Happiness is one of those highly sought after emotions. As a society we tend to want to to feel happy all the time. Culturally our definition of happiness tends to be a feeling of lightness and joy, delight, elation. So what if we actually felt happy all the time? Is it really possible and would it be truly satisfying to be in this emotion 24/7?
As humans, we experience moving from one emotional state to another. We know we’re happy because we know what it feels like to be unhappy. We need to experience one to know the other. If we happened to set ourselves up in a situation where we could feel happy all the time, we would in fact not be happy at all. We’d get bored and the state of being happy would not hold it’s impact.
Perhaps we should re-look at our desire for happiness and consciously reflect on what it is we truly want. If we think about how we want our lives to be, it’s likely we want to feel inspired, fulfilled, at times challenged and at other times not. We want the highs and the lows, to have a varied, full and rich life. To have a full and rich life, we must accept and experience the full spectrum of emotions, yes? The trouble is, as a society we have an aversion to emotions that are not deemed “happy”.
Why are negative emotions so unwelcome? Why do we feel ripped off if we experience sadness, disappointment, longing, anger and a myriad of other such emotions? Why is it such a big deal to cry?? I think the reason is because we don’t know what to do with our emotions when we feel them. In the next few weeks, I’ll talk more about this subject. But I would like to start by encouraging you to start feeling your emotions. You don’t need to do anything with them, just recognise they’re there. No need to catagorise or name them or even act on them, just feel the sensation of emotion and acknowledge it’s there. Most importantly; try and do it at the time it’s happening, rather than reflect on it afterwards.