A Fairy Godmother’s Language: The Sixth Key to Happiness
The Sixth Key to Happiness: Create a language that is positive and reflects Deepest Desires. Become conscious of the words we use to describe our goals, attitudes, moods, desires, behaviors and motivations. Become like the Fairy Godmother and speak loving and positive words.
I remember the day my seventeen year old son shook his head with dismay and said to me with great compassion, “Oh Mom. You are such a dreamer.” It was a time of the Great Silence in my life. Every effort I made to claim my dreams fizzled. Statistically, according to the bell curve, I was several standard deviations out. I could not have failed so frequently based on the norms of reality. As a good friend said, “This is such a mess. God surely is in the middle somewhere.”
Researching positive psychology for my PhD I wondered about the terms I was learning and how they applied to my life. “What about the outliers? Where is my tipping point?” Research theorizes a tipping point where efforts, synthesize into a totality, tipping us into success or failure. John Gottman, PhD, former MIT mathematician, analyzing the communication patterns in married couples notices a 3:1 tipping point of positive to negative in happily married couples. To clarify; a tipping point creates a cascade of events, and depending on the efforts and behaviors, sweeps us into flourishing or its opposite. I wondered why wasn’t I being swept away into flourishing? One reason: I was caught in a larger societal cascade of crashing real estate values not seen since the Great Depression. Where did I have my resources stashed? In real estate. Not just any real estate but the price points highly susceptible to shrinking values, aka upside down market. Yet, even in bad times there are businesses that flourish and grow happy, successful people.
With the devaluing of my resources I wasn’t able to rent the properties. Nor could I sell them for a profit. I decided to wait for a return in positive values. Three years later I could no longer afford to carry the expenses. I had demolished my liquid assets in maintaining the properties. Other business ventures crashed in discretionary market failures. No one was buying anything outside the basics for survival. I was trapped in the Great Silence with all my efforts to regroup spawning another failure. In the periods of the Great Silence you might wonder as I did, is success a byproduct of luck? Is victory accessible only if I’m in the right place at the right time? Where did I go wrong? What could I have done differently? Did I lose happiness as a result of the paths I’ve chosen? As the Great Silence continued, I wondered, can I reclaim happiness? Is it possible to be happy again?
In the Great Silence the questions are endless. Cinderella questioned whether she could ever be happy again. Grieving the deaths of her parents she was lost in salty tears, hot and angry one day, and bitter and sour another. It took years of scrubbing floors, polishing the furniture, laundry, making fresh beds every other day, cooking, cleaning the kitchen, waxing the floors, repairing and mending. Her only solace; walks in the woods, tending the garden and the animals. Hiking in the forest Cinderella finds the air is clear and the woods are re-born every day. Plants sparkle after spring rains. Budding trees over time fulfill themselves in full bloom. Pine trees share their fragrance in the pools of sunlight. Lizards scurry out of sight. Rocks hold pools of water one day and dry with dust and moss another. Blue sky against green leaves vibrating in the wind creates a shiver of pleasure in Cinderella.
Each spring and through warm summer days Cinderella tends her mother’s roses. She fills the house to overflowing. In vases stems are top heavy with color and sweet scent. Even her stepmother welcomes the roses. Sometimes Cinderella mixes buds with branches she finds and collects from the forest floor. By the time Cinderella meets the Fairy Godmother she is beyond anger and the unremitting recriminations of grief. She is past the salty sadness, moving beyond the questions filling the Great Silence. She wonders, “How does happiness reappear after catastrophic losses? Will I find happiness again? Is happiness a language I have forgotten how to speak? Why is happiness elusive for me and bountiful for others? Is happiness composed of elements I no longer recognize or have I lost access to the resources of happiness? Is happiness a recipe, the convergence of the right amounts, like a recipe for double fudge, chocolate brownies?”
In the periods of the Great Silence there are no answers only unremitting questions surrounded by a feeling of doom. Some days Cinderella barely recognizes the feeling. Other days it is a heavy mantle across her shoulders making every step cumbersome. On the worst days it feels like walking across the ocean floor bound by weights and chains. Occasionally she catches a whiff of happiness. Creating beauty in her childhood home brought her solace. She consoled herself, telling Blackie, “Contentment is a cousin to happiness.”
