The chemistry of happiness

Being happy is also about experiencing unhappiness

Kleurrijke kolven in chemieopstelling - Maison ZEON - Pindray

Being happy is nice and you would prefer to be happy and satisfied all the time. Yet happiness is not in eternal happiness or contentment. It is a common mistake that you can constantly walk around with a happy smile on your face.

As a child you can experience a lot of pleasure in everything you do, a child especially likes to play. It doesn't matter so much what you do exactly, as long as it is challenging to discover and do. When we become adults, life starts to get more and more serious and more energy is put into all the obligations of life. The responsibility of a study and later of a job, maintaining a home, relationships and friendships, running a family...

When you spend a lot of time on the things that bother you, the chance that you no longer experience pleasure in life grows. This is mainly because you have ended up in a life that does not suit you well. Something like this happens when you don't know yourself well and don't know what you need for yourself to feel happy. You then let yourself be guided far too much by the things that come at you at that moment.

Is there a negative thought right now that is making your life difficult?

How your choices affect your level of happiness

Many things happen in life that you have no influence on. However, you do have a choice in how you deal with this. When you think you can't change this, you stop yourself from coming to a real solution.

The young child initially has little control over the experiences he goes through, such as the neighborhood in which you grew up, classmates you had to deal with, the loss of a close family member or friend at a young age. They are events that happen to you, that you have to deal with and that shape your feelings and thoughts.

It is only later in life that the realization grows that you can distance yourself from the event and that your life does not always have to be this way. You can compare it to watching a movie, you are sitting in the auditorium as a spectator watching a movie. When you are completely absorbed in the film, you forget that you are a spectator and you let yourself be carried away by the images and the storyline of the film.

The realization that you are a spectator gives you the freedom to walk out of the theater and look for another room with another film. This may sound a bit simple and yet...

A retreat is an excellent way...

...to reconnect with what makes you happy

Clarifying hidden desires

Do more than just wait

When you are not satisfied with how things are going in your life, many people often do nothing about it. Often there are all kinds of reasons to stay in the same situation, with the result that it persists and you continue to feel unhappy. It seems like you're stuck and there's no way you can change anything.

The recognition that you apparently have a different need and that you feel unhappy because of it, is an important step to step out of a life in which you no longer have fun. The stronger the need you have, the stronger the desire for a different life.

Examples of hidden desires are:

More challenge in your work
more space or nature around you
other friendships
another relationship

Being stuck in negative thoughts and/or feelings

Negative thoughts and feelings can cause you to no longer experience pleasure in life. Constantly thinking about events that have passed can greatly reduce your sense of happiness. You try to prevent a recurrence in your mind, but that keeps you stuck in negative feelings. It makes more sense to get moving and actively do something about your current situation. Investigate what you would like to change and actively commit yourself to it.

You can imagine that, when you were a child, you didn't have all these thoughts. In fact, you probably did everything because it felt right. You played with something, because it was fun, instead of looking at the result.

When your life is only about solving problems, you have the illusion that you can only experience pleasure again when all problems have been solved. You are only concerned with changing everything that is going badly and no longer on what gives you positive energy. Life then becomes a succession of negative moments.

Is there a serious problem right now that is making your life negative?

Key steps you can take

Investigate what deeper desires you have. Take time for yourself by creating peace to clarify hidden needs.
Are there experiences that cause you to have strong negative thoughts that block you in your current life?
Take action to break a static situation and make sure things change. A small change can already cause a shift that increases your happiness.
Let it sink in deep(er) that things you have experienced do not mean that future experiences will be exactly the same.

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