Practical insights and advice regarding anxiety, depression, trauma, parenting and more.
Rejection sensitive people deeply wish to establish rewarding intimate relationships, but they are convinced that potential partners will in some way hurt or betray them. Consequently they misread the behavior of their love interests, reading too much into what are in fact innocent gaffs or clumsy statements. These misunderstandings lead to conflict, and the eventual end of the relationship.
A soft, easy life is not worth living, if it impairs the fibre of brain and heart and muscle. We must dare to be great; and we must realize that greatness is the fruit of toil and sacrifice and high courage... For us is the life of action, of strenuous performance of duty; let us live in the harness, striving mightily; let us rather run the risk of wearing out than rusting out.
Theodore Roosevelt
The sign on the back of the rusty old VW bus read “If it feels good… do it!”
What an appealing idea. Carefree and uninhibited gratification.
For some, this mantra is so attractive that it morphs into a lifestyle aimed toward building the happiest life possible.
On the face of it this makes sense. If you wish to live a happy life, then simply do that which brings pleasure.
Such an approach to life is not new. A student of Socrates’ named Aristippus (435 BCE) developed it into a philosophy about what makes for a richly rewarding life. He concluded that a good life was one in which pleasure is maximized and pain minimized. This was called ‘hedonism.’
But research on happiness shows that a hedonistic lifestyle doesn’t deliver on its promise.
Aristippus misunderstood the nature of the human psyche, and consequently developed a misguided prescription. What he failed to appreciate is that people require more than pleasure in order to thrive. Just as a body requires more than pleasant-tasting food for optimal health.
What hedonism misses is that people are most happy when they have a sense of purpose.
When men and women identify their purpose in life, it results in their viewing everyday interactions and sacrifices as being imbued with significance. As a result, happiness grows.
The ancient Greeks called this ‘eudemonic’ happiness. You can think of it as happiness with deep roots.
The Cost of Deep Happiness
If happiness that is deeply rooted comes from living a purpose-driven life, what does it cost to win this prize?
The answer to that question becomes clear when considering what’s required to seriously pursue a meaningful purpose. Other competing interests and desires must be ignored, and almost invariably a certain degree of pain must be endured.
For example, if one’s purpose is to bring joy to others by dancing in a professional ballet company, that individual will have very few hours free to relax. Sore muscles and blistered feet will be their constant companion.
If soldiering is one’s purpose in the pursuit of safeguarding your country's freedom, then that person will sacrifice many of the freedoms that others take for granted. Multiple deployments away from family will also await them, as well as numerous cold, rain-soaked nights outdoors.
Although it may seem counterintuitive to suggest that the road to real happiness runs through a gauntlet of privation and sacrifice, research, suggests otherwise.
Living a life of purpose requires generosity in that it demands that a person subjugate his or her desires (and at times their wellbeing) in the service of something greater. This is the very opposite of the “If it feels good do it” prescription for happiness.
What Is Required To Succeed?
Across the nearly infinite types of purpose one may pursue in life, all will require tenacity, grit, and a commensurate level of skill. Undergirding each of these will be a sense of duty. An unshakable conviction that one is obligated to pursue the path on which their purpose leads them.
When a strong conviction is missing that it is your duty to pursue your purpose, staying the course becomes nearly impossible.
Self-doubt creeps in and gains a foothold in your mind.
Seductive excuses for wavering from the path crop up more frequently.
Setbacks weigh more heavily than they should.
Stew Smith, former Navy SEAL and personal coach for those going into Special Forces selection has summarized the importance of this quality by stating that the mental attitude of “I would rather die than quit” as the single biggest factor that separates the successful Special Forces applicants from those that withdraw.
Giving yourself wholeheartedly to duty can be intimidating. But the rewards are great. When you place yourself on the anvil of duty, submitting to the hammer of discipline and the sacrifices that fulfilling your duty entails, your character becomes refined, shaped, and strengthened. This is most true when the duty to which you have harnessed your commitment is a high and noble calling.