Father of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, PhD describes three forces, dovetailing and synergistic, to create happiness. In the introduction we talked about superficial happiness. Yep, it’s still important. I have argued my point more than once with researchers who don’t believe in superficial (aka materialism) happiness. I do believe in superficial happiness. I am excited each time the UPS man rings the doorbell with a package. Soft sweaters create a buffer of comfort when I’m stressed. The growl of our SHO Taurus, when I hit the accelerator, makes me smile. You get the idea. I have taken my argument one step further. Our golden doodle, Aidan, loves when I buy him treats and toys. When he was three months old we purchased him a bed. Aidan levitated with happiness. He looked across the room at Bill, making sure he caught his eye, to share his joy, and then he let loose the smelliest stream of pee to mark the bed with his personal authority. Our dog has the understanding, the appreciation, of material happiness. Yes, we had to throw the bed away.
A trip to the pet store to stock up on chews and toys creates a storm of happiness. I keep Aidan’s toys in a stainless steel beverage holder designed for parties. If you could hear him clatter and paw through the container looking for fun and treats you’d know Aidan is committed to his superficial, material, pleasures. He too knows the sound of the UPS truck. And if he comes across toys I’ve hidden away for a rainy day, with as much stealth as possible, he carries them off.
Here is what Positive Psychology says about superficial pleasures; savor them. Watching the Fairy Godmother I realize she savors every interaction. She speaks a life enhancing vocabulary. This doesn’t mean she avoids problems. Problems are still the subject of discussions. It means she puts creative attention and deliberate, positive, wording into the solutions. Have a problem for which there is no immediate solution? Set it aside. Focus on the challenges where you can create a solution. The biology of behavior tells us: What we think, say and do creates a cascade of neuro-muscular events in our bodies and within our interactions. That means every time we speak, those images, where we put our attention all affects us biochemically. Come on! That’s intense!
Some think only kind and helpful words pass through the Fairy Godmother’s lips, and dwelling in a positive vocabulary is enjoyable. Yet authenticity requires more than ‘kind and helpful.’ Authenticity is a requirement in any positive vocabulary. The Fairy Godmother uses specific language designed to effect positive change. This is the ultimate lesson of the Fairy Godmother: What you choose to think and speak has effect and consequences for your biology. You choose.
For example, hang in there with me, the Fairy Godmother has a walk-in closet filled with ball gowns. Cinderella can choose any one of them to wear to the party. What were the words the Fairy Godmother used to offer the dress? It wasn’t, “You really have to clean up before I can loan my dress to you.” Instead the Fairy Godmother teaches using words to make a home within the mind, heart and soul, for beauty to inhabit. She says, “You’ll feel better after a good soak in the tub. I have the body butter you made from the distillation of your Mother’s roses.” The entire story of Cinderella is about creating beauty. Cinderella labors until her home is sparkling clean. Her gardens are organized and fruitful. She is ready for a higher order of beauty and the Fairy Godmother appears to teach her. Marrying the Prince and moving to the castle is to live in the highest aesthetic within the land.
Don’t get caught in feminist rhetoric. Cinderella’s highest aesthetic is marriage and the CEO of home-life. Do you know how many skills it takes to run a castle? Your highest aesthetic may be different. May be your highest aesthetic is as the CEO of your company. I am not saying marriage and family are the only valuable goals. I see for Cinderella and others, marriage and family are a priority. Remember in fairy tales we deal with one quest at a time. In real life we juggle multiple quests simultaneously.
When Cinderella arrives at the palace after her happy ending with the Prince she has a whole new set of problems to resolve. Think about it. First and foremost no one trusts her. She lived for years with a serial-killer witch. People want to know “Why didn’t she leave?” They feel uneasy. “Can you become infected with corruption by living with a wicked stepmother?” And the answer is, “Yes.” How can Cinderella prove she doesn’t carry the germs of ‘Homicidal Witch’ inside her?
But there is more. Marriage on the horizon, she is required to transform from a girl into a Queen. Do you know the skills of Queenship? Is Queenship a form of sovereignty? Does sovereignty translate into personal authority? I’m not talking about autocratic personal authority. I refer to personal authority grounded in Deepest Desires and the associated behaviors. And still there is more. Sovereignty requires we learn to sit at the crossroads of personal power. Most of us have no clue what the ‘crossroads of personal power’ means. If I tell you “it is the place where opposites transcend themselves. A union of beginnings and endings. The point where we simultaneously remember and forget.” All of us, myself included, wonder what the heck does that gibberish mean? How does it translate into the real world?
