Five Things I Never Say to My Kids, And What I Say Instead: #2

(These are being published one at a time. Go here for #3. Stay tuned tomorrow for the final installment! #1!)

#2 Be happy. 

I try really hard not to harp on happiness. 

“Happy” is so very American, something valued very highly in this country. It’s all at once perceived as a right – due to us – and a destination – absent until we earn it.

The truth is that Happy, as a feeling, is elusive and temporary. It comes and it goes and it just plain ole doesn’t stay for long. In fact, the tighter we hang onto its tail, the more aggressively it tries to get away. So that leaves us grappling after something that would have been pleased to come back on its own (after a short snack break) but that instead, intimidated by our obsession, lurks tentatively at a distance with its ears up and tail still soar. 

Poor thing.

Happiness can’t stand that we want to force it, control it, leash it.

To find out how this all applies to our kids, all we have to do is watch “Inside Out.” I’m sure you would agree that the take-away from the movie is this: Honor all your feels. I think the story nails it with what happens when kids (and adults) don’t honor all their feels. Riley shows us by shutting down. Her emotional control center CANNOT TAKE THE DENIAL. And so, it refuses to produce anything, feelanything. No good. (For those of you who haven’t seen it – don’t fret -  I promise the movie doesn’t end there)

Here’s what we get to say instead of “Be happy” to our kiddos: 

“Be well.”

People in many non-Western cultures have lots of practice with Wellness. I’m learning that wellness is understood and enacted within those cultures as completely separate from happiness... 

WHAT FREEDOM!

(To illustrate our culture’s predicament: how many of us experience unnecessary suffering simply because we repeatedly encounter the American-obsessed thought that we shouldfeel happy? If you could see me, you’d know I am raising my hand high). 

Wellness, after all, understands sadness and angry and confused and nervous and scared and upset and frustrated and disappointed and is all like, “Hi Sadness! Hi Angry! Hi Confused! Hi Nervous! Hi Scared! Hi Upset! Hi Frustrated! Hi Disappointed! Whazzup?” 

Wellness eats in a deeply impartial way from the emotion buffet. Remember how Riley’s childhood imaginary friend Bing Bong only settled from his grief at Riley having outgrown him once he sat down with Sadness?” 

When we promote Wellness, we get to show the Rileys in our lives how to appreciate the wild animal of Happiness when it comes in close for a nibble out of their hands and then peacefully release their attachment to it when the critter decides to move on for a while. 

That, my friends, is Well.