Should We Force Happiness?

[Raphael]

When it comes to happiness, I generally see two opposite ideas:

• Thoughts create emotions: you're not happy because you don't think positively enough. Change your thoughts and you'll be happy.
• Work on your shadows: you need to inspect yourself and clear your shadows, you need to release your trapped emotions.

But what if someone tries to think positively to increase happiness and always gets dragged down by his/her shadows? And what if someone did a lot of shadow work, but still feel sad because he/she is used to sadness and therefore breaking out of homeostasis is difficult?

Should a person force happiness to break out of sadness homeostasis or continue to do shadow work / release trapped emotions?

[Waken]

How I see it: Thoughts create emotions, but your very life energies can feel good too, that's not emotions. If you don't think negative thoughts, your experience will feel more pleasant, that has I would say more to do with your life energy/awareness. You don't need to think positive per se, in order to feel good, you just have to release negative thinking thoughts and you're good. If you feel okay or good, and go thinking good feeling thoughts then your energies raise a bit more, so if you like that you could do that. However, if you feel bad about something it may be easier for you to not think about it at all, than to try to think positive about it. That's why things like meditation can be great.

My current understanding: If you feel bad that is because you're not aligned with what you are. Maybe you're doing activities that don't actually feel good to you, or you're thinking thoughts that feel bad/aren't aligned with your nature. Although frankly if it is the first case, you're actually doing activities because you have thoughts that aren't aligned with you, otherwise you'd do what feels good.  If you meditate or whatever, you release resistance (resistant thinking) in the moment, and you'll thus feel better. But you didn't necessarily change your thoughts yet about the subject that made you feel bad, hence when by the living of your life you'll be seeing the subject where you have bad thinking about, you'll feel bad again. Therefore, you can again choose to meditate and release the resistance, OR you can take some effort and find thoughts that make you feel better about the subject. In the later case, when by the living of your life the same subject is brought under your attention again, you don't have negative/resistant thinking about it and thus won't feel bad/brought down anymore. Approaches such as being kind and gentle to yourself, may sound different, but are actually pretty much the same method (didn't think this through though lol), because then what you're doing is going through life and being in the state of mind where you think good feeling thoughts to yourself, which replace the negative/resistant thoughts, and do activities that feel good to you.

What you say, changing your thoughts and working on your shadows I think might either be exact the same thing, or pretty much the same thing. I think a good approach to life is, doing what feels good to you (then you're aligning with what you are), and if resistant (unaligned) thinking comes up, working to release that resistance/finding relief. I would say a little better than the idea of thinking positive thoughts, is the idea of thinking thoughts that make you feel good/relief. Because for example good luck thinking positive when you feel like shit, and for example I like my calm and so calming thoughts may be more aligned with me than what people might typically associate with positive thoughts.

Just some of my present thoughts on the situation, hope it helps a bit

Edited August 10, 2021 by Waken

[KaRzual]

Why not feel and embrace unhappiness? That's what i try to do lately and as counterintuitive it sounds - you learn to feel and accept unhappiness and simply live with it. 

[Esilda]

@Raphael should we force a flower to grow or give it the right conditions? 

[Gesundheit2]

The opposite of happiness is not sadness. It's neurosis.

[Raphael]

1 hour ago, KaRzual said:

Why not feel and embrace unhappiness? That's what i try to do lately and as counterintuitive it sounds - you learn to feel and accept unhappiness and simply live with it. 

Yeah, it works. But what if somebody is addicted to unhappiness (this is not my case, this is just a scenario that I'm thinking about).

 

[KaRzual]

35 minutes ago, Raphael said:

Yeah, it works. But what if somebody is addicted to unhappiness (this is not my case, this is just a scenario that I'm thinking about).

 

Aren't you thinking too much? 

[Raphael]

3 minutes ago, KaRzual said:

Aren't you thinking too much? 

Definitely.

[universe]

You can not force happiness. It's an Emotion. It will come and go.

The very act of forcing yourself to be happy implies you are not - in fact - currently happy. And it will manifest as it.

 

If you want to become more happy I'd recommend you master your Emotions.

As you do you will automatically climb the Emotional Stages.

[Preety_India]

Happiness is a deep emotion. 

You have to feel it from within. 

You need to seek happiness within rather than without. 

@Nahm has a really good take on this.

This is best and the most beautiful video I have found on this subject. 

 

[EternalForest]

Happiness is natural. You can tell yourself that you're happy all day, but it won't make any difference if it's not actually true for you.

[Raphael]

@Raphael

Yes, you should force it.

You should force it in the sense that if you aren't happy by yourself, you have to work to get your shit together and clean yourself up. Not in the sense of forcing a smile if you feel sad. After cleaning yourself up, you'll get more and more authentic and your happiness will come naturally without forcing it. That's the paradox of forcing vs. not forcing happiness.

Force it by working on yourself and cleaning yourself because otherwise, happiness will never come naturally. Don't force a smile when you are sad, allow yourself to express all the emotions. Allow yourself to be happy when you feel it, don't hide it.

Eventually, you'll come to a point when you'll be happy most of the time by yourself while still feeling other emotions cause that's life after all.

[Goldzilla]

Yes. Happiness is the natural state, and in this society right now is a choice. 

People only laugh if they have a reason, i'd say laugh without reason. 

Being sad and bla bla bla is a choice also. Even depresion is a choice. 

Namaste

[Goldzilla]

Basically, watch out what thoughts you entertain, because thoughts really matter. Despite all this superficial spirituality in wich thoughts are second place bla bla. 

In the real world if you think something beautiful you will feel beautiful and so on. 

[hyruga]

Work on your shadows and then let go of negative tots. There's no need for you to think neg tots. It will automatically come. Just replace them with pos tots.

You can read David Hawkins's Letting Go. It's awesome.

 

Edited August 27, 2021 by hyruga

[Moksha]

Happiness doesn't come from thrashing your thoughts and sumo wrestling your emotional shadows. The more you engage with them, the more power you give them.

The secret is not to identify with them. Let them appear, let them be, and let them go. Don't let them pull you into their undercurrent. You are the ocean, and they are flotsam.

[Rishi9]

Yes, force yourself to laugh out loud. Soo yes force happiness. Of all things, force yourself to laugh.