I am interested in introspection, and have done some dyading and have worked a lot on differentiating emotions. So, reading your piece about happiness, there are five things that come to mind:
-The first one is about finding ‘happiness’ hidden in blended emotional clusters.
-The second is about defining happiness.
-The third is how I see a way to maximize happiness, with caveats.
-The fourth is about the potential costs, and two hypothetical options to choose from.
-The fifth; Why this way might/might not be effective.
First point: In self-connection terms, freely using Nonviolent communication, the way you ‘know’ what you are feeling is not only by saying it. But by noticing whilst you name your emotion, if is dissonance in your system towards what you are saying, or resonance. And it takes a lot of practice to differentiate.
There is an important caveat:
In relation to something/someone, we usually feel more than one emotion, some of them even conflicting/opposing. Some are stronger, others weaker. So, in any given moment, in relation to any given situation, plan, idea, relationship or action—there are multiple different emotions. Most of us do not learn how to differentiate very well. We usually tend to blend the individual feelings in these emotional clusters into an approximate one. So, if you are happy (a bit), content (partly), satisfied (medium), anxious (medium), sad (partly) and relieved (>medium) related to finishing something a bit scary, but necessary—You might just name the blend «I’m so glad it’s over». But you might not actually feel glad, it is an approximation.
The second point:
This is related, but it is different. Here is an overview of emotions, called a ‘feelings inventory’ The first category are “Positive emotions”, the latter negative emotions. When you are talking about happiness, I am assuming you are not only referring to feeling ‘happy’ (as opposed to all the other positive emotions)?
I am assuming you are referring to something like «Life-satisfaction» or «Happiness with life». In point one I mentioned blending emotional clusters into more easily presentable packages. In this case, the issue is that you will use some kind of metric to choose which approximations should go into the Happiness category, and which shouldn’t.
However, even without knowledge of all these emotions, I do not believe that people give very incorrect general assessments. The reason being that we generally want to feel satisfied, so even though the specifics are wrong, the overall measure should be right. So, even if you differentiate your emotions, by unmixing them—you will connect with more of both. More likely also more negative than positive emotions.
The third point:
Even though you might find more bad than good feelings, there are some immediate benefits to taking some time to find out «what is alive in you» with regard to specific situations. Since maximizing happiness is about meeting needs, you will meet some needs simply by increasing your self-connection and self-understanding through knowing more clearly which feelings you have with regard to specific people, situations, activities, etc.
The ability to know your emotions in retrospect, can then be enhanced to know your emotions in the present—so they become clearer to you, and then also easier to listen to, as you are able to act more coherent between what you feel and what you do.
Furthermore, you might want to understand the difference between strategies to meet needs and needs themselves. As you get better at this, you might see that you usually argue a lot about strategies but would agree about the underlying need.
And finally, practicing NVC this way would then start opening up a new world, where you can get ‘happiness’ out of connecting with the negative emotions. (Aka Robert Gonzales—The beauty of the Needs) To name a few.
Fourth point:
As any Genie or sales-representative won’t tell you, there might be some fine print. The third point seems like a relatively surefire way of getting more general Life-satisfaction, so what is the problem? The cost of understanding what makes you ‘, etc.,happy,’ what that might feel like and how far away you are from it, might make you feel unhappier with life. What if your focus on happiness makes you dissatisfied about relationships, situations, activities etc. you previously were fine with? The longer you have been on a specific level of Happiness—the more you have created a world around you that fits with that level. If you try to change the level of Happiness, there will be increasing amounts of dissonance from your past actions, decisions, values and ideas.
There are no easy ways to solve that, but here are two different directions (there are more) to choose from in this situation. The general idea is to treat becoming happier, similarly to upheavals in life; like breakups, job-changes, sickness, etc. There more you are used to/entrenched on some happiness-level, the greater the comparative upheaval. And if you still find it meaningful to continue, even though it might be costly, it would make sense to slow down and plan in detail how to move forward—and understand that minor issues might not feel like that when the change is under way. Better add in room in your plan for unforeseen events you will not be Happy about (pun intended).
There is also the option, that you see it as not worthwhile or realistic to try to achieve leaps in your happiness level. Either for the time being, or just that the upheaval would be too big, I assume it would be better to simply stay where you are and rationalize/give meaning to the kind of Happiness you are able to achieve. You will be slightly more satisfied, and still within the safety of your Happiness parameters.
The fifth and last point
Simply that this kind of knowledge might not be very useful, on a personal level. I do believe changing one’s general happiness-level has hidden costs, but the direction to increase it might not be through self-connection or understanding feelings. This is just an example, so even though it increases happiness in general—that does not make it is the best or only way. I hope that in some ways contribute to your search for some footholds, and I hope it atleast gives you a modicum of Happiness :)
I recommend checking out https://superhappiness.xyz/
Hello Matt,
I am interested in introspection, and have done some dyading and have worked a lot on differentiating emotions. So, reading your piece about happiness, there are five things that come to mind:
-The first one is about finding ‘happiness’ hidden in blended emotional clusters.
