Archive for: Our Happiness Blog

In the type of therapy I do I talk pretty equally about radical acceptance (not fighting or judging what is) and making change (in how you think and what you do, ultimately leading to changing how you feel).  And so the issue of finding a balance between acceptance and making change often comes up.

There are some things we need to radically accept – death is a good example.  There is no use trying to change or undo it.  I’ve known people who have stayed in suffering for years, unwilling to accept that their beloved pet had died.  And some things we must change – being treated poorly in a relationship.  I’ve yet to come across a reason why we should accept that.  And then there are times when we need to find a balance of the two.  For years I struggled with a back injury that was painful and limiting.  My lack of radical acceptance around that kept me in suffering.  When I finally accepted that this injury would never fully heal and I would have to learn to live with it, I was able to move through a lot of fear and sadness and anger and get back to myself.  I kept hope and empowerment alive by continuing to work on improving my back, always keeping in mind that any improvement is a gift and it will never be what it once was.

It can be tricky sometimes, accepting reality while changing it.  But once you realize that these two states are not mutually exclusive, you can breathe a sigh of relief because you don’t have to choose only one or the other in difficult situations.  Phew!

Many years ago a wise mentor of mine offered the belief that “everyone is doing their best.”  Though I greatly respected him I dismissed this almost immediately.  What a crock!  I could think of many situations where I hadn’t done my best.  Then a few years ago I read it in some therapisty book.  It gave me pause but I didn’t focus on it for too long, easily thinking of innumerable moments when I or someone else could have done better.  But a seed had been planted.

It started popping into my head in sessions.  Someone would be talking about their awful parent, or spouse, or coworker, or even themselves, who had done or were currently doing things that caused my client to suffer.  It is so easy to get stuck in anger stemming from a belief that someone should and could be different.  From a detached outsider’s viewpoint I could more easily empathize with the person they complained about, seeing how this unwanted behavior might have reflected their best, with the skills and resources they had at that moment.  I began suggesting it, almost tentatively since I knew that I often struggled to wrap my head around this concept.  And to my great surprise people started coming back having considered this “doing their best” idea at a crucial moment and immediately finding a new gentleness, allowing them to let go of suffering and move on.

This belief has changed me.  This single thought has made me a more easy-going spouse, a more patient mother, a more compassionate therapist/consumer/driver – you name it.  I’m not saying I always believe this idea but I find that more often than not it is absolutely applicable to people in my life.  And the more I use it the easier it is to believe.  When I find myself getting wrapped up in anger or frustration I realize I have l lost sight of it, so I invite it back in and see where it might fit.  More often than not it brings me some measure of immediate relief, allowing the Happy back in.

For most people, it’s easy to notice the big achievements in life: finally cleaning the entire house after ignoring it for half a year, finishing your dissertation, going through 2000 unread email messages that have been stressing you out for months.  But sometimes envisioning the end result isn’t enough.  You stand in the middle of the room gaping at the mess around you, you sit frozen in front of your blank Word document, you notice with a sinking feeling there are now 2001 unread messages, and you feel overwhelmed with somehow even less motivation to take care of business.  You’re feeling anything but happy and you desperately try to come up with some barely justifiable reason to ignore the problem a little longer.

What do you do to actually get going?  Here’s what doesn’t work – flogging yourself with shame and guilt and fear, then setting unreasonable goals for yourself.  “I should be able to do this.  Everyone else does it with no problem, what’s wrong with me?  I shouldn’t have put this off for so long.  I’m wasting time – this has to get done soon!  I’m just going to stop messing around and do the whole thing right now.”  Besides probably being ineffective, it’ll strengthen your bad feelings and the inertia, and chip away at your self-esteem.

So here’s my short and sweet antidote for project stuck-ness: step, notice, reward.  Select one small initial step and do that.  It doesn’t matter how small it is; you just have to be able to do it right then.   Acknowledge that you did it – revel in it!  Then reward yourself in some quick way, either praise or some outside reward.  You’ll learn the task is do-able and you feel good about it.  You’ll find you have at least enough energy to do the next small step (and if you don’t, make the step smaller).  Keep noticing these small bits of progress and rewarding them, and pretty soon you’ll have gained the momentum needed to keep moving towards your goal. 

Not convinced?  Have you ever taught a child to tie their shoe, or gotten a dog to learn a new trick?  If you were successful at it, you probably introduced things one manageable step at a time and then used praise or an external reward to reinforce what they did.  You knew shame and guilt and fear would make them shut down and stop trying.  Why not treat yourself as well as you treat them?   You deserve it!

Brief Psych 101 piece: Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) was an American psychologist who created a theory of psychological health based on the idea that all humans have the same general needs in ascending order of importance for survival.  The order of needs goes like this: physiological, safety, love and belonging, self-esteem, and finally self-actualization, which basically means the achievement of one’s full potential. 

Okay.  So what does this have to do with happiness?  Well, think about a time when you weren’t happy.  Within Maslow’s framework, we could explain the reason for that was because a need in one of these areas was not being met.  Maybe you felt underappreciated at work (esteem need), or were dumped (love and belonging).  Maybe the situation was more dire – you didn’t have enough money to put food on the table that week (physiological) or were mugged (safety).  Maybe you were struggling with radical acceptance or a moral issue (self-actualization stuff).  Next time you feel something difficult (anxious, ashamed, unfulfilled, rejected, etc.) ask yourself, “What need isn’t being met?” and then do something to meet it.  Tip – it works when dealing with others, too!

