Why are we afraid of happiness | Sieve & Sieve

This is important to understand and accept. Just as it is important to understand that all life situations and experiences are okay, that they are all valuable. And all of them, even the most unpleasant ones, can be endured and overcome. And all experiences, especially unpleasant ones, teach us something and remind us of something important, but forgotten.

Marina Drobnjakovic, B.Sc. psychological and psychotherapy counselor

Every experience is a lesson and thanks to every experience we can grow as a person. Unpleasant and difficult life situations put to the test our ability to face them and remain in them by enduring them, to understand them and independently or with (professional) help come to the best possible solution for us and others with whom we are in a given situation, and considering its characteristics.

In contrast to experiences that evoke pleasant emotions and in which it is up to us only to enjoy, to be grateful and happy, unpleasant experiences place before us a request to adapt and act in a way that will contribute to putting an end to the given experience. Although the “requirements” placed before us by pleasant experiences seem simple and easy, it is often very difficult for us to be “just” happy in happiness, to relax and allow happiness, surrendering to it and not thinking about the moment when it will inevitably pass . Because happiness is a matter of an exceptional moment and as such is short-lived. It is felt intensely for the same reason.

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However, in an intense feeling of happiness, we often fear that something (intensely) bad will happen after it passes, because life is a succession of pleasant and unpleasant experiences. It is true that it is, just as it is true that unpleasant experiences cannot be avoided, but it is not rational to think in such a way that experiences in life alternate with regularity and according to the formula “positive and then negative”. If you look back on your life so far, do you realize that at some point in your life only pleasant or only unpleasant things happened in a row? See? For starters, could reminding yourself of that fact be of use to you in a situation where you are afraid to give in to your luck?

What is actually the “problem” about feeling happy? You know the famous “too good to be true” thing, right? First of all, the perfect is too good to be true and that alone does not exist and is unattainable, no matter how hard we try to establish and maintain it in ourselves and in our lives. Good is attainable and possible, even what you might think is too good. There is too much good and you deserve it.

You can have a problem with too much of a good thing if you don’t believe that it is possible, that you deserve it and that you are worthy of it. You came to this and other irrationalities in the way you think by adopting and not questioning the messages sent to you by significant others, primarily your parents. It is possible that you were taught to be careful, not to expect or trust others. It is also possible that they lightly passed over your successes and achievements, teaching you to “go easy with what you have succeeded in”, with what you are good at.

If mistakes were the ones you needed to deal with and learn from, wouldn’t you understand how to stop repeating them. So, you may have learned to look at your own achievements as things that happened thanks to a combination of lucky circumstances, rather than your abilities. And so you failed to learn to take credit for what has been accomplished and achieved, to praise yourself and give yourself recognition. Just as, it is equally possible, you have learned to attribute responsibility for inconveniences and failures primarily to yourself.

Of course, (almost all) parents do everything and always with a good intention and desire to warn, protect and save us from disappointment, unpleasantness and pain in life. However, being overly cautious and living life in a state of constant alertness and readiness for unpleasant and difficult things first of all makes us unprepared to live the good and best things that happen to us. Because you cannot be aware of the present moment and enjoy it, while at the same time worrying about the next one and trying to predict it.

Photo of Lesly B Juarez

How can you be aware of the experience of happiness and learn to surrender to it with trust? First, remind yourself that happiness is precious and that it is a rewarding experience, that it is great that it fulfills you at a given moment. Figure out what currently makes you happy.

Then, if you notice that happiness starts to worry or scare you, pay attention to the self-talk in the situation of her feelings – what you start to say to yourself, how you start to think and feel. Acknowledge the given thoughts and feelings and allow them, don’t fight them. Tell yourself that your thoughts are just that – thoughts and not truths, facts. And that the fact that you start to worry or fear does not mean that something unpleasant or bad will actually happen.

Photo Averie Woodard

Your feelings are a consequence of the way you start to think in a given situation, and in that sense they are logical, but not in accordance with reality. Allow the stated thoughts and feelings to be in your mind and body before they fade and disappear. And they will, if you manage to stay with them.

Then, remind yourself that you cannot prepare for the possibly unpleasant and difficult in life by intensively thinking or worrying about the possibly unpleasant and difficult. Remind yourself that life is a succession of experiences, but that there is no formula or rule by which they alternate. Give thanks for the happiness you feel and understand that you are worthy and deserve it, just like everyone else. Feel what it feels like to feel happiness. Understand and how you contributed to her, recognize your credit for her feeling.

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Know that it is okay to have expectations and that it is impossible not to have them, and that disappointment is not led by expectations as such, but by those that are not in line with a realistic assessment of one’s own possibilities and circumstances. It’s okay to hope for the best. And that you do your best to make the good and the best possible. Hope is healing and encouraging.

If you think that you are hindered from enjoying happiness by long-standing and deeply rooted beliefs that you don’t know how to deal with, seek professional psychological help with which you will address them, face them, question them and then transform them into, for you, more functional beliefs .

Source: www.sitoireseto.com