What does it feel like to feel happy??

[Artemus]

I watched the movie Destination Wedding last night and Keanu Reeves plays a character who clearly suffers from cPTSD. At one point in the movie, he asked the woman he was traveling with, "Have you ever been in love?" She said one time. He asked her what it felt like. That struck a chord because I honestly do not know what it feels like to be happy. Not that my life has been filled with misery, far from it. I've accomplished a good deal. I've overcome even more emotional obstacles, and I have a beautiful wife an 2 wonderful teenage daughters at home. I've been married 17 years, have 3 college degrees, and so forth. Accomplished a lot, been more of a "human doing" than a "human being." And, I can't remember a day when I was "Happy," or if I was, it was so foreign a feeling to me that I did not realize it. I've felt many, many good things in life (I'm 67) since my earliest memory of being beaten as a toddler in diapers at age 2 with a tree switch and memories of being chased down by a gang of grammar school boys time and again who thought my beating was an amusement for them. I've said before that I went to war with the world when I was 12 and never looked back--and it's true. I overcame, I won time and again in all sorts of competitive arenas. Losing was never an option for me, no matter how hard I had to work. It was unthinkable. And, I seldom lost at anything except the concept of being happy. There I failed time and again, but didn't know it because I'd never felt it.

I never married until later in life. After 17 years of marriage and all the things that this sort of malady can do to relationships, I can say that my wife and I love each other--looking at one another from across the room. My daughters and I love one another in the same way. It's really love, but I'm not approachable enough for it to be "happy" love, intimate love, the sort of love that makes me smile when I feel how much another person cares about me. It's the sort of love that comes with knowing how much other people depend on me for their safety and their own joys in life--a selfish love I suppose. We love each other, but it is a sad sort of love for us all. For me, it began before I was out of diapers and now as I enter this last stage of life, I want to experience happiness.

I've never set "Happiness" as a goal. It always seemed like a frivolous sort of quest, but it doesn't now. My issue is that I can't even imagine what it feels like in order to visualize it as a destination. I've seen others that appear to be happy--mostly Buddhist monks or small preschool children at play, but it is a foreign concept to me as a "feeling". Personal happiness for me isn't having two wonderful daughters, although I do and am very proud of them. My "job" is to continually compete with others to deliver on the financial needs they have as teens. Happiness for me isn't a beautiful wife, although I have one. She is a wonderful human being. We do nice things for one another, but haven't been intimate in 2 years. She spends most of her time either working, drinking, or sleeping, and no matter what I say to address the elephant in the room, she doesn't want to talk about it. I'm convinced that she stays married for the security and the children. She loves me, but more for who she wishes I was than who I am.

So I ask: Is happiness laying on a beach in the Caribbean with a beer and no bills? Is happiness the satisfaction I feel from helping another person? Is it the pride I feel when my daughters do well at something? I guess I would like to feel like the monks for a week or so, just once in a while. To laugh (which I seldom do) over small things. To mingle with friends (which I have none of) and feel love radiate being among people who sincerely care about me. How do I set happiness as a goal, when I can't visualize what it is as a "feeling"? How can I see it as more than a fleeting glimpse of an emotion? I really don't know, but I'd like to feel it (and know that I do) before I die. If you are happy, I'd love to hear how you do/did it. Thank you. Blessings to all.

 

[grit]

What make you unhappy?
Also you mention your wife drinking and unflattering reasons she is with you? I wonder.

Do you avoid issues until others decide?

It sounded to me aside chilhdood issues, you split all positive parts of yourself to others and suffering from the emptiness of spirtituality. If you can afford, maybe take sabbatical and live with monks....why not?

 

[somerandomguy]

That is a hard ass question. Kudos for asking it.

I think it's a little like love. Almost impossible to describe, but you know it when you're experiencing it. If you can't describe yourself as happy, or ever having been happy, then I'm not sure you have ever been happy.

I felt happiness as a child; I know I did. It was a soft contentment with the world as it was in the moment. It was very fleeting, but that's my baseline. I know I have had moments like that since then - some even very recently. But I think my current definition of happiness is less contentment and more striving - when I feel I am all I can be in that moment. When I'm satisfied with myself in all my strengths and my flaws. When I can see the world as it is, in the joy and pain, and it's simply enough right then.

I had never felt that before beginning my healing journey eight months ago. Now I feel it frequently. It's such an amazing change that I can barely express it. I know I am on the right path.

Are you currently in therapy? Have you done any work on your trauma?

 

[EveHarrington]

Have you studied Buddhism?

I can’t help but feel you’ve danced around the answer.

 

[Artemus]

@grit , @somerandomguy, @EveHarrington Thank you for the feedback. As to religion, I've studied most of them. Chistianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Mormonism, Shamanism, blends of each (Course in Miracles). I went to the Amazon jungle and Andes Mountains in Peru in the 90s to study under 2 Shamen for a couple of weeks. I use TM to meditate now, although I have to say that I'm not as consistent at it as I need to be. Never lived in a monastery. Interesting idea 'dancing around the answer'. I'm a believer that answers are right in front of us, we just can't see them, or maybe refuse to see them, but they are there. Yes, lots of therapy. I have not found it to be of much use other than a shrink diagnosed the PTSD and that gave a name to what I experience and the crazy seemed not to be so crazy anymore, but more linked to a response to life events.

