A Fear Of Happiness, A Fear Of Passion

[Alicja_]

Hey, 

I'd appreciate any advice on the following thing:

Throughout my life I've been doing most of the things automatically. Studying, working, having a conversation, cooking, playing, anything. Never put much heart or joy into anything. As a child I didn't do things for fun, not for any spontaneous, growth stimulating activities. I just kept on living for the sake of survival. My choices were determined by orders. And by fear of getting hurt. I learnt a lot of skills throughout my life. Even if I mastered them I suffered on my way, I was never intrinsically motivated to do any of them. I just did everything for the sake of survival. In a conversation my responses are often automatic, grounded in facts, almost never in emotions or intuition. I don't bond with people. I'm usually isolated.

Now, I still feel like I don't live my life for the sake of living and experiencing it, but rather for the sake of protection from death or from hurt. I'm still searching for activities which would make me feel alive. Which would reset the robot inside me. I want to experience more love and joy and, most of all, some positivity. For this I need to reprogram my subconscious.

Now, I've just started Leo's life purpose course. I'm also about to start a therapy. I do try different jobs, different occupations, different experiences.  Sometimes, something inside me gets triggered and I do feel stuff. I did feel it last time when I was holding my little niece. Or when I was enjoying the snow creaking under my boots or a view of a forest, of my house, even food on my plate. I feel grateful for these very simple things. Still, very often I just feel blocked from experiencing positive emotions, very inhibited. Like I'm not allowing myself to be happy. Cos happiness used to be punished. Now I feel I need to reshape this belief. Force my subconscious to believe that I deserve happiness and that happiness is good. Because if I don't, I will never find a passion cos I'll not allow myself to feel good, happy, positive, joyful, loving in any kind of situation.

Is there anyone here who can relate? Anyone who can advice how I could tackle this issue? I'd be more than grateful.  

[Extreme Z7]

@Alicja_  There a lot factors that can lead to an inability to feel happiness in life. I think it's good to embark on a deep study on yourself and your surroundings in order to get a big picture understanding of why you are where you are and what action steps can you do to fix it. Some things that are important to think about which you may or may not have already considered:

• Your Environment
• Whatever Addictions You Have, Soft or Hard
• Your Beliefs and Worldview
• Your Self-Image
• Or Possibly Even Your Unique Physiological Make-Up

There are a lot more to this, obviously. Just keep digging deep and be open to new or radical perspectives. Who knows? You might discover something you haven't thought of before.

[Alicja_]

@sadlabounty I find a lot of value in your answer, thank you. the remedy for fear... I used to ask this question to several people at least twice older than me. And to my surprise, all of them, who on the surface seemed calm, peaceful and humorous, actually had been experiencing loads of fear on everyday basis. And they just seemed to face  the same form of automatic life, where "self" disappears somewhere, where "self" is disowned. They seemed stuck doing things they had little interest in, but they did them  for the sake of doing something, "an illusion of constant movement". These people are in their 50-ies or 60-ies. Of course, the reasons why they ended up like this vary and can not be known for sure. One can just hypothesize. But the pattern looks more or less like this: they felt threatened at some point in their lives (often early childhood), they conformed and did things as ordered, afraid of rejection, maltreatment, etc, they stopped the process of spontaneous development which takes place in such an early age,  they were hindered from developing their values and motivations creating a certain anti-self mindset which was transferred from early childhood to adulthood,and at some point they just completely gave up. 

@sadlabounty Can you explain the third point more? 

[Alicja_]

@Extreme Z7 Thanks. That's very useful and also what I've been focusing on doing for some time. 

[Shin]

In the Life Purpose Course, there is an exercice where you have to find your 10 top values.

By living throught these values, you'll be more likely to experience joy, since you'll probably embody for the very fist time values that you rejected (because of society/your environement says it's stupid), or never had the chance to experience yet.

Edited December 25, 2016 by Shin