Resilience & Happiness

RESILIENCE

Resilience is facing a bleak winter, yet knowing that you can make it to spring just fine.

Happiness springs from this knowledge.

As a therapist, it is my biggest wish for my clients to enjoy healthy and strong resilience because this will enable them to face life’s challenges more calmly and allow them to rest with the knowledge that they have choices how to deal with their challenges.   

HAPPINESS

Which kind of happiness is your favorite kind of happiness?

Is it the spiking happiness that comes from external sources like shopping or gossiping or …? Or is it the kind that comes from working out like a good dopamine high? Or is it the more flowing kind that comes from doing something in which you have skill and competence? Or the calm kind of sitting with people (or animals) that you love? Or is it the kind that stems from giving a meaningful gift and taking part of the experience of the recipient?

Research into happiness shows that the happiest people are the ones with many social interactions. Introverts, relax! There is more to this! Positive Psychology research has been able to point out that the nature of this kind happiness is experienced as spiking in its intensity and less lasting overall. This happiness can be enhanced by mindfulness but still it peaks and ebbs. Long term happiness has different parameters than buying a new car, new shoes or smelling a rose. I am not knocking these pleasures nor the resulting happiness - they all have their part in our lives and many of us do get happiness from it. 

In addition, though, there is happiness that comes from doing something skillfully and competently. This happiness is not easily achieved as it takes - competence and concentration, as in years of learning and applying. Though once we arrive at a certain level of competence whether this is reading a book, riding a bike, working in our area of expertise, cooking, or playing - we can enter the “zone” of this kind of happiness.  This state of happiness has nothing to do with consumption and everything with engagement.  It’s called “flow”. It was named by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi: The Father of Flow. If you would like to learn more: here is a great link:

https://positivepsychology.com/mihaly-csikszentmihalyi-father-of-flow/

Calm happiness stems from your knowledge that whatever life throws or will throw at you, you can manage it. You know yourself best: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Like any training, having failed a few times first and then figured out how to get over a challenge has rendered you with this calm knowledge. You know that you have the ability to sustain scars and still experience happiness.

Another state of happiness is connected with the state of our meaning finding in life. Existentialism-based research (Victor Frankl) shows that people with a clear understanding of their purpose or purposes in life, also have a clearer understanding of what is meaningful in their lives, which results in happiness for them. This too is experienced as long-term happiness.  

Learn more about Victor Frankl’s approach of healing through meaning at:

https://viktorfranklamerica.com/