#85: The Final Episode by Practical Tips for Day to Day Happiness with Annika Erickson-Pearson

You can actually help the world. In a very real way.

A few months ago, I was re-reading one of my favorite books, A Return to Love, when a line stood out to me. She wrote, "Angry people cannot create a more peaceful world."

Angry people cannot create a more peaceful world.

And let's pause for a second here. Anger is often rooted in oppression, and I am writing from a place of immense privilege. So, my white and straight and economically-advantaged and able-bodied friends, this one is for y'all. 

If you want to create a more peaceful world, it starts by doing the work on yourself. This is work like:

Clearing judgments of yourself and the people around you. If you are judging them, you do not have time to love them.

Removing your self-doubt and laying a foundation for self-respect so that you can move into the world and actually do things.

Filling your own cup so that you can turn around and be sincerely generous with the world around you.

Yeah. Do those things. That's a part of your contribution to world peace. 

And we all know that I have many podcasts over the past three years that go into a lot of depth and detail on those topics. So, dig them up, and show up. The world needs you to be your best you. 

Sound good?

Ready, break.

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What job should you take?

In my experience as a millennial (and in particular, a white, middle-class millennial with a lot of privilege), I've heard a lot of messages about how I deserve to be paid to follow my passion. 

We live in a time of the startup, of the hustle, of the grind. And we also live in a time where we (millennials) will change jobs 7+ times over the course of a career. Are we hustling and grinding and changing it up in search of the perfect job? Should we be paid to follow our passion?

In this week's podcast, I explore this question and share some stories about what it really felt like for me to be paid to follow my passion full-time. I'm not trying to make a prescription for you, but rather offer a different way of thinking about what we want and need out of a job. 

So dig in. Forward to someone who needs some perspective.

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Meditation is important.

I think most of us have heard that message at some point in our lives.

Some days it seems like half the articles I read about ~successful people~ include a nod to their meditation practice. My teachers not only cite meditation as important, but as one of the transformational tools that allowed them to live a deeper, fuller, more vibrant life.

So we get the point: meditation is important. But how do you do it?

Well. I don't have a lot of answers. For one, meditation is an important part of many traditions and cultures, and I am neither a scholar nor a spiritual leader. I have no interest in claiming to teach the world to meditate.

What I can share is my own experiences with meditation.

I've tried many different kinds... guided, spiritual, musical, walking. You name it, I've tried it. And for a year, nothing really connected.

In this week's podcast, I walk you through my path of finding the meditation practice that works for me. I also discuss my thoughts on what meditation is and what it isn't, particularly in my own life.

The key? If you want to find a meditation practice that works for you, you must... meditate. You won't learn French if you just read textbooks about the theory of the language. You must speak it. Similarly, you must try to meditate.

(Links on my website.)

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I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.

E. B. White

Same.

To achieve or to enjoy? To work or to play? To create or to savor?

And right, I hear you "but my work is play!" people. Sometimes work is work. And sometimes we just have to go out dancing, or play in the park.

How do we decide which to do? Do we have to pick sides?

Well... I like to think of the achievement v. enjoyment paradox more like a polarity. It's not a problem we solve, but rather a relationship we manage over time. We can set up our lives to better listen to ourselves so we know when to be in achiever mode, and when to be in enjoyment mode.

And that's what we discuss on the podcast this week. Listen now.

[As I mentioned in the podcast, I made a list of all of my 2018 New Year's resolutions. (here: http://annikaep.com/blog/new-years-resolutions/) And then my coach had me group them into "buckets" -- creation & expression, intellect & learning, beauty, etc. The buckets help me understand which direction to steer my ship, particularly when I start to sense that something feels off in my life. I look at the list, figure out a bucket I may be neglecting, and try something over there.

If you want to try this method, I recommend first getting yourself nice and inspired and making a list that makes you happy and excited. Move randomly, quickly. Then, and only then, review your list and see if you can break things down into buckets. If you started with buckets, you might have limited yourself.]

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This podcast wouldn't exist.

If I let the answer to the question, "but what will they think?" govern my life, this podcast wouldn't exist. 

A few years ago, it came to me that it was probably time for me to start sharing all of the things I'd been learning over the years about spirituality and personal growth. But I also had an image of myself as "intellectual" and "ambitious," and was terrified that the people around me would look down on me for doing something so "soft" or "woo-woo." 

I was paralyzed by the fear of their judgment. Sound familiar to anyone?

It wasn't until I finally came out with it, and started doing all of this (in a very public way, I might add), that the ideas started flowing to me and I found my groove. In short, I had to first get into the water to learn how to swim. 

So this week's episode is about validation. Why is craving the validation of people around you bad for your life?

Well, for starters, it dulls your creative problem-solving capacity. If you are constantly seeking to fit into the box that other people have made for you, you are probably going to make some very boring stuff. Sometimes it takes moving to France, away from the people and life you know to become the best version of your artistic self. 

Second, nothing anyone says will ever fill the void. If someone approves of you, or gives you a compliment, it's going to feel so good... for 4 hours until you start craving it and need another hit. Validation is a drug. It's a bottomless pit that will never actually satisfy you.

Two important things:

1. This conversation sits on privilege. Women, people of color, LGBT individuals, immigrants, persons with disabilities, etc. do not always have the privilege of marching to the beat of their own drummer. We discuss this at length in the podcast.

2. So you listened to the podcast and now want to learn how to seek validation within? Great. Listen to this episode on self-worth and enoughness (http://annikaep.com/blog/self-worth-and-enoughness/). And then listen to this one called you're already at the party, now what? (http://annikaep.com/blog/the-inner-work-youre-already-at-the-party-now-what/)

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Have you ever felt that insane I-miss-you-all-the-time-and-can't-stop-thinking-about-you feeling?

Yeah, me too.

When you first start seeing someone you really like, it's like you temporarily lose your mind every time they take more than 5 minutes to text you back. You want to be around them all the time. You feel more powerful, and the world becomes a less-terrifying version of itself. 

You love this person, right? That's what that is... right? 

Um. Well, not really. 

Okay but what about that feeling when someone becomes a part of your story? You've been around one another for long enough to have learned the quirks and intricacies of your personalities. You are companions through life, sharing space and time together.

Now, that's love... right?

Again, not quite. 

We have a problem in American English. We use the word love to describe too many things. We love coffee, and we love our partners. We love Queer Eye, and we love our families. And then we get confused, watching movies where that "I'm on drugs because we're together!!!!" feeling is love. And then we talk to older couples who say that long-term companionship is love. Of course we are confused. We are overloaded.

So how do we know what the right definition of love is?

I happen to believe that there is no black/white concept. I might subscribe to one idea, and you may to another. The important thing is that we are clear for ourselves and can communicate to the people around us what we believe in.

So today's episode is an exploration in expanding the lexicon of love. 

I talk about the psychology of falling in love, a concept called cathexis, and offer an interpretation of what love is, based on the teachings of M. Scott Peck. The whole idea is to get you thinking about these things in a new way, so you can come out of your internal-hurt-bubble-of-fear, and move with courage and compassion in your relationships.

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