This is a topic from YOUTUBE. Reply as normal, and we will post it to the user on YouTube.
Belongs to: https://forum.heartsupport.com/t/43209
After over 40 years I’m convinced “happiness” isn’t real. If it is, I probably don’t have the ability to feel it. Just feel less horrible than other days.
Yes, it is really discouraging when happiness seems to be nothing but a distant dream in our own journey. Everyone around us talk about it, so many self-help books and methods are overcrowding libraries shelves and social media, but as much as the recipe seems simple for some, it becomes a real challenhr for others. Then you start comparing yourself to others, you see them - seemingly happy - or at least having some sense of ownership in their life, and you wonder why you don’t, feeling even more hurt and alone.
So many times I personally asked myself if I wasn’t just too broken or too far gone for the very possibility of experiencing genuine happiness. Not just as some very short and fading experience, but as something that could feel a little bit tangible and lasting. Something to hold on to without fearing the moment it would be gone. It’s definitely hard to live in a world where happiness is this goal that everyone is pressured to pursue, but to feel like being constantly walking on the wrong path, towards the wrong direction where nobody else seems to be. It feels like there is a piece of the puzzle that is missing and you have no clue how to get it, despite trying your best to find it.
I feel the exhaustion through your words, and the temptation to embrace some kind of resignation in the face of repeated hurt and disappointment. And honestly if that’s how you feel, then that makes completely sense. There are seasons in our life when it feels like there’s only so much we can take in again, only so much sorrow and brokenness we can process. It’s not even the pain that hurts, it’s this added feeling on top of it that you would be doomed to be stuck in an endless repetition, of having your hopes high only to see it turn to ashes over and over again. Somehow, it feels safer to just give up on hope itself, on the idea of reaching this seeingly unreachable goal one day. When you set your expectations to your level of disappointment, you avoid the possibility of being more hurt, at leastin theory.
For what it’s worth, to me personally there have been barriers at play that I took a long time before acknowledging. Unprocessed traumas and clinical depression have been major obstacles to reaching happiness - at least in the way I was conceiving it. I spent a lot of time surviving before realizing that I was heading into a direction that was at the complete opposite of what I needed. But the moment I started to identify those struggles, the moment I started to be helped in recognizing it and working on it, I also started to see that I am not too broken - I was just dealt with cards I had yet to process. A unique story that also needed to be told, even if there are lots of ugly parts in it.
I guess my point in sharing this, is that you may not have to give up on hope, and even less on your right to live the life you aspire to get. Of course, it’s okay to feel tired and even more to express it. There may paths in between though, complex and uncomfortable paths, but ones that could lead you to new ways to know and meet yourself at a deeper level. You are not the problem. Even if for example with depression my ability to feel happiness is affected, I can still see beauty in unexpected places and people that are a part of my life. Although it took - and will keep taking - practice in order to learn to see differently, with my own tools, resources, with who I am - and not from who others/society would want me to be. We can’t all “just” do yoga and have walk outside to feel better, but we can still explore, experiment while being gentle with ourselves, and see what resonates the most with our heart.
My hope for you is that you will keep trying, for you, for the very possibility of feeling alive again and whole, even beyond any sense of specific joy. You deserve to feel wonder again through this beautiful heart of yours. You deserve to feel a renewed sense of discovery - within you and in resonance with the world around you. You really do.
Hold Fast, friend. I believe in you.
I’m totally jaded. I don’t believe that love is real. Totally jaded from a 15 year marriage to a narcissist who gaslit me for 15 years.
I think I see where you are coming from. I found out that “happiness” is a not a goal or a place you reach, its a short term episode, a moment to cherish. Its not supposed to last for an extended period of time and its good that its that way!
I need to have these ups and downs, otherwise I cant appreciate the good moments in the same way when I do not experience the dark and bad moments. I see life as just like a heart-monitor by now - it needs to peak up and down, otherwise you´ll end up with a flat line - and a flatline means I´m are dead, not necessarily physically but emotionally.
I know times when I’m down in a hole (which I quite often dug myself) and barely able to get a positive peak together, but these times go by.
For me a part of remedy is not to take myself and the world around me too serious and to not lose my sense of humor, even when I have nothing to laugh about, I`m still able to laugh at my own stupidity, pettiness, close-mindedness, etc…
I´m not sure if you genuinely cant feel happiness or if you are searching for something that IMHO does not exist at all (happiness for a prolonged period of time) and keep overlooking the small moments of happiness along the way.
This I just how I feel about “the pursuit of happiness” and how I try to handle my depressive episodes and is not necessarily applicable to you and your situation!
That’s about right…