Community Questions (article 2)
Community Questions (article 2)
With the demands of our society today it is not surprising to see the number of people experiencing depression rise. Doors for crisis intervention remain open and the world of confusion lives on. The following is part one of the formula referenced in the last issue. I strongly believe if the reader learns just one thing, that one thing can be life changing in a positive way.
This formula references the following concepts;
1) If a person keeps doing what they are doing, they will keep getting the results that they are getting.
2) We don’t always have control over things that happen in the environment.
3) We don’t really know what other people are thinking, and do not have control of their perceptions and responses. Therefore we cannot change them. Only they can change themselves.
4) Nobody is perfect; we all make mistakes.
5) No two people are exactly alike.
6) It is better to be happier long term as compared to being happy short term, especially if the particular action leads to making the person unhappy in the long run. An example would be a person with substance abuse challenges who seeks more of their preferred substance to bring relief from pain, avoiding tasks, or avoiding the physical symptoms of detoxification. That particular action may make one happy in the short term, but promote challenges in building healthy relationships, feeling productive and maintaining optimum employment in the long term.
This formula applies to individuals who are accepting of a goal that they want to be happy. If no two people are alike then what makes one person happy may not make another person happy. Therefore we have to define what makes us happy on an individual level.
If you are so sad or depressed and cannot readily define happiness, define what makes you sad. Look then at the opposite of what brings you sadness as the opposite will show you what would make you happy, by your own definition. An example would be when a person is sad because they are alone. The opposite of that would be building a healthy relationship.
Have you ever been told that you are really great at giving other people advice but you just can’t give yourself that same great advice? I believe that is because our brain can confuse us and cause us to be so emotionally overwhelmed when we look for our own advice. We have coping mechanisms that can lead us to deny things, minimize our recognition of things that impact us in a negative way, or even cause us to rationalize or make excuses that can interfere with us seeing things clearly. In other words we can become our own worst enemy.
I personally believe that nobody quite knows our own self as we do. Therefore we should consider becoming more attune to ourselves and come to our own conclusions. Have you ever had a “gut feeling” and you just ignored your instinct and then wished you could turn back time and listen to your own advice?
Now, that does not mean that we should not be open to others’ constructive perceptions. For example, I personally had a challenge with saying “no.” I was just unconsciously on auto-pilot and would say “yes” even though I didn’t really want to. Obviously, my response would make me happy in the short run because it was “easier”, however in the long run I was unhappy because I did not want to participate in the task. I had a supervisor that recognized this and brought it to my attention. I remained open to her observation and it made sense.
By my own definition, if saying “yes” when I want to say “no” makes me unhappy then I need to change what I am doing since my goal is to be happy. Applying the formula to make this change will be discussed in the next issue of HIBU in Community Questions.