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Welcome back to another episode of Success in Mind, where we explore the secrets

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to unlocking your highest potential.

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I'm your host, Teri Holland, and today we're tackling a question that I think has

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crossed all of our minds at some point.

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At least, it's crossed my mind many times.

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Can we be happy all the time?

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Happiness is a highly sought after state, and we put a lot of pressure

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on the role of happiness in our lives. To be the ultimate goal.

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Many times people will say, well, I just want to be happy.

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Or as long as I'm happy, everything's okay.

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But is it realistic? Or is it even possible to be happy all the time?

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The short answer to that is no. So let's dive into why this is the case and why it's actually beneficial for us

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that happiness isn't a constant state.

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First, we need to talk about the nature of emotions.

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Our emotions are a part of a complex system designed to help us navigate

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through the ups and downs of life. They are responses to our environment, our circumstances, our experiences, and

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just as physical sensations like pain and pleasure, help to guide our actions.

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emotions like happiness, sadness, fear, hurt, guilt, anger.

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Play crucial roles in our survival and in our well being.

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So happiness is just one emotion on a whole spectrum of emotions.

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Now, I believe that we are all here for a purpose and part of that

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purpose is to experience life fully.

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We have been given this whole range of emotions because we are meant to

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experience the whole range of emotions.

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Imagine that your emotions are like a box of crayons.

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Remember when you were a kid and you got the good box of crayons, like the full,

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big box of crayons with all the colors.

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I would take out that new box of crayons and I would use

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every single color on a paper. I just wanted to see all the colors laid out on a piece of paper.

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Now, remember when you were a kid and say you would go into a restaurant

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and they'd give you one of those coloring sheets to keep you busy.

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And you'd maybe get three crayons to work with.

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I don't know about you, but I always felt disappointed when

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I was given just three crayons. And I would think, what am I supposed to do with just three options?

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I have to colour this whole colouring sheet, and I only have

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three choices to choose from? It wasn't as nearly as exciting or fulfilling as having the whole box.

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I think it's like 64 crayons in the big box.

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I thought that was a lot of crayons to work with.

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And then you go somewhere, you go out for dinner with your family, and you're given

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three crayons, maybe four if you're lucky.

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And they were never my favorite colors.

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It was always the primary colors. You know, you get the blue, you get a yellow and a red, and you're expected

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to create this masterpiece at dinner.

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Okay, maybe no one expected that, but I wanted to create my masterpiece.

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And I couldn't do that with three colors. So our emotions are meant to be experienced, and I believe that we

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are meant to have a full experience of the full spectrum of emotions.

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We're meant to experience all of them, and all of life's richness.

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Now let's talk about the nature of an emotion.

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E motion. Emotions are energy in motion.

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E motion. They are meant to come and go throughout the day, throughout our experiences.

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An emotion is really only meant to last about 90 seconds.

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Have you ever paid attention to how long you experience an emotion?

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In fact, it's said that if you're experiencing an emotion for longer

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than 90 seconds, it's because you're telling yourself a story.

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And we do this all the time. We get into an emotion, we have an emotional response to

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something, and then we start telling ourselves a story about it.

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And that perpetuates more of the emotion.

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And we get caught in what's called an emotional loop.

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So you tell yourself the story, you reignite that emotion and

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you tell yourself the story and you feel more of the emotion.

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And now you're in a mood. So let's say something happens, you're on your way to work, you're driving

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and someone cuts you off in traffic. Maybe you feel a spark of anger in that moment.

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But then you're completely safe if you, you know, within a few seconds, you

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recognize that you are safe, you're fine. And yet you're still experiencing the anger.

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Well, you're experiencing the anger still because you're replaying that

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moment over and over and you're creating a story about that person.

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Maybe the story is that they're selfish and inconsiderate and

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they shouldn't be on the road. And as long as you keep running this story, as long as you keep continuing

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to have these thoughts about this person and you attach meaning to it.

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You will continue to feel that anger, the anger might even grow,

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maybe now it becomes road rage. And now we have a big problem.

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Maybe you get into work and you start telling people about that inconsiderate

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asshole on the road who cut you off and nearly took you off the road.

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Meanwhile, you're safe, you're okay.

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But you're telling yourself the story of this person.

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But the truth is, is that you don't know why they cut you off in traffic.

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Maybe they simply didn't see you. Maybe they were in such a hurry.

