We’re Getting Happiness All Wrong
Last week, a coworker shared a new resource with me. It was developed by UNH’s Psychological and Counseling Services (PACS), and attempts to guide people towards mental health support services when necessary. My favorite part is located at the bottom of the second image.
“Contentment and well-being requires you to employ strategies and engage resources.”
Why do I think this is so awesome? It is telling us that being happy takes work.
I think people have this idea that they are supposed to feel happy most of the time, naturally, without much effort. This implies that to feel other emotions - like sadness, for example - there must be something wrong with us. Let’s get one thing straight, okay? If you meet a person who experiences nothing but happiness, that person is mentally ill. I’m not being funny. That person is likely living in an alternate reality, and for sure is not living in the same world that I’m in. A healthy human being experiences a range of emotions.
Back to happiness. What exactly does it mean to be happy? Well, it’s complicated. For thousands of years, researchers in lots of different fields have been trying to understand more about it. Recently, I was listening to the We Can Do Hard Things podcast and the guest was Dr. Laurie Santos, a professor of psychology at Yale. She was talking about being happy WITH a life versus IN a life. Being happy WITH a life represents the overall framework. This is comprised of family, friendships, jobs, hobbies, responsibilities…all the things that make up a life. The IN part represents the ebb and flow of feelings.
This study, from UC Berkeley researchers in 2017, identified 27 different emotions. And guess what? Happiness didn’t make the cut.
I like this study because if we consider happiness as a state of well-being, rather than an emotion, then suddenly we are not limited to feeling a certain way. We are free to feel a variety of emotions. It’s like a crayon box. If happiness is the Crayola 64-pack (with the built-in sharpener, thank you very much), then our emotions are the different colored crayons.
So rather than feeling happiness, we might feel adoration, amusement, awe, entrancement, excitement, joy, satisfaction, or triumph. When I think of these emotions, what I find to be interesting is that they all seem fleeting. I don’t expect to feel adoration towards someone all the time. I mean, I adore my husband, but when I find his dirty clothes on the floor BESIDE the hamper, I crash land into the earth every now and again. And my children are highly amusing, but not when I find crushed Goldfish crackers between my toes. I’m okay with not feeling these “positive” emotions 100% of the time. So is it as easy as renaming what we’re feeling?
Let’s look at emotions from the other side. Think anxiety and sadness. Again, these emotions are part of the full range that humans feel. I guess if I consider adoration and amusement to be “positive emotions,” then I would consider anxiety and sadness to be “negative.” Negative in the sense that they lower the vibe in the room, man. Not negative in a math kind of way. So. Say I’m anxious about getting my mammogram results. It’s a thing, guys. Even if there’s no reason to be anxious. Until I receive an ALL’S CLEAR notification, literally nothing will decrease anxiety around this. And say you’re experiencing debilitating sadness over rehoming your beloved pet. Until adequate time has passed to allow for grieving, nothing decreases this level of sadness. But still, these emotions are fleeting. They are temporary. They are here one day, and potentially gone the next.
Now. Is the goal for us to avoid experiencing negative emotions? Nope. Is the goal to decrease the amount of anxiety or sadness you are feeling? Nope. Sorry. You’re a human. You have to feel the feels. But you can, very likely, change the way you experience your emotions. Am I a licensed mental health profession. I am not. Although I technically have the schooling to be one. Am I a scientist who has proven this strategy with evidence? Again, no. You know what I am? I am a feeler of all the feels. Like, all of them. Sometimes, all at the same time. Joking. Sort of. Here’s what I do:
Remind myself that I am in a temporary state. It will not feel like this forever.
Let myself wallow. I find it to be helpful to assign a finite time to said wallowing. Depending on the severity of the situation, I choose typically choose something like this afternoon, today, or this week…or like, until the pandemic ends. (I don’t recommend the last one.)
Get some junky snacks and some down time. As previously mentioned in my PMS post, I like Haribo Twin Snakes and OG Doritos, along with something that very detracts from my intelligence, like almost any show on Bravo…or Couples Retreat for 8,567 time.
In the words of my home girl, Marie Kondo, identify some things that “spark joy.” The antidote to negative feelings is not decreasing the amount of negative feeling you’re feeling. (Say that fast three times. Yikes.) The antidote to negative feelings is joy. I like to organize something small, watch cute dog videos on TikTok, sit in the sun, or look through my cookbook collection. I find that if I am able to spark joy, even the smallest amount of it, it grows enough to get me out of my wallow.
It is not our responsibility to feel only positive emotions. It is not our responsibility to quell negative emotions. It IS our responsibility to create art, using all the crayons in the Crayola box. We may hope that we use the Cerulean or Wild Strawberry more often than the Raw Sienna or Olive Green, but sometimes life hands you lemons. Sometimes you need to upgrade to the box of 120, just so you can get your hands on Outer Space. But fingers crossed you won’t need it for long.
