Happiness Blog

Do happiness and meaningfulness always go together?  You might consider it meaningful when you rush your friend to the vet with her dying cat to have him put down but the experience doesn’t exactly make you happy.  You might feel happy when you settle in to watch the season premiere of Sherlock but probably won’t count it as a meaningful experience.  But we all know that happiness and meaningfulness can coexist because we often do something we consider meaningful – help a stranger change their flat tire, for example – and feel happy about it.  So what’s the difference?

One study conducted by Baumeister at Florida State University surveyed almost 400 adults to figure out the relationship between happiness and meaningfulness.  Here is one of their most interesting findings:

Happiness comes from what others give to you; meaningfulness comes from giving to others.

But what about all those times you’ve given to someone else and felt happy about it?  Baumeister would argue that you’ve assigned meaning to that act of giving, and that if you factor out the importance of meaningfulness, people who receive more are happier than people who give more.

Hm.  Takers are happier than givers?  Let’s parse this out further next week…

The happiest person I know is also the person I know who has had the most loss.  My godmother’s mother died after a long illness when my godmother was in her teens, and her father died when she was giving birth to her first child.  She had two children with her first husband, who struggled with alcoholism and whom she eventually divorced.  Her daughter was born with cystic fibrosis and died in childhood after a short lifetime of medication, painful daily chest therapy, and many hospitalizations.  The last decade of my godmother’s second marriage was extraordinarily difficult because her husband’s strokes robbed him of the ability to empathize – he was completely different from the compassionate, loving minister she had married.  She has just moved to a small town in the north where she knows no one.

My godmother doesn’t see herself as a victim at all; rather, she views each life experience as a gift and a learning experience, and uses it to add to her life and to the lives of others. She doesn’t focus on her daughter’s struggle with cystic fibrosis but rather on her daughter’s strength and feisty spirit, how well loved she was by everyone who knew her, and how blessed the family was to receive such incredible support.  Instead of focusing on the deterioration of her first marriage due to her husband’s alcoholism, she compassionately talks about the guilt he felt about their daughter’s genetic terminal illness and acknowledges the struggle they had in supporting one another.  She doesn’t focus on the last decade of her husband’s life and how different he was from the loving, gentle, clever man he had always been.  In the aftermath of his death she considers the passing of time a gift that allows her to reconnect with the man she married.  In her new town she is enthusiastically finding opportunities to continue the work she’s done for so many years – volunteering as a bereavement specialist in hospice and the school system.

There are so many lessons to learn here about happiness (what we choose to focus on, gratitude, compassion), and the one that stands out most to me is the connection between happiness and meaning.  Which turns up just as many questions as it does answers… stay tuned for next week’s post!

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.