Are you resisting your own happiness and well-being without even realizing it? In this video, we explore why so many of us struggle to embrace joy and fulfillment despite deeply desiring them. Drawing from psychology, mindfulness, and self-care practices, we unpack:
🌟 The human tendency to avoid discomfort and chase fleeting pleasures
🌟 Common distractions like social media, emotional eating, and overworking
🌟 How acceptance and mindfulness can transform our patterns of resistance
🌟 Practical steps to embrace vulnerability, process old pain, and live authentically
Happiness isn’t about striving—it’s about accepting who you are and where you are, right now. Whether through shadow work, generational healing, or learning to relax into the present, this journey starts with small, intentional shifts in awareness.
Ready to take the next step?
✨ Reiki sessions to align your energy
✨ Mindfulness coaching to retrain your mind
✨ Therapeutic massage for relaxation and self-care
Your path to a more peaceful, empowered life begins here. Let’s discover it together. 💛
Full Transcript
Hi there, welcome to Awakening with Angela. The title of this video is asking the question, why am I resisting happiness and well-being? And that might sound like an odd question. And some of us might not even realize that we’re resisting happiness and well-being.
And the reason for this is that most people just want to be happy. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that in my career. People say, I just want to be happy.
Why can’t I just be happy? Or often people will say, I just want everyone to be happy. Why can’t everyone just get along? And the truth is that none of us can just be happy all the time. Our brains as humans are hardwired to seek pleasure and to avoid pain.
It’s just naturally how we are, and it’s part of our survival instincts. And in some ways in our culture, this has kind of gotten out of control because there’s so many opportunities to do something else besides just be as we are. And so anything that might lead us to feel uncomfortable in some way, we often have some kind of a distraction that we can put in the place of that discomfort.
That could be something like scrolling on social media, what people call doom scrolling, where you’re just kind of stuck there scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. And maybe there isn’t an awareness of, well, why did I begin this in the first place? And what is it that keeps me here? Even though often people will say that when they are doom scrolling, that they realize that they’re wasting time. They understand that they’re comparing themselves to other people and that they’re not feeling good about themselves, but somehow they just stay fixed in that behavior.
And it could also show up with how maybe we know that some exercise would be good for us, but we never make the time or the effort to even try to go for a walk or even to find just moments of not doing. Many of us are addicted to doing, and I think this is really the root of this is that we’re addicted to pleasure, even if the pleasure is something that is harmful to us if overused. And so this is why we have that extra cookie or bag of cookies, even though we know we’re probably not going to feel better after that.
And usually we’re not paying attention to what’s driving this behavior. And there’s many different ways that we could look at that, where perhaps someone is just so hungry and they don’t feel like cooking a nutritious meal. So they eat the cookies instead.
Or sometimes we do that because maybe we have some kind of stress in our lives, and so it just feels comforting to have this quick, easy, sweet treat. And so what’s really going on here is this resistance to happiness and well-being. Because if we were to really look honestly at what’s going on for an individual when they are driven away from what could be helpful to their lives, this means that we have to be vulnerable.
It means that we have to be honest with ourselves. We have to be willing to do the work of feeling and of considering, considering our body, considering our thought processes, being honest with ourselves about how are we looking at things. And there’s a lot to feel discomfort about in this world.
That’s the truth. That’s the honest truth. And there’s also a lot to feel discomfort about in being in a body.
That’s also the truth. And the absolute truth is that there’s no way of truly escaping this truth. We can try to cover it up and avoid our uncomfortable feelings or avoid people who make us feel uncomfortable, but often where that finds us is in a different kind of discomfort.
And so one thing leads to another and somehow you’re right back where you began or maybe it’s even worse. So, becoming mindful about our own experience, getting really honest with ourselves about the patterns of thinking, the patterns of behavior, the ways of being, the interactions that we’re allowing, the circumstances that we choose. This is the work.
Looking at these things honestly and kindly and choosing to actually reframe, rewire the mind and choose different options for ourselves. Look for solutions and also to make this brave movement towards proactive perseverance and to let go of the behavior that is all too common in our human experience for striving and what I would like to call efforting. There’s a real difference between efforting and perseverance.