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Maybe they were in their own negative state of mind, and

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they were completely distracted. Maybe they were in a hurry to get somewhere, and were

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being negligent on the road. Maybe they're just a bad driver.

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We don't really know. But we can continue to make up these stories, and to continue to feel these

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negative emotions, and to spiral on them, and get caught in these negative loops.

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As long as we keep telling ourselves a story. But really, an emotion is only meant to be there for about 90 seconds.

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Emotions are information for us.

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And even our negative emotions carry a lot of information.

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For example, the emotion of anger is there to tell us when someone or something is

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violating our boundaries or our values.

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And then you know that you need to deal with it. And as soon as you deal with it, the emotion should go away.

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The emotion is just there to tell you, Hey, this isn't okay.

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So in our, our example of getting cut off in traffic, that anger It tells you,

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you're not okay with that, that person just violated your boundaries, really your

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physical space boundaries on the road. But they also probably violated a value, which is, has to do with your

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safety, your protection, your life.

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So they pressed up against a value that's important to you.

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And in that moment, you got angry.

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But now it's dealt with, it's handled, you're safe.

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Nothing really happened. And you can choose to let it go.

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Sadness is usually connected to a loss.

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When we lose someone or something we care about, there's going

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to be sadness, and that's okay.

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Sadness can also come from disappointment.

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Something doesn't go your way. It's okay to be sad about it in the moment.

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Fear. Fear's a big one.

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Fear often tells us when there's some sort of threat to our, our safety.

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Now, fear can also make us play small.

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So all of these emotions have a positive side and a negative side.

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They have, a side that is information for us and works for us, but then

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they also have their downside.

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So the problem with fear is fear can be very irrational and fear can

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make us behave in ways that keep us small and stop us from pursuing

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things that we really want to pursue. But fear is also there to tell us, hey, if you keep walking in that

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direction, you might fall off the cliff.

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Maybe give that bear some space and don't approach it.

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So fear can be there to keep us safe more often than not in our modern world.

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Fear just keeps us small. Guilt is there to tell us when, when we're violating our own values or boundaries.

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So if you've done something that violates your own values, you're

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going to feel guilty because you've crossed your own line.

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And then you need to correct your mistake. You correct the mistake and you don't need to carry the guilt anymore.

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So we're meant to feel these emotions and the whole range of emotions.

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And all of our emotions play an important role.

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Even the negative ones. Even anxiety has a purpose.

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Now having an anxiety disorder is not a great thing.

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Having, if you have anxiety running your life, that's not a good thing.

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We don't want that, but anxiety can sometimes cause us to take action, to

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move in a direction, to make a change.

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Anxiety is also there to tell us when we're focused on an outcome we don't want.

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And that's, that's a warning from the unconscious mind to say, Hey, you

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better start focusing on what you want. If you want to get a different result, you better start focusing on it.

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So even anxiety has a purpose and a function.

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Psychologists often refer to the hedonic treadmill, it's a concept

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that suggests that we quickly return to a base level of happiness, despite

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major positive or negative events.

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For example, winning the lottery, or getting a promotion might boost

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your happiness temporarily, but over time, we adapt and return

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to our regular emotional state.

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And this is because our brains are wired for equilibrium, constantly

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adjusting to our current circumstances.

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Now, running on this hedonic treadmill is not necessarily good

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for us in and of itself because it creates a situation where you

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require more and more to feel happy.

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Suddenly those highs don't feel as good anymore and so we need to

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continually strive for more and more, bigger, better, faster in order to

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feel that base level of happiness. Research by positive psychologist, Sonia I'm probably going to butcher

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her last name, by the way, Sonia Liu Barmyski, I think is how you

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pronounce it, indicates that 50 percent of your happiness is genetic

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and 10 percent is life circumstance and 40 percent is in your control.

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And she explains that while genetics and personality variables may largely

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explain your hedonic set point.

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Your goals and attentional focus play a role in your day to day happiness.

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So in other words, you don't have to stay on the treadmill.

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You have control over your happiness.

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You have some control. In fact, I would say 40 percent is quite a bit of control over

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your day to day happiness. Now I think one of the problems is that today there's so

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much pressure to be happy.

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And this kind of contradicts the idea of being happy.

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So constantly striving to increase that level of happiness can just

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create greater dissatisfaction. When we believe that we should always be happy, we start to set ourselves up

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for disappointment and guilt when we inevitably experience other emotions.

