No matter how self-actualized we may become, sometimes we will feel anxiety, depression, and anger. Those feelings are not bad. They are simply internal feedback that our inner subparts are out of harmony with themselves or their environment. These negative feelings are really opportunities for growth. They are telling us that our current approaches are not coping well, and it is time to learn a new way of thinking or a new route to happiness. Many of our greatest personal growth spurts occur because strong negative emotions help us focus on outdated beliefs or habits.
I frequently see clients who are growing rapidly because they were challenged by crises. We can face and overcome emotions such as anxiety, depression, or anger. The self-exploration and problem-solving methods described below are the same tools I use with myself and my clients almost daily to turn these negative emotions into growth.
Once we understand the causes of our emotions, then it is time to find new ways of coping with these causes. We can change our thinking and our actions. We have external and internal routes to happiness. External routes to happiness focus on our actions and the world outside our skin. Internal routes to happiness focus on mental means of achieving happiness. These mental means include examining our beliefs, our sensations and perceptions, our stream of thoughts, and all other internal phenomena to achieve more harmony and happiness. Some internal systems, such as the executive self and the Higher Self, are potentially centers of great power and control. These parts can attain direct control over our thoughts and actions (and will be topics in later chapters).
Do not get too attached to any one route to happiness. A client came to my
office who had been extremely unhappy for more than two years. For the last year she had been in a relationship with a man whom she said did not treat her well, but she was "miserable with him and miserable without him." What had begun as a wonderful, exciting relationship with a man who fulfilled her dreams turned into a nightmare. Now, he was demanding, manipulative, and
inconsiderate of her feelings.
When she would tell him she was leaving, he would use his gift of charm to get her back. ―He made me feel so special. . .down deep I thought he had a kind heart and really loved me." She wanted to believe that if she would hang in there long enough, he would change. Instead, he used her hope to keep her bonded to him. He had no intention of changing.
What was the essence of this bonding--this addiction to him? In her words, "Very early in the relationship we had a magic between us that I had only read about in books. It seemed like we were fated for each other." How could she fight fate? She had developed a powerful underlying belief that he was the only man she could ever be happy with. The belief that she had only this one route to happiness kept her locked into the relationship.
An important element of getting free of the relationship involved observing her own feelings. She began to keep a mental record of how she actually felt when she either thought about him or was with him. Most of the time she felt anxious, depressed, guilty, hurt, or angry! Not only was this man not her only route to a happy relationship, he was not any route to a happy relationship. Overcoming the belief that he was the "right," "fated," or "only" man for her opened the possibility that she could find happiness with someone else.
The story of this client illustrates an important lesson. Whenever we allow ourselves to believe that a certain person, object, career, home, lifestyle, or anything is the only route to happiness, then that belief alone will undermine our happiness. This belief in exclusivity makes us much more dependent upon that one route. Then, any threat to that one route will profoundly threaten our happiness--because we believe that that one route is our only route to happiness.
My wife and I love each other deeply and have a wonderful relationship that we hope will last forever. However--as happy as we are--we both know that if we lost each other, we could still be happy as individuals. Because, we both know that we can create many other routes to happiness. Otherwise, we could be consumed with fear of the other leaving or dying.
Finding and risking commitment to some routes is necessary to achieve happiness. I have just described how some people become so committed to
one happiness route that they become inflexible--even when they are miserable. However, many other people make the opposite mistake. They fail to commit to any route.
For example, I talk to many college students who keep taking classes and avoid facing a choice about what career they want. One client became a senior before he really got serious about researching and choosing a major. Then, he decided to major in business. If he had chosen business as a freshman, he would have been able to graduate in four years. However, choosing it as a senior meant that it would still take him three more years to graduate--the cost of not facing his anxiety.