Prioritizing Your Happiness
Specifically in the west, it is a fact of the matter that many are going through mental health crises (myself included). Many are addicted to substances, on psychiatric medications and even considering to end their own lives at times. Many have clearly been disconnected from the inherent joy that was usually apparent in our childhoods.
In this blog, I will be covering the topic of mental health and making our own happiness a top priority in life. I will be sharing some experiences and insights that I’ve had that led me to becoming a happier person. If you’ve read my other blogs, you will know that I am very much into the mystical and magical nature of reality. In this blog, I will be leaving these things out and put more of an emphasis on common sense thinking and more grounded understandings of things.
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I’ve been dealing with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder since I was 21. I’ve come to realize that I’ve had symptoms since I was about 18 (I used to think it was 19 but I recalled experiences of hearing irritating voices at night during the summer of 2012 after I graduated high school). I’ve also dealt with feelings of loneliness, substance abuse, suicidal thoughts and behaviors and struggling with romance (I only had a girlfriend once when I was 13 and it wasn’t a relationship like adults know them now obviously). I’ve had emotional and mental problems since I was a little kid. In 3rd grade the teacher wanted to put me in anger management and around that same time at home one day I told myself that maybe I should just kill myself because of something that happened which I don’t fully remember.
I’m no stranger to suffering and inner turmoil in life. However, It’s led me to one of the greatest blessings that life can offer a person. And that is simply the understanding of prioritizing my own happiness and being mostly comfortable with being alone. I say mostly because occasionally the desire for friendship does come in which is natural, but what is important is that I’ve learned to find solace in sheer feelings of love, beauty, joy, passion, excitement and peace, rather than feeling upset because I don’t have many people in my life or anyone I can relate with.
Something else I’ve learned, which is crucial I believe, is to accept that life will always have some suffering in it and there needs to be acceptance for it. Without getting too philosophical, I’ve realized that life is a dance of opposites. Male/female, up/down, hot/cold, light/dark, pleasure/pain, logic/creativity, etc. The big one being pain (or suffering) and pleasure (also joy, love, beauty and so on). This isn’t really philosophy, this is just common sense thinking. I’ve learned that when we accept the suffering life forces us into, rather than let it consume us or try to avoid it, we build a resilience and sense of strength. No matter what we do in life, whether pursuing a job, romantic partner, creative endeavor, health and even entertainment, there will always be some kind of trouble we will find. But this is a good thing.
Why would struggle and suffering be a good thing?
Because simply it allows for the experience and appreciation of pleasant feelings. When you mentally connect with the acceptance of depression, anxiety, or in my case hallucinations and the stress that comes with it, you could actually trigger pleasant feelings simultaneously.
Life doesn’t have to be all suffering to build strength. It’s not impossible for someone to begin feeling lasting peace or happiness after going through a significant life crisis. it’s true that some suffering will still come in, but there could also be the attainment of an abundance of pleasant feelings. I’ve learned that the key to this shift from mostly suffering to more pleasant feelings is to mentally acknowledge that you have to allow or let in the joys. That means of course accepting the negative feelings when they arise but also not feeding them with negative thoughts. Instead, just sit with the feelings and let them be there. Tell yourself that these feelings and circumstances in life are just a part of what life is. It can be changed when you shift your perspective though. It takes time and building better thinking patterns or habits.
Focusing on the joys you can experience is not the same as toxic positivity. Toxic positivity is when you’re clearly going through something distressing and you try to just think happy thoughts. What I’m expressing is more about acknowledging the suffering and allowing it to pass, then genuinely shifting your focus on to the things that bring you joy or pleasant feelings (when you’re feeling ready). Pleasant feelings are attainable for everyone, we just need to allow ourselves to feel it. Tell yourself “I’m suffering, these feelings are suffering. But there is also joy when I simultaneously look for it.” A state of experiencing mixed feelings is a valid thing and it is also the beginning of the path to feeling more joy primarily.
If you’re living in the west and you have food to eat and a place to sleep, you can create your joy. It’s not at all my intention to give a ‘toughen up’ approach because I understand what extreme suffering and loneliness is like, but I overcame a huge chunk of it by realizing that I’m actually quite blessed. I’m usually hallucinating, but it’s gone down a lot because of my practices and desire for happiness. Happiness must be genuinely desired because if you don’t genuinely desire feelings of happiness, you’ll always be left primarily feeling defeated by your experience of life, even if some joy does come in. This isn’t me talking down to anyone who is suffering, this is just the acknowledgement of the truth. You have to desire happiness genuinely. You have to create your happiness.
A big part of creating happiness is letting go of the things, people and thoughts that cause severe suffering (the thoughts need to be let go of as they arise. They may never fully 100% go away, but they can be toned down greatly so they’re not even effecting you when they come in). It also requires an activity that is genuinely enjoyable for yourself. With me, I’ve never had a real girlfriend and I have barely any friends. Although the thoughts do occasionally pop in of suffering regarding that, they are fleeting. This is because I’ve realized that what I truly desire is to feel good, I accept the bad feelings (letting them pass) and I fully embrace and enjoy feelings of love, beauty, joy as I do the things that bring them. I’m in a place in my life where I primarily am satisfied with my life despite some of the suffering I experience. I am okay (mostly) with being on my own.
Doing the things that bring you good feelings is crucial. For me, this is going hard on the weights, going for 1 hour speed walks through the woods, listening to awesome music, eating/drinking the foods and drinks I like (no alcohol for me), talking to my family, donating food/money to the local church, food pantry or no dogs left behind non profit, daydreaming about happy things and so on. If you really can’t find anything that brings joy, then try forcing a good workout in. Exercise creates endorphins in the brain. Remind yourself how good you’ll feel if you can get in as many pushups as you can at once. And if you really can’t do that, then take 2 to 5 minutes to lay down, close your eyes and just imagine yourself feeling happy. Imagine what it would feel like to be so totally lost in amazing feelings of joy and bliss! It does work, but like I said, you have to genuinely desire happiness. That means letting go of the stories and thoughts and limiting beliefs that you either don’t deserve happiness or that something else is more important.
Is prioritizing your own happiness selfish? No. Not in the same energy of someone who is always quick to eat the last cookie for themselves without asking if anyone else wants it. This is because when you truly desire authentic happiness, you’ll find that authentic happiness loves to give. True feelings of joy are happy when others win at life. True feelings of joy take immense pleasure in giving. True feelings of joy loves to do things for others even if just small actions. They love to make others feel happy. The thing is that only you can feel your joy, so it requires you to consider prioritizing and genuinely desiring happiness. You have to give yourself permission to feel that way. If that’s considered selfishness, then you need to be selfish in life. It’s the balance of the opposites. Selflessness and selfishness. Loving others is important, but it’s also important to love yourself.
This is what I have learned about life, suffering and joy. Suffering is a fact of life and it will always be that way, but when we accept that (not running from it, not trying to heal it and not getting lost in it) and (when we’re ready) focus our thoughts and actions on things that feel good for us, we create more pleasurable feelings and thoughts. It all starts with some real thinking. Getting ourselves to understand that we have to genuinely desire or create our happiness. Happiness is something we have to want more than ruminating on the things that are going wrong in our lives. Letting go of the people, things and thoughts that make us feel upset. We have to prioritize our own happiness and that is not a bad thing at all.
And always remember that it’s not impossible for someone to begin to feel primarily good about their feelings, experiences and circumstances in life and experience an overall change. These things do happen to people a lot actually and it can happen to whoever is reading this that may be suffering with things. I know this because it happened to me and it’s deepening as the days go by. Show yourself some love and simplify your life to create more honest happiness!
