Happy Broken People

"The only way out is through."¹

In 1998 ~ a year following a particularly traumatic one for me ~ I read a (fashion) magazine article titled something like, "10 Things That Happy People Do." I remember Only One of those things. 

Happy people deal with their difficult emotions. 

Old School (aka I am the OG)

Now, I was born in 1970 and grew up in the culture just beginning² to take mental health both seriously and personally (meaning we have some measure of responsibility and control over our own mental health.) I didn't grow up hearing much talk about such things, let alone being intentionally taught how to process [anything, emotionally speaking], how to cope. And somewhere along the way (the 80s³ would be my guess) a sort of pop psychology developed which insisted that the best way to deal with difficult emotions was to ignore them, pretend your way out of them, act as if, etc. (Whole Other Story) 

By 1998, however, I'd learned that ignoring emotions (and more to the point, their source) would only prolong the pain and difficulty of it ~ that if I tried to run from it, it would chase me, would haunt me (probably for the rest of my life.) I'd also begun to realize that doing so was keeping me from knowing what it was to be truly happy in life. I was pretty sure I wanted to be happy, and it appeared the only way to get there was to work my way through [difficult emotions.] 

To be super clear, the "difficult emotions" on which I would practice this “new trick” were the result of a particularly dark traumatic event (another story, another time), but I applied that "Happy People" principle and downright wallowed in the depths of it. I thought and I felt and thought and felt and so on and so on until it's difficult to imagine there could be an emotion left to have. While I do still experience some residual effects of that year, I also feel relatively healthy and clear about it all. 

Higher Learning

Listening to a podcast⁴ this morning, Jonathan Fields referenced the contrast between pop psychology and “positive psychology.” He said, “The year is 1998. The gathering is the American Psychological Association… The newly elected president, Martin Seligman, says, “We have looked at psychology in the history of the practice as the quest to take people who are in pain, who are sick or ill, who are potentially broken and make them whole, bring them back to baseline, bring them back to the place where they don’t feel that level of suffering anymore. But…” [and positive psychology] starts to evolve and all of a sudden people feel like they’re given permission to dive into this because for generations, psychology didn’t really value the part of the human condition that was about that less tangible feeling of being connected and hopeful and possibility oriented and positive and alive.” 

The point of all of this is to tell you that they had it straight in ‘98. Happy people deal with their difficult emotions. This is certainly not to say that I am happy⁵ all the time, or that I aim to be happy all the time, or that anybody should aim to be happy all the time. But dealing with their stuff is one thing that happy people do. Bet. 

Because I'm Still The OG⁶

Sometimes it happens in fits and starts, but I’ve yet to stop practicing what I’ve learned (for the most part) or attempting to learn “new tricks.” I’m currently learning⁴ that happiness is more a side effect of other pursuits such as meaning and purpose ~ some of my favorite subjects anyway, so gravy learning, that!! 

Happiness is attainable, though, and something for which we have a measure of control and responsibility. I’ll never be the expert for how we get there, but I can absolutely and confidently assert that we can get there. 

(But often enough,) the only way [to it] is through.

1. Attributed to Servant of Servants, Robert Frost

2. This is a fairly broad, interpretive statement on my part

3. The idea that ignoring emotions is a good idea developed long before the 80s ~ but that's when I began to do it (on purpose)

4. Fields, Jonathan, host. "How To Feel More Alive" Good Life Project, #780, 29 January 2022, goodlifeproject.com/podcast/how-to-feel-more-alive-the-2022-plan/

5. If I had the time and space right now to do it, I’d launch into an entire thing about the difference between happy and joyful because there is a difference.

6. Can you believe I just learned what that means?!

6a. Don't judge