Stacey Yates Sellar - Once Upon an Old Story

IgnIte happIneSS / 37

StaCeY YateS Sellar

“You’ll find happiness when you stop being the victim of your old story and become the hero of your new one.”

Come on a journey with me to release the stories and beliefs that no longer serve you. They only hold you back from venturing out into the exciting unknown.

once Upon An old Story

Every Tuesday evening at 5:00 PM for a year, I would drive a few blocks from my office to sit on the edge of a faded red velvet couch, some ugly mismatched orange and brownish pillows at my sides. A large floral-print Kleenex™ box sat patiently on the small wooden coffee table in front of me. Another sat on a glass side table between the couch and a small window that hadn’t been opened in years. Dr. Julia, my therapist du jour, always made sure there was plenty of Kleenex ready for me.

I had an on-again off-again relationship with therapy since I was a teen, trying to solve the one problem that had kept me from being successful, famous, talented, confident, stunning, rich, and happy. I couldn’t believe I was back on another couch, still searching for the cure 20 years later.

She sat across from me, legs crossed, with a sharp number two pencil sitting gently between her fingers, at the ready to document something profound — or telling — on her yellow legal pad. I thought it was interesting that she used a pencil, as if she could record and then erase what I said. And if she erased it, did it mean that it didn’t happen? Or that it wasn’t important?

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On this day, 18 minutes into this session, she was going to put her pencil down and say something that would change my life.

First, let me take you back in time to a dusty farm in northern California. My parents took us all to the house of a friend of a friend who had made a custom ‘haunted house.’ As my cousin and I crawled our way through the dark, small, cramped maze, we laughed when a fake claw tried to grab our legs from a hole in the wall. The design of the narrow corridors successfully made our slight 12-year-old frames feel Alice-In-Wonderland big. We maneuvered our way through hallways that seemed like a string of large cardboard boxes but made of plywood, twisting and turning, surprised by strobe lights around one corner, a fog machine in the next, and another arm reaching out to grab us beyond the fog. We scraped our knees as we made our way up a makeshift ramp and came upon my 3-year-old cousin Peter at a dead end. We had all gone into the maze two at a time, yet my younger sister, his ‘maze buddy’, was not with him. Because there was nowhere my sister could have gone without running into us, as we were behind her, finding him alone was the scariest part of the feeble haunted house so far.

Just as we approached and asked Peter where cousin Kimmie was, a hidden door barely big enough for the three of us to crawl through opened. We were amused that they had decorated the walls of this miniature hallway with tiny antique photo frames and faded Victorian wallpaper. But eight feet into this passage, there was another dead end. As little Peter and my other cousin bumped up behind me, the door we had just come through slid shut. There was no way back and no way forward.

Peter began to cry and I could immediately feel the air getting thinner. I had a quick thought that, “Of course we aren’t trapped; I just need to find the trick door in front of me.” When it didn’t appear, my neck stiffened and my mouth felt like I had just eaten a pack of cotton balls. Whatever the temperature was when we entered, it had just gone up by 20 degrees. The light was faint, but I could clearly see the fearful face of my young cousin, his tears streaming down his cheeks as his loudening cries expressed the panic we were all beginning to feel. There was no way to adjust our positions in the tiny space, but I tried to put my hand on his back, getting moist with sweat. I banged on the wall in front of me and yelled, “Help! How do we get out of here?!”

Just then, a deep voice came into the confined space through a hidden speaker. “Is everyone OK in there?”

“No! We are trapped in this tiny hallway, the doors on both ends are closed,

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and we can’t get out!” I tried to temper my anxiety so as to not add any more to the rising tide.

I banged on the wall ahead of me so hard that I am surprised I didn’t break through the cheap plywood. Peter’s cries got louder and the feeling that his tears were taking up valuable space in the shrinking room added frustration to my escalating fear.

“We hear crying, so we want to make sure everyone is OK,” the mysterious male voice piped in again.

“No, we aren’t OK. He is crying because we can’t get out! How do we get out?!” My tempered fear was not so tempered anymore.

“But is he hurt?” The mysterious voice asked with less concern than I would have expected in this circumstance. If I had been a swearing kid, I would have let loose worse than a sailor who had just gotten their arm bitten by a shark.

I screamed, “He just wants to get out. How do we get out?!”

