First, let me say, I am a HUGE fan of the ‘Personal Development’ space.
It provides so many insights, practical strategies and practices, which make an enormous difference in peoples lives.
Helping people become more, do more and achieve more of what they actually want in their lives.
It’s teachings definitely leads to higher levels of self-actualization and lower levels of stress, so it is a great collection of knowledge and shared experience.
However…
There is a teaching which I think can do more harm than good.
Let me just lay it out there, and then I will share with you why I believe this to be so.
The teaching I think has been misrepresented and misinterpreted, is that the GOAL of all this “work” is to be HAPPY ALL THE TIME.
People believe they are not succeeding in their quest, if they are not happy all the time.
This messaging is obviously not helped by the media (in all its forms).
The message being there is something wrong, broken or missing if we are not ‘happy’ 24/7.
Being happy ALL THE TIME is not the goal.
And I don’t believe it was ever the goal or teaching of traditional masters, whether that was from Eastern, Western or Middle Eastern teachings.
Let’s go deeper, and see how this message misses the mark (by a country mile).
The obvious reason
The most obvious failing for me of the “be happy all the time” goal, is that it is REALLY REALLY easy to fail.
It is an unrealistic expectation that you are going to be happy ALL the time, and if you are not, then it must mean that you are doing something wrong, or something is broken.
Unlike that ‘influencer’ on social media who looks positively happy, gushing, and joyful all the time (well the sum total of the seconds or minutes they were acting out in front of a camera).
No one – who isn’t a psychopath – is likely to be happy all the time.
One of the Four Truth’s of Buddha and Buddhism refers to the unsatisfactory nature of life (often simplified to ‘Life is suffering’), which is hardly the playing field where you are going to be able to do the joyful-gushing-thing 24/7.
If we accept that a bunch of the time we are going to be angry, sad, anxious, frustrated, annoyed, lost, lonely, doubtful, confused (etc., etc., etc.), then we will be less hard on ourselves for having ‘failed’ to be happy ALL the time.
We will consider ourselves normal, and not defective or broken.
I am not a fan of setting goals that are so unrealistic, where the failure rate is about 99.99999999%.
Yes, I could be the 1 in a Billion, who achieves the big hairy audacious goal of being happy 100% of time regardless of life circumstances, but I like to be more of a “realistic optimist”.
The reason I feel is most (practically) important
There is a greater reason why I feel the “be-happy-all-the-time goal” is not healthy.
It comes down to the practice of mis-management of emotions.
To not feel what you feel – aka: denying reality.
When we have a goal to always be happy, we are also very likely to have an avoidant attitude to any “negative” emotions that surface.
We are likely to suppress, repress, or avoid feeling unpleasant emotions, through distraction using tools like our screens (social media and the likes), up to the worse case tools like mind altering substances (e.g. drugs and alcohol).
In the (more) ‘healing’ space of the wellness field, there is a common saying that you “need to FEEL to HEAL“.
You actually need to feel sadness.
Feel anger.
Feel disappointment.
Feel disconnected.
Rather than suppress the feelings you don’t like (or seem opposite to ‘happiness’), you need to let them come through you, in order to learn from them, and then to allow them to be seen, heard, and offered up to a greater mind (or return back to the ether).
There is a lot to be learned from our seemingly messy emotions, which are essential for our evolution.
So if we quickly switch them out for a “happy face” we miss the chance for real growth.
We end up with a happy ‘projection’ of ourselves, but an unaddressed messy emotional cocktail below the surface.
And that is not really happiness at all.
Another equally important reason
I have done a lot of reading, research and working with people over the last 17 years in particular, to gain a much clearer sense of the impact of suppressed or repressed emotions on our physical bodies, and psychological health.
Most people are okay with the idea that suppressed (forcefully pushed down) or repressed emotions (held inside – consciously or unconsciously), can lead to things like stress, anxiety or depression, but less people are aware of the “physical” impacts of suppressed or repressed emotions.
I am 100% certain that unprocessed or unexpressed emotions can lead to unpleasant physical symptoms.
This is supported by the work of Dr Sarno and his team of physicians, who over the last 40 years or so, have healed patients from years of chronic pain (hip, neck, wrist, shoulder, back, etc.) by working on emotional elements. Generally in a very short space of time, and with no physical interventions like surgery or drugs.
The three areas they target are childhood (anger, sadness and anxiety), current life stressors (e.g. job loss, divorce, or betrayal, etc.), and the personality trait of perfectionism and ‘goodism‘.
If you are a person who is a bit of a perfectionist, and likes to be perceived as a good person (and does a lot of extra stuff to earn that moniker), who also experiences regular back, neck, shoulder, or hip pain, then I HIGHLY recommend you read the book ‘The Divided Mind‘ by Dr John Sarno.
By trying to ‘always be happy’ or project a persona of happiness, we might be contributing to unnecessary pain, illness and dis-ease in our bodies.
Here is a ‘better’ Goal
The first book I wrote was called ‘The Guidebook to Happiness‘ (2012).
If I wrote it now I would include a caveat about aiming for greater levels of joy, peace, fulfillment and happiness, but not at the expense of feeling the emotions which are ‘less pleasant’.
Part of happiness is feeling all of life, and being okay with that.
These days, I am less focused on the goal of ‘happiness’ and more focused on the Goal of raising my level of consciousness, so I can become the ‘silent witness’ of any of the emotions I am feeling, in order to learn from them.
I also acknowledge that feeling and processing junk-in-the-trunk (aka: negative emotions) is part of the evolutionary process of life.
My goal is not to experience elevated emotional states 100% of the time (i.e. “happiness”), it is about spending most of the time there, and less time in survival emotional states, before returning to an elevated emotional state.
So my Goal is not happiness 24/7, which is not only pretty unattainable, but may also stop me learning, growing and evolving.
Plus I might end up (looking) happy, but be in “pain”, because some unresolved emotions are being expressed psychosomatically in my body.
In Summary
The goal to be happy 100% of the time (24/7) is a not a great goal to aim for.
1) It has a high ‘failure’ rate.
2) It might cut someone off from feeling essential emotions they need to heal from.
3) It might lead to suppressed emotions and physical pain.
A better goal may be to elevate your level of consciousness so you are not overwhelmed by “negative” emotions, plus you can hold them in a safe space of witnessing, so you can learn, grow and evolve from their expression.
My Parting Words
The winner is not the person with a happy smiling face (all the time), while below the surface is a volcano ready to erupt.
Which unfortunately, is quite common.
Life is messy.
We are going to feel different sh#t, at different times, and some of it is likely to be pretty unpleasant.
This idea that a goal in life is to be happy all the time (24/7) is pretty unevolved.
It sets up unrealistic expectations.
A better strategy is to aim to experience elevated emotional states most of the time, while springing back relatively quickly from survival emotional states AFTER you have felt what you need to feel, and learned what you need to learn.
And I think a final reminder that “you need to feel to heal” is a good place to wrap up our conversation.
Let me know if you have anything to add.
Otherwise…
Have a magnificent day of feeling what you feel, and a wonderful week of learning and growing.
Take care.
Carl
Quotable QUOTE:
“A better goal is to elevate your level of consciousness so you are not overwhelmed by any (negative) emotions, but can hold and observe them in a space where you can learn, grow and evolve from their expression.“ Carl Massy
(Author of 18 Ways We Make Life WAY Harder Than It Needs To Be)
PS: Have you read or listened to this book yet? 18 Ways We Make Life WAY Harder Than It Needs To Be
