Things in life are going well, we may find ourselves enjoying a moment of peace after completing all our tasks for the day or week, taking a minute to reflect. "Things are going well" we exclaim. Our relationship is sailing smoothly, our work life is settled, and our home is feeling all comfortable. Maybe we've been making all the progress we set out to, and have begun to believe in a bright future.
Then it happens, the thoughts appear "Things are going too well" "We are much too happy" "Something must be about to come and f*&k this up"
This happened to me just the other day and I thought "Why does this happen?" - here's what I've figured out.
Catastrophising is the devil
Allowing these thoughts to run rampant through our minds is a huge mistake. It takes away from our life force and our enjoyment of being. It sucks the joy out of our accomplishments and we must, I repeat MUST regain control as soon as possible.
Not only does expecting the worst make us miserable, but it can actually begin manifesting negativity in our lives. I'm not about to bust into a fully-fledged manifestation guide but I will give you a quick run-down for reference sake.
Ever notice someone who's constantly stating how dull their days are, or how terrible their job is? No matter what they do, history appears to repeat itself. Their job keeps throwing up challenges and their days remain dull. They may say things like "Nothing ever works out for me" or "I'll never get a raise" and sure enough, those things remain true for them.
Then take a look at the person who says things like "I love being here" and "Things always work out for me" and take note of how those statements are often 100% true.
Even if the positive talker doesn't have all that much to be happy about who would you rather spend time with? I know who I'd pick, and I'll let you in on a hint - it's not negative Nigel over there.
So what causes happiness anxiety?
In my opinion, happiness anxiety could come from multiple different origins, here are a few examples:
Confirmation Bias - "Everything always goes wrong for me, see?"
New Levels of Responsibility - "Now that we have achieved our goal, we are responsible for maintaining it"
Control Issues - Leading a life where one is always out of control can lead to needing to be in constant control - even when it could be detrimental.
Self-Sabotage - The belief that one is not deserving of a positive experience, usually conscious.
Inner-Critic - The belief that one is not deserving of a positive experience, usually non-conscious or 'subconscious'
Previous Experiences - For some, their lives have been so tumultuous or traumatic that they are still living in fight or flight mode.
Mental Health Conditions - Mental health is often a contributing factor in mindsets and outlooks.
As I said, there could be many reasons for the belief that one's happiness will come crashing down in a heap of dust. I can't help but be saddened when I learn of some individual's reasons for its occurrence.
Various sources tell me there is a condition called cherophobia which may be playing a factor - there's a write-up about it here.
“Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength.” - Corrie Ten Boom
A personal example
The other day I experienced happiness anxiety at its fullest - It was a lukewarm Friday afternoon and I had decided to take a walk over to the park to ease my mind.
It had been a big week with many great accomplishments, and there I was reflecting and smiling to myself about how great things in life were, a great blip in the radar of my happy brain. And then it happened "I bet this won't last" Thoughts started entering my mind.
I quickly made a video outlining how I was feeling and went home, feeling kind of defeated.
How to ease happiness anxiety
After I got home, it became my mission to eradicate this negative belief, and by practicing a couple of the things below the symptoms began to ease. This allowed me to begin enjoying the day's accomplishments again.
Step 1 - Acknowledge the thoughts
Realizing what is happening within us helps to identify the core trigger for our anxieties. For me - I felt like there was a lot of progress to be lost, so being happy about my current standing was a risk.
Step 2 - Find the source
After acknowledging how we are feeling we can begin to dive deeper and see why we are experiencing this. For some, it may be due to having good things taken away from them. For me - It was coming from a place of "last time I thought everything was good, I lost it all"
Step 3 - Recognise our strengths
Once we have discovered why we feel that we could fail, it's time to remind ourselves why we may succeed. I said to myself "Actually, I've been at this for nearly a year, haven't fallen off once, and am further than I've ever been before" - recognizing that every time things have gone wrong, I have rebuilt.
Step 4 - Worst case scenario
Not catastrophizing, but playing out the worst-case scenario in our minds logically. Is the sky really going to fall? - I said internally - "so, if it does all come crashing down, what would it look like"- "Well, I've done it before, and now I know how to do it again" I replied. - So worst-case, I knew things would eventually be okay.
Step 5 - Self-Talk and audio talk
I've spoken a bit about self-talk, check out my other blog post here to learn more about it. This is the act of talking to ourselves more kindly, and you better believe it worked wonders for bringing my negatively biased thought process into a warmer, more nurturing space.
I started to say to myself "I know I can do this" - "I am worthy of having good experiences" - and "I'm so sorry you feel like this"
Step 6 - Take a load off
It's not often that I would recommend clearing your schedule, but this is one of those times. Often when we experience happiness anxiety it is because of external pressures, work stress, or other internal or external dilemmas. For me, I was tired and stressed, had been working too much on projects, and had been wrestling with my inner-critic for pretty much the whole day. It was time to order a pizza and blob out. (I returned to goal setting later on)
The most effective way
Regardless of which strategies we use to ease this anxiety, this one works the best - start showing yourself all of the times that you have succeeded, no matter how small. Even if it was just getting out of bed this morning.
Show yourself all of your wins, this is the proof that our anxious minds need. Moving forward, we are going to continue to remember our wins, ok? Even if it means writing them down on a piece of paper to hold in our pocket.
If you go out for a coffee with friends, walk up a giant hill, get that promotion, break away for a weekend, or finish an audiobook, remember that win.
Even small wins are winning in my book, and the more we reward ourselves for achieving these wins, the better.
Moving forward
Now that we have discussed what happiness anxiety is, where it comes from, and various strategies for overcoming it. I want you to do one thing. Set yourself something to look forward to. This will be a new win. And the more we win, the more we will win.
For more about setting small things to look forward to, check out this blog post here
All in all happiness anxiety sucks, I'm sorry that you have been experiencing this, just know - over time this will pass.
Bye for now, and I'll see you in the next one.
~J.
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