Anxiety, crying, frustration, and anger filled the pseudo-hallway like water rushing into a room with no exit. Fear replaced blood and it pumped through every vein. At the peak of both flight and fight, the floor opened up beneath us and we fell six feet down into a pile of soft foam blocks.

My mom came running into the room, laughing, and swooped up the little cousin who had stopped crying but wasn’t sure what had just happened. She looked at him and said, “Wasn’t that fun? You’re OK, sweetie, that was a fun ride.”

She carried him into the control room that was just beyond the foam pit and sat him down in front of a small black and white TV monitor that could see into the maze of mini halls. She sat next to a man who must have been the mystery voice. He shot me a big wasn’t-that-awesome smile. My other cousin dusted off her pants and ran on to the last section of the haunted house apparently unphased.

I stood up, light-headed and confused. I felt an odd sensation. What I didn’t know then, but came to realize many years later, was that it was the feeling of debilitating anxiety seeping into my neural pathways like a milkshake spilled onto a keyboard. This was the starting gun of a lifelong uphill marathon with no end in sight. This would be the protagonist of my story for years to come.

Anxiety crept into my life slowly — and then quickly — over the next 10 years until daily panic attacks made me too afraid to leave my apartment. I couldn’t go beyond my front door for six months. Anxiety consumed my life. If I could have had the parasite of panic surgically extracted with a butter knife and no anesthesia, I would have done it myself. I knew that if I could just stop

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the torture of the panic attacks (and maybe stop eating so many cupcakes), I would be happy.

But that’s the problem with happiness. It is conditional; destinational — “If I can just get to _______, then I will be happy.” That was the story I kept telling myself.

Other stories about happiness were being written into the margins of my life story as well. I knew they were there, but it was as if the words were written in invisible ink and they weren’t as obvious as the panic. If the story about anxiety was a horror, the story about happiness was a fairy tale.

Chapter one: Happiness comes from ‘nice’ things. It wasn’t stitched into a sampler or calligraphed on a sign above any doors in our home. It was my interpretation from living in a big house complete with a pool, tennis court, and horse barn; having fancy cars, and only wearing name-brand clothing. [reference: big castle, glittery carriage, fancy ball gown, glass slippers]. Dad always warned, “You get what you pay for; get the best.”

Chapter two: Giving and receiving gifts will make others happy [reference: fairy godmother, aforementioned luxuries]. If happiness was the commodity, gifts were the currency. My mom’s subliminal messaging was, “More was better” — if one chocolate made you happy, then a whole bag of chocolates would make you happier.

Chapter three: Making other people happy was more important than our own happiness, even if that meant we had to suffer. [reference: every Disney® heroine willing to give up her own life for love moments before the beast/prince/ sister dies] My mom was that mom who would selflessly wait until everyone else had eaten before she served herself; giving up her comfortable seat, her warm coat, her last bite, her only spare minute to make other people happy. To worry about and even take responsibility for other people’s happiness was so incessant that it became ingrained into my genetic code.

My teens and twenties were spent traveling through an allegorical dark forest chased by an evil nemesis called panic, seeking a happiness worthy of cartoon bluebirds landing on my shoulder during musical interludes. I sought figurative glass slippers from abusive boyfriends (a string of princes arriving on high horses rather than white ones). Relationships with them gave me false purpose as I tried to buy them a way out of their own poorly written stories. Unconsciously, I sacrificed my self-worth, my dignity, and my trust fund to buy their love and my consequential happiness. ‘Nice things’ drained my bank account and my exhaustive efforts to make other people happy offered pathetic returns on both financial and emotional investment. I didn’t know who I was

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or where I belonged. I was stuck in the quicksand of anxiety, uncertainty, and insecurity. I was mummified in the duct tape of doubt and blind to my value and worthiness. Each mistake, rejection, and humiliation I suffered added another layer of tape, a little less air, and no hint of happiness.

I spent the next 20 years chasing happiness with the help of an extensive cast of characters and via a myriad of means, including therapists, spiritual practices, self-help books, medications, 12-step meetings, a dabble in white magic, personal development workshops, psychics, acupuncturists, hypnotherapists, past life regressionists, hair stylists, and even a soul retrievalist. Although I never came upon a genie in a bottle, I did come out on the other side of the forest with the anxiety tamed and a real ‘prince charming’ (whom I married in a castle in Scotland — insert wink emoji). We have the big house, fancy cars, two beautiful children, and way more ‘nice things’ than we need.

