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SADNESS IS A STATE OF
HAPPINESS
by Monica A. Frank, Ph.D.
One day when I was
seven–years–old my father allowed me to choose our Sunday family activity. He
said we could either take a drive across the Mississippi River or ride on the
last streetcar in St. Louis. At that time of my life I
had never seen an ocean or even a great lake and I was awed by the vastness of
the Mississippi River. It never occurred to me that the river would always be
there and the streetcars might not. I chose the river. Of course, driving across
the river took all of fifteen seconds. Immediately after we crossed the bridge I
regretted my decision. My regret at the time was that the streetcar excursion
would have been lengthier. My regret later was that I
never again had the opportunity to ride a streetcar in St. Louis.
My father could have protected me from my regret and sadness. He could
have taken me on a streetcar anyway or have convinced me that I had made the
wrong decision. However, he allowed the decision to
stand and allowed me to deal with the consequential emotions.
I don't know what he intended, but I do believe that he was trying to be a good
father that day.
I learned a great deal from that decision. I
didn't learn it all at once but over time I came to realize the value of this
single incident. I learned that I could tolerate the
outcome of a decision even if I didn't prefer such an outcome.
I learned that I didn't have to be protected from emotions.
And I learned that things aren't all good or all bad. In particular, I realized
that my father with his many limitations could teach me a valuable lesson and
that I could love that part of him even though I couldn't accept the rest.
Many people may disagree with my father's actions. They may feel that he
should have protected my feelings. However, I think
this was one of the most unselfish and loving moments of his life.
As parents we frequently overprotect our children from feeling unpleasant
emotions because we don't want to feel bad or uncomfortable ourselves.
It is unpleasant for us to see our children unhappy.
As a result we may protect them even when we know the more important lesson for
them may be to experience the situation and the consequences.
For example, a parent may excessively warn his child, "If you touch the
stove you will get burned." If the child hasn't learned
this lesson after a few warnings, she's probably not going to learn it with a
hundred. However, if she touches the stove and gets
burned she will probably learn the lesson. Now,
certainly I don't mean this to apply to all situations. Obviously, a parent
doesn't allow a child to play in the street to learn the lesson that a car may
hit him.
A parent has to use judgment as to what lessons a child is ready to
learn. However, parenting involves teaching those lessons even though it may be
painful for the parent.
As a society, we are terrified of feeling any kind of “bad” feelings.
We don't want to feel sad or hurt or angry. We
come into this world as babies wanting all of our needs met. When we feel
uncomfortable we cry until someone makes us feel better. This is normal
development. However, sometimes we cry because we are bored or we demand to be
taken care of when we can do it our-selves. Over time,
if all of our demands are met, especially the unreasonable ones, we learn that
discomfort is intolerable and we have to rid ourselves of it.
We come to believe that we should never feel bored or sad or deprived.
We have developed a distorted concept of happiness. Our culture as a
whole focuses upon striving for happiness. We
frequently believe that if we are not feeling ecstatic joy that something is
wrong with us.
We are a culture of sitcoms where problems are solved in a half hour and
families are always functional or, at least, happily dysfunctional.
The pursuit of happiness, of the American Dream, consumes our culture.
Somehow we have come to believe that happiness is not only an inalienable right
but also an achievement in and of itself. We believe
that if we experience anything less than happiness we have failed.
We never have enough money. We accumulate things that
we don't even use. We want our children to achieve even
more on this impossible feel good standard that we have set for ourselves.
But we have it wrong.
Happiness is not something we achieve but something that we experience
when we have a sense of contentment and satisfaction with our lives and
ourselves. This sense of satisfaction is not something that occurs only when
things are going well but also when everything is falling apart around us.
We cannot acquire happiness as we acquire things.
Happiness is not something that is given to us because we are good.
Happiness is an overall state of being that can occur even when we are
sad, grieving, angry, hurt, stressed, or frustrated. In
fact, the premise that I am making is that happiness occurs because we
are capable of experiencing sadness, grief, anger, hurt, stress, and
frustration.
I have found that many of my clients are fearful of emotional states.
Frequently, they tell me, “I don't want to feel sad” or “I shouldn't feel
angry or frustrated” or “I should have more patience.”
When they feel sadness or grief they interpret this as meaning they have a
clinical depression. But depression is a mental illness that is substantially
different from the feeling of sadness. In fact, depression is more frequently a
numbness or absence of emotion. Individuals who fear
these emotional states are making an assumption that feeling bad or sad means
something is wrong with them.
However, the opposite is true. Experiencing a
wide range of emotions suggests there is something right with us.
We are created as beings capable of numerous feelings with many nuances.
We don't have extraneous physical parts.
Every-thing with which we are born has a purpose (or at least had a purpose at
one time).
Why would we be created with the capacity for emotions if we were not
supposed to feel? Isn’t it logical to consider that our
feelings have a purpose?
This very natural process sometimes becomes distorted for us for various
reasons. For example, a few years ago I overheard a
friend's mother tell her grandchild "No, you're not angry" when the child was
trying to express how mad she was. Suddenly, it
occurred to me why my friend had trouble with anger.
She had been told most of her life that she wasn't feeling something that she
was experiencing. "No, you're not angry." How easy it
is to teach someone that feelings aren't acceptable.
We are always seeking the answer as to how to achieve happiness.