-The second is about defining happiness.
-The third is how I see a way to maximize happiness, with caveats.
-The fourth is about the potential costs, and two hypothetical options to choose from.
-The fifth; Why this way might/might not be effective.
First point:
In self-connection terms, freely using Nonviolent communication, the way you ‘know’ what you are feeling is not only by saying it. But by noticing whilst you name your emotion, if is dissonance in your system towards what you are saying, or resonance. And it takes a lot of practice to differentiate.
There is an important caveat:
In relation to something/someone, we usually feel more than one emotion, some of them even conflicting/opposing. Some are stronger, others weaker. So, in any given moment, in relation to any given situation, plan, idea, relationship or action—there are multiple different emotions. Most of us do not learn how to differentiate very well. We usually tend to blend the individual feelings in these emotional clusters into an approximate one. So, if you are happy (a bit), content (partly), satisfied (medium), anxious (medium), sad (partly) and relieved (>medium) related to finishing something a bit scary, but necessary—You might just name the blend «I’m so glad it’s over». But you might not actually feel glad, it is an approximation.
The second point:
This is related, but it is different. Here is an overview of emotions, called a ‘feelings inventory’ The first category are “Positive emotions”, the latter negative emotions. When you are talking about happiness, I am assuming you are not only referring to feeling ‘happy’ (as opposed to all the other positive emotions)?
I am assuming you are referring to something like «Life-satisfaction» or «Happiness with life». In point one I mentioned blending emotional clusters into more easily presentable packages. In this case, the issue is that you will use some kind of metric to choose which approximations should go into the Happiness category, and which shouldn’t.
However, even without knowledge of all these emotions, I do not believe that people give very incorrect general assessments. The reason being that we generally want to feel satisfied, so even though the specifics are wrong, the overall measure should be right. So, even if you differentiate your emotions, by unmixing them—you will connect with more of both. More likely also more negative than positive emotions.
The third point:
Even though you might find more bad than good feelings, there are some immediate benefits to taking some time to find out «what is alive in you» with regard to specific situations. Since maximizing happiness is about meeting needs, you will meet some needs simply by increasing your self-connection and self-understanding through knowing more clearly which feelings you have with regard to specific people, situations, activities, etc.
The ability to know your emotions in retrospect, can then be enhanced to know your emotions in the present—so they become clearer to you, and then also easier to listen to, as you are able to act more coherent between what you feel and what you do.
Furthermore, you might want to understand the difference between strategies to meet needs and needs themselves. As you get better at this, you might see that you usually argue a lot about strategies but would agree about the underlying need.
And finally, practicing NVC this way would then start opening up a new world, where you can get ‘happiness’ out of connecting with the negative emotions. (Aka Robert Gonzales—The beauty of the Needs)
To name a few.
Fourth point:
As any Genie or sales-representative won’t tell you, there might be some fine print. The third point seems like a relatively surefire way of getting more general Life-satisfaction, so what is the problem? The cost of understanding what makes you ‘, etc.,happy,’ what that might feel like and how far away you are from it, might make you feel unhappier with life. What if your focus on happiness makes you dissatisfied about relationships, situations, activities etc. you previously were fine with? The longer you have been on a specific level of Happiness—the more you have created a world around you that fits with that level. If you try to change the level of Happiness, there will be increasing amounts of dissonance from your past actions, decisions, values and ideas.
There are no easy ways to solve that, but here are two different directions (there are more) to choose from in this situation. The general idea is to treat becoming happier, similarly to upheavals in life; like breakups, job-changes, sickness, etc. There more you are used to/entrenched on some happiness-level, the greater the comparative upheaval. And if you still find it meaningful to continue, even though it might be costly, it would make sense to slow down and plan in detail how to move forward—and understand that minor issues might not feel like that when the change is under way. Better add in room in your plan for unforeseen events you will not be Happy about (pun intended).
There is also the option, that you see it as not worthwhile or realistic to try to achieve leaps in your happiness level. Either for the time being, or just that the upheaval would be too big, I assume it would be better to simply stay where you are and rationalize/give meaning to the kind of Happiness you are able to achieve. You will be slightly more satisfied, and still within the safety of your Happiness parameters.
The fifth and last point
Simply that this kind of knowledge might not be very useful, on a personal level. I do believe changing one’s general happiness-level has hidden costs, but the direction to increase it might not be through self-connection or understanding feelings. This is just an example, so even though it increases happiness in general—that does not make it is the best or only way. I hope that in some ways contribute to your search for some footholds, and I hope it atleast gives you a modicum of Happiness :)