Don't Worry - Be Happy!

Today I want to focus on happiness. Why? I am glad you asked. Most clients, when they come to counselling, they have as a goal to feel better. When asked, they respond “I want to be happy”. Although the therapist in me cringes when I hear that, because happiness can be so many things and is so different for everybody, I do understand people’s strive to happiness. Who wouldn’t want to be happy?

So the question is, how do you do “DON’T WORRY – BE HAPPY”? In principle, I think, there are two different schools of thought on this matter. One proclaims that dealing with the things that cause your unhappiness (past experiences ob neglect, abuse, or hurt in general) is the way to go. The other is adamant that focusing on the positive things in your life and on what you want will be the golden highway to bliss and happiness.

Where do I stand? I think the secret is in BALANCE. Don’t get me wrong, I am not talking about sitting on the fence. Balance is meant as: addressing the issues that hold you back by breaking the chains that stop you from moving forward as well as shedding more light on what is going well and what you can actively engage in that’l make your day a good one.

How to get the balance right? My guess is you don’t. The nature of balance is that it’s hardly ever still in perfect horizontal level. It goes up and down compensating constantly for too much or too little. All we have to do is look out for thesigns and balance things out.

Comments

[Gudrun Frerichs, PhD]

Hi Cami, thank you for your honest post. What I hear from your sentences is the longing to be all you are and to have a deep connection with all aspects of your SELF.

I agree with you that happiness just for happiness' sake is like a mask a clown puts on before he stumbles into the circus arena and does his performance while underneath the mask a whole different world is unfolding.

Your last sentence says it all "to feel my world. It brings good and bad, but remeber, it does bring the good".

That's what I mean by balance. Unfortunately, some people I meet are focused only on the bad. I call that "they have put up their tent in their museum of horror. Each day they look at the exhibits and give themselves a deep fright. They don't know how to find the exit door, they don't know that their is a life (good + bad) to be lived outside of the museum".

Many abuse survivors see everything as dark and grey. It might improve their quality of life to learn to notice the moments and experiences of joy. - Please, don't stop 'rambling'. Cheers Gudrun

[Emily's Camigwen]

When I restarted therapy last month, I told her, "I want to feel all of me at the same time. To have access to all of me - to UNDERSTAND all of the discordant thoughts in my head."

But to be happy?!?

Sorry, here's where the voices in DID come in. (Okay, just edited.)

Anyway, this whole idea of wanting to be happy (I think) is a crock of sht. What does that really mean?

Happiness is not a reason, happiness is a RESULT!

I refuse to focus on the "good things in my life" in order to be happy...I often can't feel those things as my OWN. They are things my body DOES. But I do have periods of great happiness and joy!

When I am able to pull in the parts of me and really feel things, the happiness I experience will be true happiness - it is there but just hard to see.

I can't make my own happiness - it lays in my ability to experience my world. And that I think is a more realistic and powerful goal - to be able to participate and feel my world. It brings good and bad, but remember, it does bring the good.

..ramblings of Cami.