And they lived happily ever after. Record screech… Not yet.

There was still something missing. The subtitles didn’t match the story. There was another audiobook on constant repeat in my head. It was a story of a heroine who was still held captive by anxiety, blame, and old beliefs about how happiness comes from ‘nice things’, more is better, and being responsible for other people’s happiness.

Let’s go back to the scene on the couch in Dr. Julia’s therapy office. I was not actually crying about my own suffering this time. I went into an 18-minute monologue lamenting about how worried I was about my parents, their relationship, their lack of happiness, and all the tactics I had tried to help rekindle their 50-year marriage gone stale. They had grown apart, but the deep need and responsibility to help them be happier has always been an unspoken, yet understood, part of our family obligation. I shed tears for their individual pain and the pain it was causing my siblings.

Dr. Julia cocked her head in confusion and asked, “Aren’t your parents on a four-week cruise around the Greek isles? Have they said they are suffering? Why are you the one crying on a couch about their unhappiness?”

That question hung in the air like a 3-day-old helium balloon slowly being pulled to the floor by gravity. In my head, all my manic beliefs about happiness paused for the answer. My face flushed, my neck felt stiff, and my breathing began to quicken. I wasn’t sure if I was having a panic attack or if 35 years of illusions were cracking open… or both.

“Well… because I love them, and I don’t want them to hurt. I want them to be happy,” I responded with a tone of obviousness.

She leaned toward me and spoke slowly, as if she was speaking a language

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I didn’t understand, “You do know that you can’t feel enough love or pain to relieve someone else of their suffering, right?” Clearly, I did not. “You can’t want them to be happy more than they want it for themselves.”

With a rather annoying hint of don’t-you-see-how-crazy-this-is, she continued, “Everyone has to do their own work on happiness. And that time you spend worrying about other people is valuable time you could be spending healing and improving yourself. Then when they see how far you have come, they may ask what you are doing and then you can share it with them.” (Like… in an Ignite book many years later.)

Always known for being very talkative, I got quiet. I have spent the last 10 years studying intensely. I meditated. I listened. I journaled. I studied some more. With a full-time job and two boys under the age of six, studying became my side hustle late into the nights. I earned certifications in Applied Positive Psychology, Positive Psychology Coaching, and Conscious Parenting Coaching. I learned so much, but most importantly, I learned the power of being either a slave or master to our thoughts. It is not events that define who we are; rather, it is our thoughts about those events that define and direct our lives. When we repeat a thought enough times, it becomes a belief. Unfortunately, we are wired biologically and conditioned socially to build up an arsenal of negative beliefs. The negativity we carry about every moment in our life — and about ourselves in those moments — is what leads to unhappiness. And that becomes our story.

The stories we create about beauty, money, health, respect, love, marriage, education, God, parenting, and literally everything around us, even happiness itself, come from our society, our family, our religion, and especially great product marketing. Those stories are all powerful, like Oz, until we pull back the curtain and see those stories are just an illusion. Happiness isn’t found in anything or anyone outside of ourselves, and neither is unhappiness. It finally sank in that neither hero nor villain was coming for me. As long as I kept searching for the Disney ending or blaming anyone for causing my suffering, I would stay an unsatisfied victim. I learned how to deepen gratitude and focus on what’s good. I became maniacally aware of my thoughts and my stories, and consciously held back my habitually triggered responses.

Stripped of fairy-tale fallacies, happiness was a naked word void of a solid definition for me. It took 30 years of research and 50 years of experience to bring me to the conclusion that happiness is simply an expression of inner peace. Sometimes it manifests as joy, sometimes pride, sometimes awe; often in laughter. It is a sense of worth regardless of external approval and confidence that is needless of an award, degree, or certification. It is a knowing

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that you are having a human experience with a range of human emotions, and that you can survive — even thrive — through the worst ones. Happiness is not the absence of challenges but rather what you feel when you can convert grief into growth and pain into power. Happiness is not the binary opposite to unhappiness but rather a deep, internal optimistic essence. While we can enjoy ‘nice things,’ happiness never comes from them; it is blind to money. If suffering is being attached to unmet expectations, then happiness is being attached to nothing. Happiness knows that success is capricious and has fickle meanings, and so is not dependent on it. It denies denial and rejects rejection. Happiness enjoys the process, not the perfection, without engaging judgment of the self or others. Because the past and the future are an illusion; happiness is being grateful in the present moment. It does not come from loving another or being loved by one (or a million and one). It is instead a manifestation of how much you love yourself.

