Write your ‘happy’ story
Write your ‘happy’ story
You might have to bear with me a little this week because at first glance the topic this week might seem a little jarring when it’s sandwiched in amongst subjects like ‘adverse childhood experiences’ and ‘complex trauma’, however I promise there’s some useful ideas to ponder so hang in there!
I’ve been pondering this for a bit over the last few days while I’ve been out walking, in part because I’ve been trying to find a way to weave in some more adaptive / recovery-focused / hopeful content because it has been a bit heavy of late. And as often happens, when I’m busy mulling things over I hear a podcast that provides me with just the right spark of inspiration to draw on, and I get additional feedback / insights from clients. And that’s just what happened this week. I was listening to an episode of the ‘Diary of a CEO’ podcast by Stephen Bartlett, where he was interviewing one of my other podcast hosts, Dr Rangan Chatterjee (from the ‘Feel Better, Live More’ podcast). Anyway, through the discussion this idea of a ‘happy’ story emerged that I’m going to try to pull together this week in more of a practical application of some of the things that we often explore in trauma therapy.
As part of reprocessing traumatic memories / experiences using approaches like EMDR we also ensure that we have adequately install positive beliefs (cognitions) because that is how we ensure there’s a space for new adaptions of behaviours, emotions – new ways of living and being in the world. One of the challenges we often navigate is that this part feels quite unusual and for some people even unsafe, when they have been so used to living with the deeply painful and difficult symptoms of their trauma.
I often talk about happiness as an emotion just like any other. And just like all the other emotions it’s not something we can hold onto; it’s fleeting and is even a rare experience for some people. Happiness is an inside job – it comes from within. By that I mean that the world we live in would have us believe that more Instagram followers, another promotion or a bigger house will make us happy. But if we identify these kinds of external ‘junk’ factors with happiness, we’ll often end up feeling empty and disappointed. Happiness though, can also be something of a skill that we have to practice / develop – especially if it’s not something that we have lots of experience of growing up. Like any skill it really is something we can get better at with practice. But it’s not like we can sit down one day and just decide to be happy – there are some tangible things / exercises that we can do to support our practice of happiness.
This is where I’m drawing on some of the insights I heard from Dr Chatterjee. He talks about happiness as being made from three ingredients – alignment, contentment and control. He uses the idea of a three-legged stool to illustrate this point – each one in isolation will help, but without the other two it won’t be enough.
Alignment is about when the person we are on the inside is the same as the person we are when we’re out in the world. This is where things like living our core values play an important role – something I’ve talked about in other blogs.
Contentment is about knowing what / where / when we feel that sense of inner peace and calm. We might be experiencing challenge, but if we’re aligned and coming from a place of control, we might still be contented.
Control is not about controlling the world, people or things around us. It’s more about doing things in life what provide us with a sense of control – being able to make autonomous choices that align with us and provide us with a sense of contentment.
Write your own happy ending:
- Imagine you are on your deathbed, look back over your life and ask yourself what are three things you will have want to have done / spent time on?
- What are 3 happiness habits that I need to do each week that will ensure that I can have that happy ending?
It’s important to check that these align – sometimes when we do the second part, we realise that we need to refine our happy ending three things. And, then we need to make sure that we prioritise the three happiness habits each week, rather than being seduced by all that the world will throw at us.
It can feel really hard to write our ‘happy’ story if our interactions with the people and world around us are problematic or unkind to us. And absolutely, we have every right to feel sad or depressed but there is another option. It can feel really difficult to actively choose an alternative story when we are starting out – especially if we have years of experiences that tell us that people aren’t reliable, safe or kind to us. But we can start small, and we can start by creatively imagining what a ‘happy’ [alternative] story might be to the one that we are used to reading. But ask yourself, which story will provide you with a sense of alignment, contentment and control? That one is your ‘happy’ story.
If this blog has prompted you to explore your own ‘happy’ story, and would like a safe space to talk about your mental health, please get in touch with us: www.theabaker.com.au / hello@theabaker.com.au / 03 9077 8194.