Welcome to the new Happiness Blog
- from Carole at Type Dynamics

I've been thinking for some time now about putting together a blog and I decided as my favourite subject is around the whole area of happiness I thought why not share what I'm learning with you. Doesn't everyone need a little happiness?

However, as I started to look more intently at this subject I realised how little I knew about happiness and in particular authentic happiness.

When I thought of happiness I linked it with events or people in my life - times that had been
good. If l wasn't looking back for happiness I was looking forward and being hopeful about future happiness. But what about the here and now..... the present?

I then found myself posing the follow questions "Am I happy right now." or "Do I even know what is it to be happy?"

Finding answers to these questions challenged me to research from a wide variety of psychologists and philosophers the true meaning of happiness and as I did it provoked quite a bit of personal introspection and new self-awareness. I'm also still learning!

Carole

Shopping - The New Religion

According to the psychologist Erich Fromm, in our effort to break away from a feudal past we
embraced our new freedom to pursue wealth and comfort believing it to lead to unrestricted happiness. In effect, consumerism became the new religion and happiness equalled “unlimited consumption.”

As a result what became important was not who we were but instead what we had. Happiness was something transient and external to us, something to pursue, wish or pine for.... “I was happy then”....“I will be happy when....”

That brings us back to those mistaken ideas I mentioned earlier. Many of these ideas or beliefs we own begin with the words “If I had ......I would be happy.”

• If I had more money I’d be happier.
• When I find a partner I’ll be happy then.
• If I had that house/car/holiday home I’d be happy.
  

Beliefs similar to those above makes happiness seem elusive to us. It’s somewhere out there in our future, dictated by events, people or circumstances outside our control. And yet what we’re hearing from a new breed of positive psychologists is that happiness is not determined wholly by external circumstances but by our internal influences (Seligman). In other words ......

Happiness is an inside job....or a state of mind!

Yet if that is true then why is it so many of us hold on to mistaken ideas or beliefs about happiness? Is it simply easier for us to relinquish responsibility for our happiness, to blame others instead and hear ourselves complain ’It’s not my fault I’m unhappy....it’s yours.’

Creating Steps to a Happier Life


Step 1 - Letting Go of Happiness Misconceptions

Taking back control of our own happiness is a process and if you’re willing then you’re already on your way to a happier life. But first it means a letting go of those mistaken ideas or misconceptions you have about happiness. To do this you need to learn the art of disputing or challenging your own internal thoughts. You could try using an approach similar to the one below.

Let’s take ‘If I had more money I’d be happier.’

• Look for Evidence to dispute - Be factual
  
• How specifically would I be happier? Get real specific.
  
• How would I look?
  
• What would I be feeling that would be so different to how it is now?
  

Acknowledge reality
For example having more money might very well mean living in a better house or having less stress about paying bills so acknowledge it. Then ask yourself how would I be happier?

After that ......Ask how useful is it for me to hold on to this belief?


Step 2 - Changing Attitudes

Over the past 20 years a new breed of positive psychologists have been exploring the topic of happiness in an effort to find out what makes one person happier than another and discovered it’s got a lot to do with attitude. Happy people look at life differently to those who are sad, viewing set-backs, even sadness as something that will pass. They are hopeful, future thinking and optimistic. By comparison the unhappy person tends to see set-backs and sadness as all-consuming and never ending.


Research has shown that one of the biggest causes of depression is the ruminating over things that went wrong for us in the past. We tell ourselves “I messed it up ...” over and over all the while continually feeding the flames of our negative thoughts, keeping them very much alive and to the forefront of our thinking. However, according to positive psychologist Martin Seligman it is possible to learn optimism and optimism is seen as a real defense against unhappiness.

Using the process described above you can begin by learning how to argue with yourself and dispute pessimistic thoughts as they flood your consciousness. Look for evidence to prove the pessimistic thought is factually incorrect. Think of it as similar to how you would respond if someone shouted abuse at you. Wouldn’t your reaction be to refute, defend or argue your position? Equally the same approach works just as effectively when we are verbally abusing ourselves.

From a health aspect there are other benefits to putting these steps in place because “happiness, positive attitudes, contentment, and emotional well-being all appear to put less stress on our body, permit it to function more healthily and result in fewer physical breakdowns” (Argyle 1997).