Frequently, we seem to seek enlightenment that we often equate with a
constant state of nirvana. I find it curious that the
one thing that is available to all of us, that is within us, seems to be beyond
our grasp. The problem is that we continue to look
out-ward for the answers. We expect the path to be
mystical and expect that only a great teacher can show us the way.
When, in reality, each of us has the way within us.
And what is that way? It is to trust in our
natural responses, to trust our instincts, to trust our emotions.
Rather than avoiding our emotions and viewing them as something that gets in the
way of our happiness, we can recognize our emotions as the path to happiness.
The more we can fully experience emotions, the more we can use our
emotions to help us cope with life. For instance, I
can't tell you how many marriages I see destroyed because one or both
individuals don't share their feelings. As a result, they make erroneous
assumptions about what the other is thinking or feeling.
If we experience anger because someone hurt us and we express our anger
assertively, it may allow us to solve the problem.
Whereas, if we keep it to ourselves, we only become more frustrated.
Sadness is a state of happiness because it is an emotion and
emotions allow us to solve problems and solving problems allows us to live as
fully as we are capable.
Our intellect only gives us a portion of the information we can obtain
from the world. Imagine a poker game without the
ability to observe the other players. We are always reading the nonverbal
behavior of other people and this information helps us with making decisions.
In a poker game, we use this information to determine if the other players are
bluffing or how good they think their hand is. Frequently, this information is
described as a "gut instinct." If we are asked why we
made a certain choice during the poker game we may not be able to say, "Because
the other player shifted her eyes when betting."
However, our brain processed this information and we attribute the outcome to a
"gut instinct."
Have you ever noticed some people are much more in tune with these
instincts and seem to read other people's intentions more accurately?
And as a result, they seem to have a greater chance for success with the
things they attempt? The reason this may be true is because such individuals are
much more connected to their emotional states and can make interpretations and
decisions based on their internal reactions to a situation.
Many people don't have a clue as to what or sometimes when they are
feeling because they don't tune in to the physical sensations of emotions. Other
people are over-reactive and fearful to the physical sensations and therefore
are often in the dark about their feelings and the information that is being
provided. We need to learn to listen carefully to our bodies to be able to use
our emotions in the way they were meant to be.
We are prevented from doing this because we choose to look at the world
unrealistically. One way we do this is by developing "fixed desires." A "fixed
desire" is a belief regarding how life should be and that we cannot be
happy unless life meets our expectations. Since life is
rarely what we believe it should be, this type of thinking dooms us to
unhappiness. For example, if I believe that I have to
achieve a certain level of financial success in order to be happy, and then I
become afflicted with a debilitating disorder that prevents me from working, I
will be unhappy because reality doesn't match my fixed desire.
However, if I believe that I can be happy no matter what obstacles life
puts in my way and I view those obstacles as challenges or opportunities for
growth, then I would still be happy.
I saw this principle at work when I worked on a spinal cord injury unit
during my internship. My job was to evaluate the
psychological well-being of the patients on the unit.
What impressed me was that even though everyone on the unit had a similar type
of injury, some were miserable, negative, and dissatisfied whereas others were
truly content with their lives and, as a result, living full lives.
Also, the staff told me that those who were miserable tended to die at
younger ages even though their physical injury didn't warrant it.
I tend to attribute these differences to being stuck with a fixed desire
focused on health and physical wholeness rather than being able to accept the
experiences that life offers.
Experience is our teacher. To truly use the information pro-vided by our
emotions, we have to allow ourselves to experience the full range of emotions.
All of our experience is relevant and important, even the unpleasant
experiences, because we have the opportunity to learn and to grow.
I know that for myself, some of the most unpleasant experiences in my
life have been among the most important lessons.
Naturally, at the time I didn't go into these experiences willingly, thinking
how fortunate I was to be able to experience such pain.
No, I resisted and told myself how unfair the situation was.
It usually wasn't until later that I realized how valuable the experience was
for me.
And that the temporary sadness and pain have contributed significantly to
my ability to be content with myself and to enjoy life. More recently, however,
I am able to look at these experiences more broadly and at least tell myself, "I
may not like this situation and I may prefer to not experience it; however, I am
sure it will provide something important to my life.
Maybe not now, and maybe not ten years from now, but someday it will be of value
to me."
This is your choice. You can avoid half of the experience that life
offers you by avoiding the message of your emotions. Or
you can truly "Seize the day" and fully experience your emotions and the benefit
they bring to your life. Sadness is a state of
happiness. And so are all the rest of our emotions part
of our ability to be content and satisfied.
See also:
Making Attributions for a Healthier Attitude
Copyright ©
2000, 2009 by www.excelatlife.com.
Permission to reprint this article is granted if it includes this entire
copyright and link.
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By
Ayala Mal Pines
Self-Esteem: A Proven Program of Cognitive Techniques
for Assessing, Improving, and Maintaining Your
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By Matthew McKay, Patrick Fanning
The
Self-esteem Companion: Simple Exercises to Help You Challenge
Your Inner Critic & Celebrate Your Personal Strengths
By Patrick Fanning, Carole
Honeychurch, Catharine Sutker
"If you truly want a chance for your partner to
change, the best place to start is with yourself. "
"To be betrayed, the person must first experience trust in the
betrayer."
"...the way we make attributions about behavior
affects relationships and self-esteem."
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