What is Happiness? Are you happy?
It’s a big question, isn’t it?
When we talk about happiness and what makes us happy, so many people will say the big things in life make us happy: money, love, beauty, health, having that perfect body and being the perfect size.
Here are the things I’ve noticed a lot from my clients.
Having those things, or the desire to have them, doesn’t actually make people happy.
“I will be happy if I am 2 stone lighter.”
“I will be happy if I win the lottery”
“I will be happier when I meet the person of my dreams”
“I will be happier when I have a baby”
Often in the search for happiness, in that drive to get the goal, whatever it is, we can forget to check if we’re still happy if we’ve reached it and forget to maintain our happiness once we are there.
Sort of “I got what I wanted, now there’s nothing else to work for”. So our brains revert back to our original starting point, like being on a treadmill. The brain needs stimulation, with small goals to keep it focused.
Sonia Lyumbormirsky, the writer of The How of Happiness, has carried out extensive research into Happiness and identified two aspects of what makes us happy:
Primarily the experience of positive emotions; happy people experience more frequent happy emotions such as joy, tranquillity, pride and affection. Not only that, they have a sense that their life is good, and they’re satisfied with their progress towards their life goals.
They are happy both in and with their life.
So essentially, happiness is the drive for all things and is something we can all achieve IF we go after the right things.
What may surprise you is that we are going about trying to achieve it in the wrong ways.
We often wait and hope that our circumstances will change, we will win the lottery, meet that person, get the new car, lose the 2 stones…that will bring us happiness…none of that works, at least not how we think it will. It is a lie our minds tell us.
Often clients will say to me, “I feel guilty because I have X, Y and Z, and it looks like I have a perfect life on paper, so why am I not happy?”
In simplistic terms, they have achieved their goal and their dreams, but amongst it all, they have forgotten to keep stimulating the brain, keep the Serotonin (Happy hormone going) and keep the things they desired so much they are working hard and creating Cortisol (the stress Hormone).
Solution Focused Hypnotherapy encourages clients to refocus from the stress and anxiety creating negative thoughts to positive ones. Working on helping clients find happiness again, getting them back to having more happy positive emotions and setting small positive goals to reduce their stress. So that they are Happy both in and with their lives.
For more information about how I can help you do this and get you back feeling like yourself, please message me.