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And this pressure can lead to a cycle of frustration or even depression.

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I was recently, I recently, like when I say recently, I mean, Um, in the

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last six months, I started keeping a daily journal and this is a journal

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that was gifted to me and it was a daily journal and you just fill out the

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blanks and I thought, you know what? I'm going to, I'm going to try out this journal that I've had sitting

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on my bookshelf for a while and one of the things that this journal

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had me do was to rate my happiness each day on a scale of one to five.

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And every day, I found that I couldn't give myself higher than a three.

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Every day was a two or a three. And this was going on for a while, and I started to notice I was

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feeling more and more depressed.

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I was feeling dissatisfied with my life.

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And I started to question why can't I give myself higher than a three.

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But think about this. At the end of the day, I would scan over my day and go, well, how did,

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how was today on the happiness scale?

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Well, sure, I experienced moments of happiness, but I also experienced

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moments of sadness or frustration.

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And I experienced moments of love and joy, but also moments of fear or anger.

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And so I can never seem to give myself more than a three because I thought,

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well, if I look at the whole day.

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Sure, there were moments of happiness, but I can't say that it's a five because in my

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mind a five would be if I felt happiness all day, and I never had that day.

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So I started to compare how I was feeling to how I thought I should be feeling.

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And around this time, I was going to a therapist and I brought this to him and

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I said, well, I'm doing this journal, I can never seem to give myself more

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than a three on this happiness scale.

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Does that mean something's wrong with me? Because I'm concerned about it.

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And he said, Well, how happy do you think you should be? And I was like, Well, maybe I should be a five.

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But is that even realistic? And we started to talk about this, and what this scale was doing to me each day.

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And he asked me, Well, what would have to change your life to make it a five?

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And I said, Well, I don't even think that's realistic.

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Because on any given day, I'm going to have moments where I'm not feeling happy.

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And that doesn't mean that I'm feeling sad or a major negative emotion.

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I could just be feeling neutral or okay, calm.

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And so his suggestion to me was stop tracking your happiness.

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And you might have guessed that I started to feel a lot happier when I stopped.

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measuring my happiness day to day. I don't think we're meant to put that much focus on our emotions.

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I think we need to acknowledge them and be aware of them.

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But they're just one piece of a complex system.

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I think we also need to be mindful of what our thoughts are,

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how our physical body is doing. I don't think we're meant to be focused solely on our emotions every day.

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And when we do focus on it, it creates so much pressure to be

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happy that then we might start wondering, well, what's wrong with me?

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What's wrong in my life? And creating problems that aren't even there.

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When I was doing this, I started looking for, well, what, what's wrong in my life?

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What's wrong? What do I need to do better? What needs to improve?

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How do I get this to a five? And the fact of the matter is that there was nothing wrong in my life.

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But I started to look for problems. And when you look for problems, you tend to find the problems.

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I also think that if we are constantly trying to be happy and focusing solely

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on happiness, I think that can prevent us from living authentically and accepting

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what's really going on in our lives. When we acknowledge that it's okay to feel sad, it's okay to have moments of

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anxiety or to be angry at sometimes,

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but when we constantly think that we should feel happy, we're

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fighting these natural feelings. And how can you really live an authentic life when you are forcing yourself to

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feel a state and meanwhile ignoring what's really going on under the surface?

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I think instead of focusing on being happy, we should focus on

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fulfillment and meaning in our lives.

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Fulfillment and meaning are deeper and more enduring than

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happiness, which is fleeting. Remember, our emotions last for maybe 90 seconds.

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If you're spending your entire day or your entire life chasing these 90 second

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moments of happiness, You're missing out on the rest of the crayon box.

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It's kind of like chasing a high, really.

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I remember many years ago when I was in theater, I had a singing teacher

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and her name was Adele and we were talking one day about happiness.

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I'm not sure how this came up, but she said to me, you know,

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happiness is just another drug. And that has always stuck with me, that happiness is just another drug.

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Now if we pursue meaningful goals in our lives and building strong

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relationships, contributing to something greater than ourselves,

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that can lead to a more profound sense of well being and fulfillment.

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This doesn't mean that we're always happy, but it means that

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our lives are rich and purposeful.

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I think that is a better thing to focus on.

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So how can we foster How healthier relationships with our emotions and

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find balance between happiness and the full spectrum of human experience?

