The capitalistic marketing of happiness works like this: make everyone who feels anything other than happy believe that they’re mentally ill. (lots of unwitting foot soldiers involved in this, too — like the whole new age movement–who too often push delusional glee.)
Whatever we feel is okay…and generally justified. Sit with it and learn…Be with those difficult feelings, yes. It helps it move etc….to feel is human, celebrate that…these attitudes make us afraid to feel and be what we are right now. it’s okay not to have smile on our faces 24/7.
Not only that, feeling happy in the face of abject suffering is sick. I just read someone saying our circumstances shouldn’t dictate how we feel. Seriously? I feel mortified horror at the way this country is treating immigrants right now. I sob internally when I hear the most powerful man in the world speak hateful, bigoted words while acting on them. People are dying now right here in our country. It’s an idiot who stays happy in the face of that.
Also, can you imagine telling a mother who is having her child taken from her at the border that she should be happy? No, I cannot either. It’s delusional glee from privileged (mostly white) people who tell others they should be happy regardless of circumstance.
We can hold the horror and the wonder of life at once…it’s a more mature and complex stance than simple happiness. It’s sober and holds wondrousness and beauty right alongside heinousness and pain. Because life, it’s the whole shebang. When we’re willing to feel everything is when we are really living. Getting there is largely what the healing journey has been for me.
It’s true: there is nothing wrong with you.
Also:
- Quotes taken from the book: “healing through the dark emotions: The wisdom of grief, fear and despair”
- “The cure for pain is in the pain.” My experience tells me that this is true
- Transforming Despair
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