If we’re efforting, we’re pushing against, we’re at odds with life, we’re at odds with our body, we’re at odds with our mind, we’re at odds with reality, but if there’s perseverance, perseverance, there is calculated knowing and it’s a steady movement of knowing that if I keep going, I’m going to get to a place that allows me to feel more me, that allows me to be so honest with myself and my life and my body that I can feel empowered. I can feel like what I’m doing is good enough instead of getting caught in so many different ideas and wants and needs and often looking at life from a perspective of why can’t I be happy? Why is everyone else happy? I don’t have the money I want, the job I want, the relationship I want. All of this, these examples are negative bias.
It’s just the way the mind is observing life because it’s wired to stay away from discomfort and to focus on pleasure. So it’s actually narrowly looking at life from this perspective that says it’s not enough. It’s not good enough.
And so the answer to actually coming to a place where you can feel like you’re enough and like life is enough for you, it has to do with acceptance. It comes right down to this very moment and just accepting that who you are right now is good enough. What you have for right now is good enough.
The body you have, the life you have, it can be accepted as good enough. And that doesn’t mean that we don’t get to decide that maybe we want to change something in our lives. It just means that we stop resisting where we are and who we are and we accept ourselves.
And we accept that life knows what it’s doing. That somehow, someway, we are always exactly where we need to be doing exactly what we need to be doing. And if you’re really to feel into that truth, it could not have been any other way.
Life is a series of happenings. We are confronted with the constant change that is life. And from that place, we are spontaneously moving through life.
And yes, we have free will and we have this ability to respond to life mindfully, kindly, compassionately. But often, we don’t allow ourselves the opportunity to take that choice. We allow ourselves to react from imbalanced emotions and from difficulties and pain.
And all too often, these reactions, it may be unconscious, but many of these emotional responses are actually coming from old pain. Unprocessed pain. Because we’ve been in such a habit of avoiding who we are and how we are and how we feel that we have decades of unprocessed pain.
And so, what I’m suggesting here is that we learn to turn towards our discomfort. And to be there for ourselves. To be a good friend to ourselves.
Rather than turning away from what we wish were different. And just honestly accept here and now and be with our lived experience. So that we might find our way, honestly, with a kind and persevering, productive presence into a body that you can feel proud of.
Into a life that can feel good enough. Into an awareness of your natural, basic goodness. And of being able to recognize the basic goodness in others.
And to see that it’s possible to put down our defenses and to see truly that everyone, me included, we’re just doing the best that we can with what we’ve been given. And it’s always enough. So, the information that I’ve shared with you today comes out of so many different perspectives.
We’re talking about psychology here. We’re talking about philosophy. We’re talking about inner engineering, mindfulness.
We’re talking about self-care, self-love. We’re talking about shadow work. We’re talking about generational trauma.
We’re talking about so many different things here. And this work is deep. And it’s beautiful.
And I promise it’s worth it. And if you’re interested in learning more about yourself and how you might find yourself to this more relaxed state of being, I would be very happy to help you. And if you go to my website and you look through the services and see that you can reach out and just have a massage.
And even that, you’re leaning into allowing yourself to be cared for, to feel better. And if you want to go into the deeper layers of understanding your energy and why it is so hard to make these choices, we could explore that in a Reiki session. And perhaps you want to get into learning how to train your mind and to understand mindfulness better.
And with that, we could do some coaching sessions. And wherever you are in your life, just know that the starting point to feeling better, to accepting and opening to happiness and well-being, it begins right here, right now. All that you need to do is shift your awareness into a place that says, I can be okay with this right now.
And allow yourself to relax and see the possibility of that. And the next thing is to receive whatever the next moment is, however it’s showing up for you with openness, kindness, and allowing a place that allows safety and honesty. I hope this information is helpful.
And I look forward to speaking with you soon. And also, I’m caring for you. It’s my privilege and honor to hold space for you.
Thank you for your kind attention today. Blessings.
