What Is Happiness?

Can we really define what happiness is? Many studies have tried to do just that. Some studies have defined happiness as having life satisfaction, positive and healthy coping resources, plus positive emotions.

These studies have shown that happiness can lead to a wide range of beneficial outcomes. These include: financial success, supporting relationships, positive physical and mental health benefits, effective coping strategies, resilience and longevity. They have also shown that happiness precedes and predicts positive outcomes rather than just being a simple result of them.

For me, I simply relate happiness to my serenity, my acceptance and overall contentment of life even with all its ups and downs. For most people they simply don’t care how you define happiness. They would just like to feel more happy in their everyday lives. So how can we cultivate happiness in our lives?

Coping With Being Happy Can Be Hard.

When we start to realise we are happy, we may want to go out, look after ourself, take better care of ourself. We may fee more rested and less stressed. Perhaps less anxious and depressed. We may smile more , meet friends and family. We find we can cope with difficult situations more easily and realise we survived what life threw at us.

Feeling happy may not be this obvious at first. It can be as subtle as walking down the street and realising you are happy. This can be a very frightening feeling the first time it happens or number of times it happens. Especially if you are not used to it.

You may have had  Postnatal depression, PTSD, Grief, Depression, Anxiety etc. The feeling of happiness may have not have been felt for a very long time. You may feel guilty or fearful for doing so and you retreat because of fear or guilt. Its okay. That’s a normal reaction to an uncertain emotion at this time.

Misery and sadness can feel like old friends. Particularly if they’ve been around a lot lately. Misery is clear-cut. We know every nook and corner of it. We are great experts in being miserable. So when happiness comes everything collapses. One is simply confused. One does not know what is happening, why it is happening. Happiness is so unknown that it is natural to feel confused, scared, guilty etc.

Don’t Allow Fear Hold You Back.

Sometimes when we have been in a negative situation for a while we find that during recovery we are shocked by happiness. We find it hard to cope with being happy as we are afraid that something bad will happen afterwards.

Just like dealing with any emotion we need to observe happiness rather than judge it. (see below on tracking emotions) Journal about the times you have found happiness can be helpful. Building a happiness strategy can also be useful (see below).

You may already be creating a daily gratitude list. Just list 3 things you’re grateful for at the end of the day following your journal entries. We know that gratitude can help build happiness quickly and last longer.

Noticing any triggers that prevent you from feeling happiness is also a good idea. Do you need to delete certain situations from your life? Review your priorities (To Do List)? Take time to recognise how you feel and write about these situations and thoughts.

What Else Can We Do To Build A Happiness Strategy?

1. So start with the usual suspects here. I talk about them in more detail and I’ve linked out to each one: basic self-care, exercise, healthy diet, get a SAD lamp (if you have SAD), Vitamin D also in winter.
2. So using Gratitude, journalling and setting healthy goals.
3. Meditation and stress reduction techniques.
4. Cultivate positive thinking, positive relationships. Delete negative thinking and people from your life.
5. Set healthy boundaries.
6. Review your priorities and delete some stuff. You can’t do it all for everyone else and leave yourself running on empty and still be happy.
7. Know your strengths. We don’t give ourselves enough credit for what we can do or what we do. Take time to list it all out on a regular basis to remind yourself how wonderful you are. Yes you are wonderful!
8. Read about it. Pick up some self-help books from the local library and start practising what they preach. But use the rule of take what you like and leave the rest here. Or go through my self-care blogs.
9. Stop over thinking it. Procrastinating about doing things for yourself that you really want to and comparing yourself to others. Please. If you find yourself not able to make a decision then you have two option. Let it go and make a decision to sleep on it or put it off for a while. Or you can use the phrase “Just Do It!” This is more so if you know it’s something you really want to try and fear is holding you back. Give it a go, you do deserve a great life.

Track your emotions one at a time.

In this case you are tracking happiness, joy, contentment, etc. Look up the word happiness and see what comes up. Sometimes we can’t see happiness but when we use other words that are similiar we find it becomes easier to recognise our own happiness. 

1. Identify which emotion you want to track that day(s). You will work reflectively at first using your journal. With practice it will get better and you will do this in the moment.
2. Using mindfulness to help you do this is great. But any meditation or relaxing breathing exercise can help.
3. If you can allow yourself to just identify the emotion you are tracking as it happens. You might not be able to do this at first. That’s fine. You can work back over your day and the events to see what happened and track how you felt.
4. Make a note of it in a journal and explore what was going on at the time and how you reacted after to this event.
5. Notice the: who, what, where, when of the event and the emotion.
6. If you weren’t happy over the course of the day ask yourself some questions. Is this related to your past or present? Be honest is the emotion escalated, or not happening, because of a similar event in the past? In otherwords has it triggered more emotions you need help dealing with? If so please seek therapy.
7. Remember being happy doesn’t happen everyday. Let’s be honest here happiness comes and goes. We all have up and down days. So are you holding out for something that’s unrealistic? Something you think should be happening because you see others on social media posting all their happy lives. If so, remember people will only post the good stuff. People will never let the reality of their lives to be posted on social media. Try ditching social media for a while and see how much better you feel.
8. After a week or two try to see your feeling, not feel the feeling. What I mean by this is emotions are triggered by thoughts/reactions to events and we need to gain control over our emotion in a healthy way. So by seeing how you feel you can the judge how to react more appropriately.
9. Review your journal of the last two weeks to see if there is a pattern to your behaviour. Are you in a situation you need to get out of? Have you dealt with the negative people in your life? Do you need to make a complaint to someone in work about unacceptable behaviour? Ask yourself what can I do to change the situation I’m reacting to?
10. If you notice you are particularly anxious around being happy what is it that’s making you anxious? Is your anxiety justified in the current situation? Or are you still dealing with something from the past?

Always remember to stop if something triggers too many bad memories for you. You may need professional help if this is occurring. Remember life and emotions have their ups and downs, even on a daily basis. So trying to be happy all the time is unrealistic and unhealthy as you are ignoring your life.

Work With Me.

Remember you are allowed to ask for support. No one is an island. If you need extra support then you can also work with me. We all struggle with stress and overwhelm from time to time. If you find this has become a problem for you and you’d like some support then schedule an appointment with me.