I've written here about leaving my family and living alone somewhere, but having lived all over the US I believe I'd just take this stuff along with me family or no. I don't like living in the Midwest, I do know that. I grew up with narrow mindsets of people in TN and I live among them again. I listen to strong powerful opinions based on Fox News, ignorance of facts, and intolerance of other people and points of view. Not my way. I do miss CA and VA. I enjoyed New England. I know narrow minded people are all over, but there is more diversity and more tolerance in some of those areas. Here, the one grocery store in town has it's token Black guy (literally always 1) working there. Closes on Sundays religiously, stays open on MLK day. I am not a fan of that sort of quiet racism any more than I am of the violent type. I've been trying to get my wife to move for a few years, but she grew up here and this corn crib is home to her. There is upside. It is safe for the kids when you are White. Almost no crime. Just lonely for someone with my life experience and love of many cultures who wants to hear all points of view, not just the "They'll have to pull my smoking gun from my dead fingers" perspective. The only friends we have in this town are very nice. They also use the "N" word a lot, she has a carry permit to shoot the Black man who will try to rape her one day according to her. But, if you don't go there in conversation, you'd never know.

You all give me some good thoughts. Maybe life in a monastery is where it is for me. Although, I have to say it seems like another form of isolationism. I imagine I'd like to sit around a table with a group of people of like minds and play cards or just have an engaging chat about whatever. Walk back to my apt feeling like my neighbors are also my friends. Share dinners with one another. Things I see in the movies. Probably the closest I've come to that was in my 20s when I played on a co-ed softball team in the DC area. We did those things and camping trips as well. That was in the 70s and I was content. If I were not so driven all the time, maybe I could have just let it be happy. I'd forgotten about those times. Good memories. Thank you.

Blessings to all.

 

[grit]

might be outdated and too poetic and boring for most but maybe if you have not already in your seeking journeys, try to read a book written by Kaplan and Stern. They are therapy books. Yes. but they also focus on childhood/human development and may just maybe shed light on your dark spots intellectually and hopefully you will allow acceptance into your emotional understanding of you.

PS. I was not recommending you isolate yourself at all. I was recommending you stay with monks and realize that there you go, this thing follows you so it is not necessary your wife or life that is holding you back but your own.

Regardless, questioning is good and eventually you may find what you seek or accept where you are...which is the same in my book.

 

[Artemus]

@grit , about Kaplan and Stern. There are a lot of books by those names on Amazon. Have any titles I can search by? Do they co-author or write separately? First names? Thank you!

 

[user27357]

I think happiness comes from the most basic parts of our brain, the lizard brain, the same place fight or flight come from, the part that is out of tune when you suffer our malady.

The older I get the closer I think I am to being able to say, "well, what do you know, I was happy all along".

I think TRUE lizard brain happiness is outrunning the wolves and being safe in the shelter, with a companion and the knowledge that you have a good chance of being right where you are now again tomorrow.

Our problem is that we have replaced the wolves with the mortgage holders or the power company and the shelter with self-sufficiency and paychecks and the companion is facing their own problems in the same modernized disillusioned way.

in an oversimplified too pragmatic kind of way, I am realizing that just the act of wanting to be happy draws me away from being happy. I am alive, I am sitting inside my home, my wife is here and probably will be tomorrow. Wanting any more than that is a distraction from the basic deep brain happiness I wish I could have seen years ago.

Happy Thanksgiving Day everyone, in the US. Even if you are alone and suffering, you are alive and must have access to the internet, that has to be a foundation you can build a good day on, it should be as easy as being sad or scared or angry or any of the other emotions that come from that deep place we all have inside. I know (KNOW!) it isn't that easy but the happiness just might be there for you if you let it.

 

[grit]

Oneness and Separateness: From Infant to Individual by Louise Kaplan

Motherhood-Constellation-Unified-Parent-Infant-Psychotherapy by Daniel Stern


Good luck

 

[grit]

I read them long time ago but what I gather from them was why do I have emptiness inside of me that I could not fill it. they also give great examples that can make one go wow! did not know that was that. However, personally, I use my dreams and the feeling evoked to process any trauma or emotional blockage I have and these books will stir.

 

[ladee]

My happiness is simple. It is equal to feeling peaceful. Not always in mental turmoil, living in the moment, being present for others if I can. I don't adhere to this with perfection. I am human. And life gets in the way. But I try not to veer to far from doing the things that bring me peace.

I have experienced a lot of happiness in my life. The kind where your heart melts with good news, or one of my grandchildren were born. Or watching and being in nature. That is where I am my most content. At peace.

Laughter is happiness for me too. I love people with a sense of humor , as I have learned to not take myself so seriously in the bigger picture, I find myself laughing at myself like a child who discovers that there is more than one flavor or ice-cream...

Took me forever to get here, I am a year older than you and choose a single life over ever being married again.. Don't have the tolerance or the stamina to ever be married again.

So, hoping you find more than one answer to your question... and wishing you peace of mind, and a gentle place to lay your head and dream.

 

[Artemus]

@ladee thank you for the reply. I equate happiness, as a mental concept anyway, in the same frame you have put it. I can't seem to find it these days (i.e: the past 20+ years) and now wonder if I ever had it. It could be that I've just forgotten. I posted some time ago a post about leaving my family and still struggle with that decision. I love them, but my wife is unwilling to compromise on living in the Corn Belt, it is home to her, and it is where we have been for the past 8 years. I might as well be on the moon I am so different mentally and spiritually from the people that surround me. I've almost my entire adult live on one coast or the other. I've experienced so many people, so many cultures, and just seen so much she has not appreciation for nor desire for. I'm not sure where I'm headed in the future. I've got 1 daughter that graduates high school this year and a second daughter that starts high school next year. Leaving would break all our hearts. Yet, staying is killing my soul from the loneliness I feel.

Then, there is another idea that gives me great doubt about leaving my family in search of happiness. The idea that this is all in my head. That I'll be just as unhappy and dissatisfied no matter where I am because it is inside of me, of my own making, and I bring wherever I go.

In any case, thank you for your thoughtful feedback and have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Blessing be upon you!