The PURSUIT of Happiness is more appealing to most, than the actual attainment of it.

If you build your house on a crumbling foundation, it cannot withstand adverse weather conditions.

I opened an email this morning from someone I suspect is a follower of mine on Substack. He asked me to write about how to achieve monetary success, and identify the roadblocks to attaining it.

I’ve learned some clever strategies over my somewhat lengthy adult journey and I share those ‘power tools’ I’ve implemented and benefitted from with my client base, in context of helping them become financially stable and grow their businesses. I do not however, consider myself an “expert” in this arena.

I write about what I know about. If my own life experience has earned me notoriety and respect in the arenas I’ve grown to intimately understand, that’s the foundation from which inspiration springs, for my various Substack posts.

Nobody’s good at Everything, and I have more than a few bimbo-esque zones! We all come into this life with specific talents, skills, acumen and abilities. One of mine has always been the gift of understanding human nature in ways that very few others do. My writings reflect this deep understanding that’s been gleaned, codified and cemented over the course of several decades of life experience within professional and interpersonal realms.

When you KNOW something, in whatever field of endeavor is intimately familiar to you, it has embedded itself inside your body as cellular knowledge. The same way you know the sun will rise every morning, you carry this deep understanding within you, that nobody can dilute or denigrate~ regardless of how many might disagree with it.

I sometimes refer to this type of experience as, Emotional Knowing. Once you know something emotionally, you cannot forget or un-know it. It becomes a vital, integral part of your organism, which cannot be denied, revoked or removed.

I’d had this “knowing” for two decades before I decided to try returning to academia at 41 to legitimize what I’d been doing my entire adult life within other work venues. I wrote articles in my 20’s that were salient and completely congruent with all my views on human nature, today. I’ve felt surprised by this, as I’d occasionally review those long-ago written pieces, but have accepted the insights contained therein as a unique part of who I am~ while allowing that previous lifetimes likely informed on this (present) body of comprehension and wisdom.

Via return email, I suggested to this fellow who wrote me seeking financial input, in the only responsible and intuitive way I could. I conveyed that until we learn to grow a nourishing, supportive, respectful and friendly relationship bond with ourselves, all choices and decisions we make in life are negatively impacted by poor self-worth.

Poor self-worth issues drive self-sabotaging choices and behaviors. Many of my clients over the years were so deeply entrenched in self-loathing, they’d unwittingly sabotage themselves just as their ‘brass ring’ (goals, aims or dreams) came within tangible reach. As someone deeply invested in their care and success, this felt disheartening beyond anything mere words can articulate.

Poor self-worth issues in one’s client base, is the primary reason people who work in helping/healing professions routinely experience what’s referred to as, occupational “burnout.” When ya put your heart and soul into helping someone realize their stated goals, and deep down they fear it so much they sabotage whatever gains or strides they’ve made with ya~ even though you know it’s coming and you have methods to deconstruct their automatic reflex to self-destruct, it breaks your fucking heart.

The truth is, “Happiness” to millions of people is a foreign concept. Anything that feels foreign or like uncharted territory to humans, they’ll resist, because change of any type feels destabilizing, which is always intimidating and scary. This in fact, is the very heart of why so many enlist decades of psychotherapy, hoping to one day get well~ yet that day never actually arrives.

Still, millions of souls doggedly persist in the pursuit of Happiness, because pursuing a goal and actually achieving it, involve two entirely different sets of inner-feelings and constructs. Most have built no sturdy, grounded inner-foundation, to help them emotionally manage the latter.

When we think of myriad celebrities who’ve indulged in heavy alcohol and/or drug use just as their acting or singing careers have launched into their meteoric ascent, and more than a few expiring prematurely due to addictive behaviors or successful suicide attempts, do we not have to ask ourselves if our long-held fantasies of attaining great wealth and popularity actually provide adequate payoff for realizing our long-awaited childhood dreams??

My experience is, when vast success comes too early, most don’t feel deserving of it. When you don’t (deep down) feel worthy of success, love, abundance, contentment and joy due to unresolved poor self-worth issues, you’ll do whatever it takes to destroy whatever gains you make~ even if it means taking your own life.