“There are no failures. Just experiences and your reactions to them.” – Tom Krause

It’s easy to zip by this gem. Especially if your mind is on something else, or you’re not reading with your whole heart. But take a moment to go back and read it for real.

Now let’s take it one step further and consider this: not only are there no failures but there is no good and bad, no right and wrong (this can be a tough sell, I know. Just go with me for a moment). Everything is just an experience with pros and cons, and we can decide how to react to it all. Think about how much stress you feel when you worry that you might make the wrong decision. Which college should I go to? Which house should I buy? We tell ourselves – it would be terrible if I chose the wrong one! Think about how much regret, disappointment, even anger you feel when you decide you’ve made the wrong choice. I shouldn’t have chosen this puppy. I shouldn’t have taken this job. We tell ourselves – my life would be so much better if only I’d chosen differently! But actually, we don’t know that at all. It’s a story we tell ourselves, not a fact. And that story blinds us to all the positives that can come of the decision we did make.

I like to suggest this visual to clients who are crippled with indecision: you’re in a room, and there’s a door for each option. There’s no “right door” while the all the rest are “wrong doors.” There are just different doors that lead to different journeys, each with its own positives and negatives. And it’s our choice what to do on each journey.

Try it. Next time there’s a decision to make, take away all the fear by dropping the delusion that there is a “right” choice that will lead to success and happiness and all the other choices are “wrong” choices that will lead to failure and misery. And then notice how much easier it is to make the decision and live with it.

When I was younger I was afraid of getting my socks wet during a hike. Or being caught without Chapstick. Or being too hot or too cold.  It didn’t limit my activities but I did spend time feeling anxious about it and preparing so as to avoid these discomforts.

So of course one day I fell in the stream and ended up with soaking wet boots and socks and everything else. After about three seconds of shock and “I can’t believe this actually happened to me,” I felt totally liberated.  Because the hike back to the car was a solid hour and there was absolutely nothing I could do change things. So I radically accepted what was.  And I knew I could handle it.

This trivial but true example is a quick illustration of two really important concepts that can add hugely to our happiness by relieving our suffering: radical acceptance and faith (either in self or some higher power). Not fighting what is and deeply knowing you can get through it is a very thick shield that can protect you from crippling anxiety, depression, anger, hopelessness…you get the picture.  It might seem like a tall order to accept and have faith during more dire circumstances, but I have witnessed the effects of these skills in people with debilitating chronic illnesses or facing terrible life events. It is possible. You just have to be willing to try.

Last week I suggested making gratitude a more regular part of your day, so as to increase happiness (yours and that of those around you) in 2014.  Jeremy Adam Smith wrote an article on The Greater Good website (https://greatergood.berkeley.edu) that outlined six habits of highly grateful people.  All are good, but one struck me as particularly helpful.  The most meaningful expressions of gratitude aren’t vague.  “You’re so awesome!” is certainly nice to hear but hearing specifics around it make it more genuine.  The best thank you’s identify one (or more) of these three things: the giver’s intentions (“Touchscreen gloves so my fingers don’t get frostbitten when I use my phone outside!  Thank you!”), the cost to the giver (“I know how much time it must have taken you to Photoshop this photo for me, and how busy you are these days – thank you.  It’s perfect.”), and the value of the benefit of the gift (“I really appreciate you always offering to take the kids when you know I have a ton of errands to do.  Without you I’d get half my chores done.  Thank you.”)   Give it a shot.  It takes a little bit more effort, and the results are beyond worth it.

The more I learn about happiness, the clearer it is to me that gratitude plays a crucial role.  I’ll go out on a limb and say that if we aren’t grateful then we can’t be happy.  We might feel entitled, or disappointed, or resentful – all obstacles to happiness.  Another thing I’m learning is that gratitude is very much a habit.  Like any sort of thinking, the more you do it the easier it becomes and soon it is a very natural part of how you think because you’ve rewired your brain to do it automatically.  I know a lot of people aren’t into New Year’s resolutions – years of trying and failing to get a new habit up and running perfectly from day one takes its toll! – but try this on for size: “In 2014 I’m going to be happier.”  Hard to pass that up, right?  It’s so do-able!  Just noticing a little bit more often when someone is kind to you, or doing a good job, or has affected your life in some positive way – no matter how small! – and then sometimes sharing your gratitude with them… just this small shift can make you happier.  Because it’ll become easier to do the more you do it, so you’ll do it more and more, and you’ll be making others feel good every time you share it with them (so they’re more likely to do that thing more, and possibly pay it forward)… it’s the New Year’s gift that keeps on giving.

Happy New Year, everyone!

I recently heard that to effectively study happiness, researchers tend to break it down into joy and contentment.   It suddenly explained why I’ve never thought of “happy” as an emotion.  “Happy” means different things to different people, whereas “joy” and “contentment” are basically understood by all, and mean very different things.

To me, “content” means generally feeling satisfied, not longing for something to be very different.  “Joy” is more of an occasional, intense burst of delight.  This made me think of Brene’ Brown’s musing on joy and twinkle lights:

“Twinkle lights are the perfect metaphor for joy.  Joy is not a constant.  It comes to us in moments – often ordinary moments.  Sometimes we miss out on the bursts of joy because we’re too busy chasing down extraordinary moments.  Other times we’re so afraid of the dark that we don’t dare let ourselves enjoy the light.  I believe a joyful life is made up of joyful moments gracefully strung together by trust, gratitude, inspiration, and faith.”  – Brene’ Brown

Here’s to lots of twinkle lights in your holidays.