Cinderella goes into a round of learning with four very different Fairy Godmothers, one for each cardinal direction. At the center point of the compass Cinderella will find the Inner Sanctum her Fairy Godmother referred to in their early meetings. Without an Inner Sanctum leading to the experience of sovereignty Cinderella cannot make a Royal Marriage. But that’s another story and another book. (See Fairy Godmothers of the Four Directions.) The point is, we are striving to live a version of our best possible self. Contextually creating a life surrounded in an ever- evolving higher aesthetic.
So far the Fairy Godmother has taught Cinderella her happiness resides in her Deepest Desires. Putting time and attention on harmony and love creates…more harmony and love. We are filled with resources and talents. Use them to design a good life. Do I need to qualify the elements of a good life? A good life benefits us and others. A good life is interesting and ever-evolving. Broadening and deepening a good life leads us into self-mastery…. And now in- service to a good life create a language that supports your Deepest Desires.
Several years ago my interest was snagged reading books on what elements create the successful business. One factor is the singular language businesses developed within the organization that becomes a verbal short-cut, filled with layers of information. Companies like Google and Apple, known for their innovation, have also created their own technological language. Their specialized vocabulary allows users to communicate layers of information represented in a single word. It’s a code that separates them from their competition while simultaneously defining the geography of their business territory.
This concept of power wording, evolved by innovative companies into a language defining work culture and the product itself, also applies to happiness and success. Who would have thought the made-up word ‘Google’ could describe the investigative research process? The original communication style of experimental and revolutionary companies generates a condensed understanding of a substantial amount of information with a single word. Sharing a language, identity is formed, creating group cohesion. The cohesion and congruence of a large number of people working toward a specific goal substantially enhances the possibilities of success.
The Fairy Godmother understands this power of language to transport us from problems into solutions. She doesn’t say to Cinderella, “We have to get you out of these terrible clothes. They’re stained by years of chores.”
She understands Cinderella is trapped in a situation where the normal resources we take for granted in a home are unavailable to her. Maybe the Fairy Godmother suggests Cinderella prepare for the ball at her house. Saying, for example, “You are going to feel revitalized after a soak in my tub. I have bath salts brought to me from the Himalayan mountains. Himalaya is the home of Shambhala. Some say Shambhala is a mythical kingdom, where the world’s greatest warriors and heroes go for their reward. The fossilized salts dissolved into the bath waters will give you the courage of these heroes. You’ll be surrounded with health and vitality.”
Oh, I don’t know the exact words of their conversation but I do know the Fairy Godmother understands the power of words to shape our identity. The power of words as they relate to Deepest Desires is an important element in the transformation of our dreams into reality. Here is the question we ask ourselves: Can we build the strength of character, the integrity, to support the power of words used for good in our lives? Time spent in the structure of positive language resources Cinderella. Within the wealth of words the Fairy Godmother spoke to Cinderella, her life affirming suggestions are designed to mobilize Cinderella’s personal resources and lift her spirits. It was from this life enhancing perspective the Fairy Godmother worked her magic. Cinderella’s commitment to this vocabulary is a courageous act of power.
Experiment. Try speaking only from the Universal Law of Ever Expanding Beneficence. It feels vulnerable, exposed, yet essential. This engagement takes us past our negative conditioning. Societal pressures to conform fall away. We navigate around the projections of others. When Cinderella shifts her consciousness into a positive vocabulary it creates a corresponding shift in the living, breathing truth of life as a beneficent force. In this way, through language, the Fairy Godmother ignites the flame of transmutation in Cinderella. Language, this seemingly simple change, is powerful stuff.
When we cultivate a positive language, personal to our goals and ambitions, our language will lift our spirits and magnetize personal happiness. Language interfaces in our brain with images, symbols that reflect our Deepest Desires. Words draw the images into our biochemistry. The pictures and corresponding biochemistry will move our life from the ordinary into the extraordinary. We started a positive vocabulary with a word spill. Now name the qualities associated with the specific happiness and success we’re seeking. Be inventive, precise and creative. Owning and utilizing a personal happiness language will become a neuro-muscular short-cut within our bodies to understanding the multiple layers of our Deepest Desires and motivations. We biochemically move forward, toward success and happiness.
Want to achieve the success, your personal version of results, accomplished by Cinderella? I invite you to apprentice to the Fairy Godmother’s perspective of positive vocabularies. Speak from the optimistic vocabulary of the Fairy Godmother.
The Sixth Key to Happiness: Create a positive language reflecting our Deepest Desires. Become conscious of the words we use to describe our goals, attitudes, moods, desires, behaviors, and motivations. Become like the Fairy Godmother and speak positive words.