There is no ‘happily ever after’ when we search for happiness because whatever you find outside of yourself will never be enough. The truth is, happiness isn’t about enough of anything other than feeling that YOU are enough. I found happiness when I exchanged my volumes of victim-led stories with one simple short story: “I am enough.”

IgnIte ActIon StepS 1. Make a conscious choice that you no longer want to be a victim. You truly can’t move forward without this step. This is the ability to look back on everything that you thought was done TO you and see that it happened FOR you. Now that you know, you can’t unknow.

2. Smoke out the old stories. If you TRULY want to move from where you are now, you must pause (stop doing so much and being so busy), get quiet (literally stop talking so much), and listen (really hear the voice in your head). With no distractions, get a clean new journal and write down all the negative beliefs, judgments, and stories that repeat in your head. Take note of who and what you blame. Any justification that begins with ‘Because she/he/they/it’ carries blame. Write it down.

Spend a few days carrying this awakened consciousness journal around and every time you have a negative thought about yourself, someone else, or a situation, write it down. Become AWARE. You will not find happiness if you are asleep.

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3. Bring in the new story. I believe 100 percent that visualizing and vision boarding my happiness supercharged my dreams and manifested them into reality. I was able to achieve all of the material ‘nice things,’ but they don’t mean anything (I promise). The real key to a vision board that results in greater happiness is building it around the FEELINGS you want to feel. Find pictures in magazines or online that represent how you will feel when you are living the life of your dreams one to three years from now. Don’t put a Mercedes on the board because it reflects success or status; nor a fit body or wedding ring because those will make you happy if you manifest them. When you align with an authentic state of happiness, those material possessions and socially-driven markers of success truly do not mean what you thought they would.

When you have made your board, post a picture of it and tag me IG/@ happierbyminute or FB/happierbytheminute to proclaim your vision! #yougotthis #happierispossible

4. Do the work. One journal plus vision board will not create lifelong change. It takes work. There are a myriad of ways to work on letting go of distorted past stories, anchoring lies, and unserving beliefs. (I know; I have tried most of them.) A few practices that are well-known to ignite change are: meditation (I like Transcendental Meditation), online courses (The Year of The Awakened Heart with Dr. Shefali), a Positive Psychology Course (free online from Yale University), a coach (happierbytheminute.com), a therapist, exercise, yoga, hypnosis, or books (look for books about awakening consciousness). Pick one (or all) and start today! One last reminder: You are the sum of the five people you spend the most time with, so find a positive tribe of friends and let the rest go.

5. I am good enough. I am worthy. Take the following page of affirmation cards and put/tape/glue/cement them around where you will see them frequently throughout the day. This could be your nightstand, bathroom mirror, car dashboard, or your refrigerator. Repeat these short stories often to yourself and your children!

Stacey Sellar – United States of America Happiness Hacker, Child Whisperer, Conscious Parenting Coach happierbytheminute.com

I AM GOOD ENOUGH!

I AM GOOD ENOUGH!

I AM GOOD ENOUGH!

I AM GOOD ENOUGH!

I AM GOOD ENOUGH!

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I AM GOOD ENOUGH! I AM GOOD ENOUGH!

I AM GOOD ENOUGH! I AM GOOD ENOUGH!

I AM GOOD ENOUGH! I AM GOOD ENOUGH!

I AM GOOD ENOUGH! I AM GOOD ENOUGH!

I AM GOOD ENOUGH! I AM GOOD ENOUGH!

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I AM WORTHY! I AM WORTHY! I AM WORTHY!

I AM WORTHY! I AM WORTHY! I AM WORTHY!

I AM WORTHY! I AM WORTHY! I AM WORTHY!

I AM WORTHY! I AM WORTHY! I AM WORTHY!

I AM WORTHY! I AM WORTHY! I AM WORTHY!

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