So I dutifully made my new year’s resolution to be a happier me this year. To appreciate all that I am and have, and try to feel GREAT about that.
But sometimes I wonder. Did any of us really learn how to be happy? How do you train yourself to feel fulfilled? I remember Bob Greene suggesting to Oprah last Monday: “I’m afraid you never learned how to feel happy.”
Perhaps we all need special training in how to manage the human condition. Sometimes we are not so different than my little pupster. We need specific training in how to comfort ourselves when there is no one else around to turn to. We need to learn how to embrace our fundamentally flawed bodies and souls, ask for help without guilt or shame, and find some balance in our lives.
The first question that always comes up for me, either consciously or unconsciously is: Do we even have the right to be happy? There was a fascinating segment on CBS Sunday Morning last week about guilt, what it is and how it works in our brains. Brain research has shown that there is a special place in our brains dedicated to feeling guilt. In other words, we are hard wired for it!
My master’s thesis was on shame and guilt. I worked in a rehabilitation hospital and the issue that came up constantly was depression and shame about aging-related disabilities. The patients were ashamed of their slowly decreasing skill set, and afraid to ask others for help doing things they could have done alone before.
Turns out this was useful training because now I find myself, my husband and almost everyone I know suffering at least occasionally from age-related aches and pains, if not disabilities. Change is tough, especially when it includes physical decline.
So, do we have the right to feel happy in spite of the fact that our bodies will never be as lithe, limber and pain-free as we remember them? Can we love ourselves into positive feelings about our lives and our bodies? Can we find a way to make our lives just a tiny bit closer to the dream we have in our heads, even if it ain’t perfect?
There’s the challenge. That’s the fight I’m determined to fight this year!
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I suspect the determining factor is Acceptance.
Life is.
Happiness is fleeting, Joy is profound.
God, grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the Courage to change the things I can and the Wisdom to know the difference.
Peace,
Brad
Yes, Brad, acceptance and gratitude for all that is already given.
I do think we have a right to happiness, as I think we have a right to experience all our emotions, be it anger, saddness or happiness. It’s what we do those emotions that’s important. As we age we can’t rely on our bodies to feel good. I have a friend who has MS. He once told me that for a long time he fought for what he was losing, and one day he realised, by focusing on hanging on, he was ignoring taking advantage of all the things he could do. It was then that he started using a walking frame and noticed how much more energy he had. Is he happy? I think he experiences all his emotions, and I do know he is always active and lives very much in the present.
As for learing to be happy? Sandy MacGregor runs a course CHI. Creating Happiness Intentionally. So I guess it can be taught. However in the film ‘Ambition to meaning,’ Wayne Dyer quotes Jung, sayiing “what in the morning was true will in the evening become a lie.” As we age what gives meaning to our lives changes, so our expereince of happiness must also change.