Positive Psychology Column for 12-7-03 By Tom Muha, Ph.D. All I Want for Christmas is to be Happy When you were a child, the holidays gave you the chance to conjure up your wish list of toys, games and cool clothes.  What excitement to awaken on Christmas morning to find a heap of presents under the tree. Of the hundreds, perhaps thousands of gifts that you’ve gotten in your lifetime, how many still bring you joy?  Now that you’re an adult you have the ability to see past the short-lived pleasures that material possessions produce. You can ask your self what you really want to have that would make your life happier. There is one gift that will give you peace of mind and goodwill toward men (and women): a balanced life. Balance begins by knowing your self.  By developing your ability to be aware of your core feelings, you can learn to manage them in ways that give you genuine satisfaction. Some people are over reactive to the events in their lives while others avoid pain (as well as positive feelings) by disconnecting from their feeling center. Balance is achieved either by evening out the extreme highs and lows of life or by overcoming in inner emotional numbness. The signs of having false highs are experiencing emotions associated with being superior, having more, reveling in righteousness, wielding power, imagining impunity or becoming satiated. Symptoms of unnecessary lows are feelings of hostility, depression, panic, powerlessness, abandonment, shame, being miserable or starved. Many people have learned to avoid their painful feelings by detaching from the feeling part of their brain. But this precludes the possibility of enjoying the positive emotions of life as well. Being disconnected from your emotional center unleashes your drive to go to excess in using external solutions to try to find satisfaction.  You will know you are emotionally numb if you’re buying things you don’t need, eating junk you know is no good for you, craving chemicals to soothe yourself, or working until you’re exhausted. You can empower your pursuit of happiness by learning to listen to your unhappy feelings, and then transforming them by making the simple decision to do something that will bring joy to your world. The most important life lesson you’ll ever learn is to make happiness a priority, in fact the priority.  By making happiness a daily practice, you’ll develop the habit of continuously checking in with yourself to see how you’re feeling.  Then you’ll devise ways of offsetting your negative emotions by finding ways of generating genuine joy. That eliminates shortcuts involving food, alcohol, tobacco, working late, spending, putting up walls, or people-pleasing. Instead, authentic nurturing of yourself involves love, appreciation, living life using your character strengths and having a sense of purpose. These are choices you can make every day of your life to be of good cheer. To achieve balance is to have earned the reward of having the primary positive emotions: being happy, grateful, proud, secure and loved. Happiness comes from having what your heart needs the most. It’s important to note that being perfect is not on the list. An essential element in achieving balance is learning that you don’t have to be perfect to be wonderful. Almost everyone recoils from the criticism of others, yet many people condemn themselves for their imperfections. One of the greatest gifts you can give to your self is acceptance, and the nurturing of your self that flows from it. When the fog of distress (fear, anger, anxiety, jealousy, sadness, guilt, depression, hate) obscures your vision of yourself and your world, you can choose to free yourself of your negative emotions. The way in which you choose to see yourself and your life creates the way your life will be. You can create an amazing attitudinal advantage within yourself once you’ve accepted that you have the option of choosing either happiness or misery by controlling the way you think about things. You can claim happiness at any time if you free yourself of the limits imposed by the condemning evidence of your personal history.  By restricting your perspective to the past you are only offering yourself yesterday’s proof of what is possible. But the past tells us nothing about what will happen if we choose to walk another path. I have seen people confront catastrophic backgrounds and emerge triumphant. You can defy the horror stories that are a part your history. Your past is merely a memory that you drag into the present.  Likewise your future. The direction of your life is determined by which you choose to focus upon.   Tom Muha is a psychologist in Annapolis. He welcomes your comments and questions. To contact him call (443) 454-7274 or email him at tom@achievinghappiness.com.