Hi everyone, welcome back! Since my last post where I examined why is it that a lot of times even successful people can’t seem to find their way to happiness, I have been thinking a lot about where happiness really comes from especially if it doesn’t come from just being successful, rich, beautiful, intelligent etc. So this week, I would like to try to examine the connection between ‘feeling our negative emotions’ and a human being’s happiness!
I am not sure if we can remember what it was like when we were very young kids but if you have raised or are currently raising kid(s), and you have been paying attention; you probably already know what true happiness is. And when you are a kid, it’s not only the happiness that is real, it’s the anger, the sadness, the hurt, the frustration, and every yucky emotion that is out there. It’s all real! And it’s all real because these young humans haven’t yet learned to hide all that this society defines as negative and therefore they don’t try to shove it away in the darkest corners of their hearts – yet! Instead they feel them all – the good, the bad and the ugly! And because they feel them all, is why they are that happy. They are able to get them out of their system instead of hanging on to that hurt and anger and sadness forever. On top of that, these kids don’t judge themselves for feeling these negative emotions. And so as soon as everything yucky is out through crying or yelling or a tantrum, they are back to being happy again! This my friends is called being human :-). But then when these same kids grow up as adults, somewhere in the process they learn to ‘manage their emotions’, which is definitely not a bad thing to learn; however, instead of learning to ‘feel our emotions without reacting’ what we actually learn to do is to hide all those ugly emotions away because God forbid if someone sees us this way – angry and frustrated and sad and defeated, what will they think about us? Won’t we be tagged as bad people and irresponsible adults? What will our kids learn?
As parents, if we are only allowed to teach our kids one thing, then I really wish we could teach them that just because they are sad sometimes, angry or mad some other times, hurt sometimes, guilty or regretful other times; they are not bad people! They are not bad people because feeling all these negative feelings along with the positive ones is what being human is all about. But wait! I think we already know that, don’t we? But then how is it that if we know all this, yet, we get so anxious when we start to feel that sadness inside of us? Why is it that we feel like we have to defend ourselves when we start to feel angry? Why is it that we feel so guilty for shedding a tear upon a failure? Why is it that we can’t allow ourselves to grieve the end of a relationship? Why is that we can’t allow ourselves to feel the sadness when someone close to us leaves this world? Why is it that we feel it’s very important to ‘get back to normal’ and not important enough to feel all these negative emotions? Has any of you ever wondered that? How many times, in trying to be a good friend, but completely out of our own fears of feeling these negative emotions have we advised the people close to us who are suffering to ‘just try to be happy’ for the sake of their kids or other family members? Really? Do you really think ‘trying to be happy’ when you just lost a dear family member to a disease would work? Wouldn’t you feel totally confused and conflicted and even guilty for not being able to try hard enough to become happy again?
Folks, the biggest thing I have noticed over the years is that we are very afraid to feel all these negative emotions. And we are afraid to feel them because as kids, when we felt these negative emotions and in feeling them we cried or yelled or threw a tantrum, our parents or adults around us yelled back at us and told us to stop crying or stop yelling or stop misbehaving. But do you also know that when a child who is crying or yelling or throwing a tantrum is told by a parent or an adult to ‘stop crying’ or ‘stop yelling’ or ‘stop throwing a tantrum’; the message that this child is receiving is not only that it’s not ok to cry or yell or throw a tantrum but it’s definitely not ok to feel everything negative which is triggering this outburst. But if you dig deeper to understand the reasons why your kid is crying or why you are sad, you will realize that there is almost always a need which is not being fulfilled. A need for LOVE! A need to love and to be loved. A need for connection. A need to connect with yourself and with people around you. A need to be seen and heard. A need to give and receive. A need to pray for peace together. A need to leave a safer world for our kids. A need to be able to let that dear one know just one more time how much we truly loved them. A need to hug and be hugged by someone. A need to trust and be trusted by someone. A need to just be ourselves and live our lives the way we want to.
Wow! I have tears in my eyes as I write this post today. It’s all so very simple, yet, we make it all so complicated. A lot of our pain and suffering would just vanish if we didn’t do a thing and just listened. Listened to our kids, listened to our friends, and listened to our near and dear ones. Listened to our own selves!! We will have true compassion for ourselves and everyone around us if we just listened!
And as always, leave a comment if you feel like leaving one. Until next time, just listen 🙂