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Well, one is a mindfulness practice.

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Now, I'm wary of saying the word mindfulness as many of my clients listen

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to this show and they'll say, Teri, you don't like that word mindfulness.

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And honestly, I don't, because I think it's one of those words that has been

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so overly used it's lost its meaning.

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But really, that's what we're talking about here is mindfulness.

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Mindfulness can help us to stay present and fully experience our

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emotions without judging them. By observing our feelings, we can understand and address

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them more effectively. And a great practice for this is daily meditation.

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Now, many of you listening might already know this, but I'm a

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part of an app called Aura. And Aura is It's like the Spotify of mental wellness.

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Aura is full of thousands, I'm talking like 30, 000 plus recordings

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of hypnosis tracks, meditations, life coaching recordings.

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You name it. If it's there for your mental well being, it's probably on Aura.

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This is a shameless plug for Aura because I host my hypnosis

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recordings there, which is another great way to practice mindfulness.

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And I'm going to link Aura in the show notes because if you click on my

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link, you'll get a 30 day guest pass.

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You can't get that any other way, but you will get 30 days to try out the

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full, the full scope of Aura, everything that Aura has to offer for 30 days.

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And then if you like it, you can continue. If you don't like it, you can just cancel it.

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So that's in the show notes, and for full transparency, I do get a little

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piece of that if you sign up after your 30 days, but I'm not in it for that.

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I am sharing it because I know it's a powerful tool that you can use

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to help your mental well being. We can also practice gratitude.

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While we can't be happy all the time, we can have positive

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moments and aspects of our life. And gratitude helps to shift our focus from what's lacking to what's abundant.

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And in that abundant, focused state, we have choice.

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See, the problem with our negative emotions is not the emotions themselves,

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but that it limits our focus. It limits our viewpoint and gets us stuck in a problem.

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If we get into those emotional loops, we can get stuck into the problem, and then

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we can't see any way out of the problem. But if we can shift our focus to a more positive state, in NLP we call

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this a resourceful state, now we can start to see solutions to the problem.

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We can find our way out of the problem.

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Gratitude is a quick way to shift focus from what's wrong to what's going right.

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And that puts you in a resourceful state of mind to begin to explore

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the options available to you. And there are always options.

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Even when it doesn't feel like there are options, there's always options.

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Building resilience. If you can embrace the challenges before you and view them as

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opportunities for growth, this will help you to build more resilience.

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And this helps us to navigate life's ups and downs more smoothly.

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Listen, there are always going to be ups and downs in life, no matter how

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positive of a person you are, no matter how positive of a thinker you are,

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there will always be ups and downs. But how do you handle them?

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Do they throw you off course completely? Or are you able to take it in stride and see your way through it?

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That's resilience. Connection with others is also important in leading a fulfilling, meaningful life.

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Having true authentic connections with others provides support

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and a sense of belonging. And there's not a single person on this planet who doesn't

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want to feel like they belong. We grow through community.

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Humans need community. And sharing our true feelings and having those authentic connections

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Fosters a deeper relationship and mutual understandings, and it gives us that

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sense of belonging that, Hey, I belong with these people, these are my people.

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And then pursuing meaning, focusing on activities and goals that

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align with your values and bring a sense of purpose to your life.

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Meaningful engagement leads to a more fulfilling life, even

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in the most difficult of times. And we saw this, didn't we, during the pandemic and during lockdowns, that people

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who were able to find some meaningful engagement, people who were able to

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focus on their goals, and find a sense of purpose through that time, were able to

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get through those difficult times a lot more easily than people who focused on

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what was going wrong or what was lacking. So while the idea of being happy all the time is appealing, it's not

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realistic and it's not necessary for leading a rich and fulfilling life.

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We need to embrace the full range of our emotions to allow us to really live

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an authentic human experience and to be able to navigate life's challenges

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with resilience and understanding.

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So thank you for joining me today on this episode of Success in Mind.

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If you found this discussion valuable, please subscribe, leave a review and share

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it with at least one other friend who might find benefit from this perspective.

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And remember this, it's not about being happy all the time.

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It's about living fully and embracing every part of this beautiful

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journey of human experience.

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I'll be back again later this week with another fantastic interview

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with one of our great guests. And until then, stay motivated, stay focused, and appreciate the

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richness of your emotional journey.

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Bye for now, friends. Okay.