We all want of course to be happy
But the strange thing about being properly happy is that it's a state that requires us to learn and regularly
practice a slightly odd sounding related skill
knowing how to be sad
Everyday a lot of stuff happens to us which is in one way or another pretty hurtful
Someone doesn't call someone says no a project isn't going to work out
You'd think we then just spontaneously feel sad for a bit and that would be the end of it
But that's not ,it seems,how many of us actually work.
Frequently our minds which are squeamish by Nature
Rigorously shut out unfortunate negative feelings and go into a state of what psychologists called denial
Where difficult but true information is refused access
We may as a result of burying our feelings develop a number of symptoms
We can't sleep, bits of our bodies start a twitch, we develop an addiction
Or there's another option
We become extremely surely not happy as such
But brittle and insistent in a fake kind of upbeatness , the sort of happiness that can't tolerate any
sadness
Here's a couple Ben and Freya. There's a lot of sadness in Freya
But she's learned not to let any of it in to consciousness
So she's often extremely cheery and rather bad at picking up on other people's need to be sad
Let's watch a little film about these people
ah,what's wrong with you, looking all gloom?
Nothing to be gloom about, it's the weekend!
[what] should we do this weekend party party was it's all Friday Friday gotta get down on Friday
[we] love that don't you know what I think about the other day you're so good at karaoke. [I] love it when you do karaoke
Saturday night and I like the way you move yeah
You don't know you're ticklish around in here. You can [whisper] [all] open
We need to be sympathetic the origins of jolliness are pretty painful
They're often to do with having had a parent or early caregiver who for one reason or another
Couldn't tolerate problems or any difficulties
They were perhaps depressed or otherwise
Fragile so quite early on the manically jolly person got into the role of being an upbeat cheerleader
Not because they were but because they had to be
Pain is of course horrible thing to feel
But because it is a part of our reality we need to have the courage to allow it to work its way
Properly through our system. We need to learn to feel the pain of our lives authentically
Before it's joys can feel real as well
Pushing problems aside is deeply tempting but our pleasures will only feel authentic
when we've first given the pain all the space it truly deserves in our lives
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