I was doing therapy with a beautiful young woman recently when she looked at me with tears in her eyes and asked “What happened to my happily ever after?”
I was struck with the intensity of her emotional pain, but at the same time I realized how commonplace her feelings are.
Most of us grew up hearing fairy tales about how everything will work out someday. For little girls, we believe that someday our prince will come and everything will be beautiful after that. For boys, it’s expecting that someday you’ll be that knight in shining armor and save the day for your beautiful princess, and then you’ll both “live happily ever after.”
“And They Lived Happily Ever After!”
All of us want that fairy tale where we can “live happily ever after.” The problem with fairy tales is that they don’t take into consideration the long-term effects of dysfunctional families. When you grow up with poor communication, a lack of conflict resolution, trauma, abandonment, abuse or neglect, you’ll often find yourself in the same type of dysfunctional relationships in your adult life.
It’s very painful when all you’ve ever wanted is to feel loved unconditionally, but, once again, you find yourself with partners and family who are unkind, disrespectful and unsupportive. It’s very easy, at that point, to give up on your dreams and assume that this is just the way life is and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Is it Possible to “Live Happily Ever After?”
Is it possible to have the fairy tale you always wanted? There are two things you need to consider with this question:
- With maturity, you’ll come to realize that life is not always easy and perfect like the fairy tales you were told. Real life does have its challenges. If you want to be happy and healthy, you will always need to keep learning and growing.
- When your life is not what you want it to be today, the way to change your life is to change yourself from the inside, rather than struggling to change the people around you so you can be happy.
Believing that your problems are caused by the other people around you is just a dead-end street. You could spend a lifetime trying to change them and still be very hurt, angry and disappointed in the end.
How Can I Create a “Happily Ever After” Life?
There is definitely something you can do to create a happy, healthy life for yourself. When you are willing to learn the JoyIAm Process and resolve the issues from your past, it opens the door for a completely new and better life.
What you can do to create a better life for yourself:
- Practice The JoyIAM Process regularly (as long as necessary) to resolve and release the emotional pain from childhood, or from traumas in your adult life.
- Learn to love and support yourself on a daily basis.
- Decide what kind of life you want and the qualities you want to live with on a daily basis; like love, respect, support, kindness, etc.
- Set boundaries with the people around you about what you will and will not tolerate in your life.
- Learn to be assertive in asking that people in your life treat you with love and respect.
- Be willing to back up your boundaries by leaving a relationship, if necessary, when someone is not willing to treat you with love and respect.
- Keep learning and growing in all areas of your life until you can financially support yourself by doing work that you enjoy.
- Choose people to bring into your life who love you unconditionally and have your best interests at heart.
- Learn to laugh and have fun with loving, supportive friends on a daily basis.
Be Grateful for Everything Loving and Beautiful
When your life begins to improve and you finally start to feel the love and support you have always wanted, it’s very important to practice gratitude on a daily basis for all the good in your life.
Even though life will never be a complete fairy tale, it can still be very fun, joyful and fulfilling! You just have to be willing to keep learning and growing.
Leave a Comment or a Question
I’d love to hear your comments and questions.
Did you grow up believing in ‘Happily Ever After?”
What would you like to hear more about?
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More Information:
For more information, you may also want to read some of Kari’s other blog posts:
10 Simple Ways to Love Yourself
Conquer Anxiety Through Personal Power
10 Tips for Creating a Better Life for Yourself
The Surprising Health Benefits of Laughter
Stay Stress-Free and Light-Hearted During Tough Times
100 Best Psychology/Self-Help Books
Kari, This was awesome! You have great insight and know just what I need to hear. Keep up the good work! You’ve helped me so much over the years and I can never thank you enough! I love you bunches…forever and always! Joy
Thank you, Joy! I’m so thrilled that you are getting better! Love and blessings, Kari
Thanks, Carrie! It’s wonderful to know that we can all make a difference in the world!
Thank you for helping me tonight. I found your work by chance and am going to read my way through. My ‘Happy ever after’ has kept me trapped for a year now. What I think is my happy ever after does not exist, it was and is an illusion. I fell for a very very charming man who promised me my happy ever after. My mistake? I lost possession of myself and my identity. All my own doing. My life was happy anyway, but suddenly I felt I had found something I desperately needed. Gratitude for all I already had, slipped away leaving me needy and wanting. I am still in the process of piecing things back together. The emotional toll has been high and I am not free yet. I keep going back, hankering after something that was promised, an illusion because quite simply, the person I fell in love with does not exist. The charm and the declarations of love so early on were all part of the control. I will get free, I will get myself back as I get stronger day by day. Thank you.
I feel my problem is that I haven’t had someone to really talk to throughout my life. Really find a friend that is willing to listen. I have always felt that people aren’t interested in me. They don’t ask me about my life or interests. I wonder why?