Archived Lunations:
The Purpose of Unhappiness
Full Moon
November 24, 2007
1 Gemini 55’
“But I’m not living because I’m not failing,” DG recently declared. “I’m staying safe and still, the still that brings you day by day closer to the end. [It’s] time to fail.”
That’s it! She hit it! We have to be willing to fail so that we can live. Otherwise we end up trying to preserve circumstances that are really dead for us.
If you are in a situation that you are not happy with, it could be that you are not willing to admit that you are in failed or flawed circumstances. Not wanting to admit error or failure, you allow yourself to continue to live in those circumstances. You may complain, but you do not plan to do anything different. Wanting to demonstrate success, you cannot admit failure.
This may be a big part of the answer to the question, “If he beats you, why don’t you leave him?” The answer to the question might be “Because somebody sees me as a success–I am married.” Or more to the point, “I thought that being married meant my success. I thought it meant that I found the man who loves and values me and I simply can’t admit that that is not the way it really is. I would rather look like a woman who is loved to the outside world than to give evidence that not only am I not loved, cared for and treasured. I am abused and discounted.”
We are, as Marion Woodman, Jungian Analyst puts it in the title of her book, Addicted to Perfection and this addiction makes us slave to the forms that are supposed to bring us happiness, and makes us unwilling to re-examine those forms when we feel empty despite having them in place.
This Full Moon is the opportunity to address this by Understanding Unhappiness, and welcoming, not denying her message.
The purpose of unhappiness is simply to say. This is not it. Do not rest here. Do not stop here. This spot is not your mark. Keep moving. Do not despair. Do not give up hope. Do not tell yourself that this is better than nothing if this is nothing. Do not tell yourself that it is better if the world thinks you’re happy, even if deep down inside and behind closed doors, you are not.
Marcia Sinetar, who gave us the phrase, “Do what you love, the money will follow,” heard those words in her own head and heart when she said she began to experience a great longing to change her life. She said in the introduction to her book by that name, “The thought of letting go of what I had—a well-paying, secure job, a beautiful home; friends and family nearby—was truly terrifying. I who had always clung to outward forms of security, I who had wanted guarantees in every part of my life, also ignored the inner dissatisfactions and urgings I felt.” She goes on to say that when she felt the prompting from within years before, she ignored it and distracted herself with her “respected career and with an accumulation of material rewards that were symbols of success.”
If we are not happy in our own nature as communicated from the ground of our own being, we are not happy. If we have the things that are supposed to make us happy, and have we have done all the things that are supposed to make us happy, and we are not happy, we are subject to depression and other forms of sadness and discouragement. We have been hypnotized into thinking that outer stuff will satisfy inner stuff. But the inner must be satisfied. Without this sense of inner satisfaction, we merely exist and our various addictions, be they food, drugs, shopping or compulsive cleaning, are our attempts to feed the absence of satisfaction.
Proposition: If we are not addicted to perfection as an outer form, we are more willing to look at our dissatisfaction for what it is and address it. If we don’t think we have to find it and set it up and point to it for all to see, we are more likely to stay in the game, stay engaged and take risks that make changes.
I propose that we look at our flawed or failed circumstances with our eyes open and our ears closed to any negative suggestions from within or without. I offer that we are listening for our real “I” needs, and nature will signal us back and say, yes, this makes me happy, or no, this doesn’t cut it. Feelings speak. Subconsciousness speaks. What we sometimes attempt to bury, speaks. True inner happiness, the satisfaction of your real “I”, is something that you can’t fake. You can tell yourself you are happy for a while, especially if you’re supposed to be, but your real “I” will find a way to tell you that you are not happy and it will be in the way that you feel, the way that you sum up, because you sum up in aliveness and not in a statue or a plaque, a title, a position, a house or a car, or anything external that doesn’t match internally.