on board.

But it made me wonder, what am I vibrating that I can share a table with someone who judges 1,000 calories and deprives himself of the pleasure of chocolate cake?  (Or even lemon cake, if chocolate doesn’t float his boat.)

Which, I will say, dad did eat half the chocolate cake.  Told you so.

We know how this works – if I see it in another, that means I’ve got it in me.  And if I’m depriving myself of life’s pleasures, I want to know about it!   

It made me think of Abraham’s track the other day about how if you’re surrounded by needy people, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re needy, too, but that you do have needy activated somehow.  Maybe it’s that you strongly don’t want to be around needy people.  Either way, somehow needy is activated in you.

So, what was I sensing at the lunch table?  Judging and deprivation.  How might I be flowing that? 

And if to you that sounded wise and willpowery, that just goes to show we don’t have the same vibes flowing.  Or the same taste in dessert.

Easy answer once I looked: I was judging someone who seemed to be depriving life pleasure.

Enjoyment is one of my core values.  There’s not a dog’s head I’m not gonna scratch when I pass by, or a single great song I’m not singing out loud when I feel the urge, nor a fabulous rain storm that doesn’t make me say, “gosh, what a gorgeous day!” when I skip out to check the mail.

Which means I’m likely gonna get wet, I might get fat (if I believe in 1,000 calories) and I’m certainly going to embarrass myself singing out loud.

My tombstone should maybe read: “She loved life!”  If it says that, I went to my grave a happy girl.

So instead of judging my brother as the poor guy who doesn’t let himself enjoy 1,000 calorie cake, I’m going to practice some live and let live. 

Like Abraham says, life’s a buffet.  We’re not all gonna do it the same way, and we’ll enjoy it way more when we don’t blame others for their choices.

So he’s not wrong for skipping dessert; the terrorists aren’t wrong for blowing up buildings; the child molesters aren’t wrong for .. dang, that one trips me up every time. 

But I get the gist and I see my chance.  To love life even more by letting others do it their way.  There’s no right, no wrong … just more cake for me. 

Here are three nuggets of wisdom from Mike Dooley’s Playing the Matrix workshop in Salt Lake last weekend:

1. Leverage details but don’t attach to them
Much of Mike’s material encourages deliberate creators to focus on specific details of the end result we’re manifesting. 

But he makes an important distinction in that we don’t focus on those details in order to create those particular results.  Rather we just use them to get in the feeling of what we want.  That’s the only way those details are helpful. 

In Mike’s words, “The details are visualized to get you excited about your end results, not to be your end results.”

If we get hung up on a particular job, or person, or weight, that’s when the details don’t serve us.  But we can imagine those details since they’re often helpful for creating the feeling state of what we want.  Just don’t lose sight of the big picture.

2. Things will still look weird
Evidence of progress toward our success is often easy to miss.  Mike specifically said, “… the miracles of progress are usually invisible.”

So you can’t really say, “It isn’t happening.”  Because just like on a cross country road trip – you could be 24 hours away from your final destination, and things could still look really weird.  Doesn’t mean you’re not almost there.

So don’t worry if things aren’t looking like you thought they would.  It doesn’t mean you’re not making progress.

3. Why believe in limiting beliefs?

That wasn’t exactly the way Mike said it, but it was clear he does not invest much (if any) time exploring and resolving internal limiting beliefs.

Instead Mike believes that by taking action you automatically navigate around limiting beliefs.

I sure haven’t practiced that personally, but I’m willing to play with that idea!

There’s actually lots more to share with you, but I’ll save it for later! 

(If you’re interested in getting your hands on Mike’s material directly, here’s an affiliate link for that.)

In the meantime, I’d love to hear your thoughts on anything here that sparks your interest!

Clients and Good Vibe U members have heard this story, but it was a good reminder of how ridiculous it is to rely on action to get what we want.  So I’m telling it one more time.

(Then I’m done talking about it, because this is not the story I’d like a repeat of.)

Backstory: When you’ve got a lot of animals in the house, it’s crucial to keep up on maintenance if you don’t want it to smell like a farm or a zoo.  (No offense to farms or zoos.)  So if I sound neurotic, it’s only because I have a zillion animals (as my boyrfriend says) and a nice house. 

So when pit bull Joe left a big doo-doo on my favorite rug, I was not happy. 

After all, he’s an adult and he’s supposed to be house-trained!  He’s old enough to know to take advantage of a potty break, and certainly old enough to hold it for an hour until someone gets home! 

Ridiculous!  (In a very wrong way.)

Anyway, it was not easy cleanup, so it felt like time to call in the professional.

Ned at Abacus Cleaners knows the routine well (he’s been my guy for over a decade) and popped over to do his magic on all the carpets and rugs. 

Before 24 hours had passed, Joe did it AGAIN.

He left another doo-doo on the same rug, in the same spot, and just as hard to clean up.  (You fellow dog owners know what I’m talking about, right?)

This shouldn’t even happen once a year, and here it was happening twice in 24 hours?!

I was … not happy, to put it mildly. 

After I fumed about it, I realized Joe practically had to go on the rug again because I was flowing such huge resistance about it.

I mean, pretend you’re Universe and all you hear from Jeannette is “blankety blank poop on the blankety blank rug from blankety blank dog.”  If you’re Universe, you gotta figure out how to get more poop on the rug.

The poor dog didn’t have a chance with the vibe I was flowing: HUGE resistance to poop on my floor.

That was the story I told the client who really really didn’t want to experience another breakup, and the other client who really really didn’t want to have to travel for work (she wants to stay local so she can get a DOG, believe it or not!), and the other one who really really didn’t want to go broke. 

Yeah, let me tell you how that works out … 

… it doesn’t.

The resistance is a magnet for it.

We all know this. I’ve written about it before and probably will again.  Because until we get it figured out, the reminders keep coming.

So our opportunity is to make peace with doo-doo on rugs.  And breakups, and going broke, and jobs that suck.

Not because we give up wanting it to be different, or thinking it could be different – but because as long as we need it to be different it can’t be. 

And all the action in the world I can think of to take cannot override my vibe of resistance. 

But seriously …

Peace with poop?  Really?

Yeah, really.  Unless I want more.

That’s my homework this week.

What’s yours?