The part of you that doesn’t trust happiness

Most people will say they want to feel happier or experience happiness more often, and on the surface that feels straightforward.

What often isn’t seen is that there can also be a part of you that feels uneasy about happiness. There is a part of you that wants it, and there is a part of you that doesn’t trust it.

For that part, happiness isn’t just a good feeling. It is something that could disappear. It is something that could be taken away. And what it is really trying to avoid is the feeling that might come after that.

So when things start going well, when there is more ease or calm or moments that could be experienced as happiness, that part starts to pay attention. It looks for what might go wrong. It questions how long this will last. It creates a bit of distance.

From its perspective, feeling happy can feel vulnerable. It can feel like there is more to lose. There can even be a sense that it is safer when things feel harder, because that feels more known and more predictable.

What you often have here are parts of you that both care about you, just in different ways. There is a part that genuinely wants to feel happier, to experience more ease, more joy, more of what feels good. Alongside that, there is a part that is trying to protect you from the loss of that, by keeping a level of distance from it in the first place.

When this isn’t seen, it can feel confusing. You might notice yourself holding back from something you want, or not fully letting yourself enjoy when they are going well, or staying in patterns that don’t actually feel that good.

There is also something here that challenges how many people think about happiness….I was having a conversation recently where someone said that happiness is fleeting, that it comes and goes and doesn’t stay. I used to see it that way as well.

Now I don’t.

What I notice is that certain emotional states feel more familiar and therefore safer, because they are the ones that have been practised more often. The mind and body get used to particular ways of feeling, and those patterns start to run automatically.

From there, it can start to look as though happiness and joy are less available.

Happiness and joy can feel less available because there are parts of us that are not yet comfortable with them. So when they do show up, something shifts attention away from them or pulls back from fully experiencing them, which reinforces the sense that they are harder to access.

I would say that happiness and joy are always there, even if they don’t feel available.

There are layers to what is happening inside of you. You might feel sadness and still be able to sense a layer of calm or even a quiet sense of joy underneath it. You might feel anxious and also notice moments of ease. The more attention and curiosity you bring to your inner world, the more you begin to notice that it isn’t as simple as either or.

Over time, the emotions that are felt more often start to feel more familiar and therefore safer. If happiness hasn’t felt safe, it won’t be experienced as easily, even though it is available.

This isn’t about trying to force yourself to feel happier or overriding those protective parts. That’s often what people have already been trying, and it tends not to work.

It starts with recognising that those parts are there at all and understanding what they are trying to do for you.

When you begin to get curious about that part, what it is worried about, what it has learned about happiness, what it is trying to protect you from, things begin to open up. As those parts feel more understood, there is more space for different experiences to be felt, including happiness.

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A gentle invitation to explore…

Notice what happens when things start going well.

Notice if there are parts of you that step in, that question it, that look for what might go wrong or hold a bit of distance.

Also notice the emotions that feel most common for you day to day. Those, despite how they feel, are often the ones being practised and therefore the ones that feel most familiar.

For the next wee while, you might gently begin to notice and stay with moments of happiness, contentment or ease when they show up, even briefly, and see what happens inside of you as you do.