WHERE ARE YOU UNHAPPY?
When we go to the doctor they always ask “Where does it hurt?”
But unless you go to a psychologist or therapist of some sort, people don’t tend to ask you “where are you unhappy?”
I don’t mean this in terms of a place. Like I hate the beach. Or I get depressed in dark museums. I’m miserable at my in-laws.
It’s the question we need to constantly ask ourselves about our lives. Where are we unhappy?
Is it with our jobs? Our love life? Is it a persistent state of discontent that can be fixed by facing it, owning it and then doing what it takes to amend the situation.
Is it as simple as invoking our first affirmation, “Something needs to change and it’s probably me.”
Of course to make that change, one needs to know what needs fixing. The first step on that journey is often to pose the question “Where am I unhappy ?”
For most people there is a dark place in our past where a seed of unhappiness took root, because it wasn’t a pretty flower, it was a weed, it did not need water or light, so it grew and grew.
Show me a person and I will show you a brother who got more attention. A mother who was over bearing and critical. A father who was absent, unemotional, drunk, or angry.A sister who was prettier and had more boyfriends, married first, got better grades and all the applause. Or perhaps it was and is just a constant sense of never belonging. A high school experience that left one feeling on the outside of it all, and that feeling trailed us into adulthood, where we acted from it and not against it.
The list of the headwaters of unhappiness is endless.
And the problem with them, if we leave them unchecked is they end up being this weird, dark hole of emotion that can end up driving the bus of our emotional life.
I have a father who does not love me. Never has, never will. He was absent, then sporadically present, hyper critical, then conditionally loving, then gone again. He would return with promises that were never kept. It has been an ongoing cycle in my life. I have apologized for things I haven’t done only to make peace and have him not accept the apologies.
For years my responses and poor life choices would harken back to this place, this emotion, this longing, yearning, feeling of inadequacy. I would yell at the wrong people; often those in authority because I could not yell successfully at him.
It has taken me five decades to come to peace with this. This place in my life where I will always be a bit unhappy.
It does not mean I can’t be grateful.
It does not mean I cannot forgive – even him.
It does not mean I have not been able to make good choices and a decent, productve life for myself.
But, when those acts of behavior I’m not proud of do occur, I can most always pin point them as a response to that place deep inside where I can be unhappy.
Many people turn to mind numbing substances. Some rely on food to fill the void, shopping, anger, self-destructive choices, or total inertia. The list of responses is long as the list of assaults to the soul.
But what we must do as responsible, as Paul and I like to call us all, Trustys, is to look deep inside to these places as opposed to keeping them buried or at bay. As long as you don’t deal with them they will deal with you.
This is proven to be true. People for years behave in ways they don’t understand. They suffer dark moods, depression, addictions, and they never deal with what is making them go to these places.
Mind you I’m not discounting the diseases that do exist. Alcoholism is a disease. But the fallout is all sorts of other disasters for both the alcoholic and their family. Some diseases infect all those who come in contact with them.
Certain depressions are a disease. How many had a parent or sibling who suffered from depression and those dark moods set the tone for the whole family? And then the cover- up – That is a blog in itself.
But these diseases are birthplaces for other types of pain, they ooze and bleed all over and are more often than not the source of the places that we are unhappy.
Sometimes our behavior ends up making us unhappy and that is another great way to sidestep the bigger issue. The question of “Where am I unhappy?
It’s not a weakness to own this. It’s not a sign of being a less than stellar, grateful soul. It doesn’t mean your life is a mess. It means you are human like everyone else.
Only the cheery media falsely taught us that everyone’s lives and families were these technicolor dreams. Which led us to think only ours had dark holes of pain, neglect, cover-ups and subterfuge.
In the same way if you had constant headaches, you would go to a doctor and find out why. Take some time out and sit with the hard feelings and ask yourself. “Where am I unhappy?”
Once you have the answer you are halfway to fixing it.
Tracey Jackson is a screenwriter and blogger at traceyjacksononline.com. Her book Gratitude and Trust is now available.