Anyone can make this choice. It is independent of status, finances, education, or geography. Everyone has the opportunity to pursue a high and noble path.
What’s more, over time you will find that this leads you to be infinitely happier than those who have spent years chasing one pleasure after another.
The bottom line is that everyone has a purpose to pursue in life. Don’t wait. Find yours now and start down the path towards its fulfillment.
Antidepressants are a commonly relied upon solution to help reduce the symptoms of depression. But many people do not respond well to these medications, and many more experience significant side effects. Research shows that there is an alternative that is free of side effects, and equally effective in combating depression. This alternative is far too often overlooked, despite the impressive body of research that supports its power to diminish depression.
Relying on the standard of “Did I enjoy myself?” for determining whether to continue to date someone is insane. It means relegating these decisions to your limbic system (your lizard brain). When was the last time you asked a reptile for help in making a decision? You see my point. To steer your dating life in a more satisfying direction it is important to minimize the influence of the lizard and rely instead on your frontal cortex. The logical operating center of your brain.
Apologies play an important function in relationship repair because they serve as a first step in rebuilding a bridge that has been burnt. They express a wish to heal a wound that has been inflicted. An effective apology goes a long way to achieving these ends. A poorly crafted apology creates a wider chasm of hurt and mistrust.
Healthy intimacy combines a sense of belonging with a sense of being deeply appreciated and desired. Because healthy intimacy involves being prized despite your flaws and shortcomings, this depth of belonging is rare. It requires building a sturdy foundation of trust, a prerequisite for genuine self-disclosure. This process is risky and consequently, time-consuming. Many people, however, try to take shortcuts. They substitute…
Teens, known for being anxious and insecure, are given the opportunity through smartphones and social media to relentlessly compare themselves to idealized versions of their peers. At the same time as they judge themselves to be failing in this regard, the same technology also opens a portal for them to be bullied and criticized by peers throughout the day. In the pre-smartphone era, a teenager’s home could be a ‘safe’ place free from the influence of negative evaluations by peers at school. No longer.
Working with a psychotherapist requires a significant investment of time, energy and money. Knowing that your efforts in counseling are leading to success is important. But sometimes it is difficult to judge whether progress is being made. This is particularly true if you have no previous experience with psychotherapy.
The ability to forgive others is key to maintaining healthy relationships and having a happy life. How to go about forgiving others, however, is difficult. In part because what it means to forgive is often wrong and includes some mistaken notion that forgiveness means you pretend that what another person did was not really all that bad. Or that forgiveness involves immediately acting as though the person who was forgiven can now be thoroughly trusted. Neither of these ideas is true….
Deep happiness has been shown to act as a protective factor against both anxiety and depression. Happier people who have not yet found success are more likely to be successful later in life than their unhappy counterparts. Many people seek out happiness by focusing on the search for immediate pleasure, and consequently never achieve real happiness. This can be fixed by...
Selecting a therapist for your child or teen can be confusing. Parents need to figure out not only whether a therapist has the skills to help, but can they be trusted to keep mom and dad ‘in the loop’ about important matters, be supportive of the parents’ priorities, and more. Choosing the wrong therapist can lead to months of wasted time, squandered expenses and possibly a worsening of the youngster’s mental state.
Is it possible for families to make it through the teen years without the home becoming an emotional war zone? The short answer is yes if everyone is properly prepared. Read on for 11 tips on how parents and teens can prepare for the challenges of adolescence and make the teen years happy and less drama-filled for everyone at home.
I’ve worked with many patients who had grown so accustomed to being anxious that they assumed this state of mind was fixed… forever. Part of the permanent furniture of their life. One of the most difficult parts of helping them was having them realize that this was not true. They could become much less anxious and enjoy much more of life. Without medication! One way of doing this that works with many people is
People who commit or attempt suicide often report feeling hopeless. Struggling with emotional turmoil, feeling helpless to bring about a solution, the suicidal person most often simply wants to escape the pain that unceasingly presses in on them from all sides. Contrary to popular opinion, they are not looking to obtain heaven. Their primary wish is to escape the hell of their current experience.
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