(This blog was originally posted on September 18, 2014)
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| Photo courtesy of Sara Fogan |
I
recently saw a trailer for a new film titled Hector
and the Search for Happiness. In it, a psychiatrist travels around the
world to discover the true meaning of the apparently elusive emotion in his
life. The premise of this movie intrigued me, and I started to think about the
sources and definition of happiness in my own life. For example, Spending time
with my friends and family and riding and hanging out with my horse makes me
very, very happy. The sound of
raindrops beating on the roof and against my windowpanes makes me happy. So
does chocolate ice cream and the idea of Thursday night (because I have the
whole weekend to look forward to).
But
are those things true happiness? Is
it the blush of first love, a new baby, an expensive car? How do you recognize
it when happiness is in your grasp to experience? Maybe it has a smell or sound
or texture that I have never consciously noticed. If so, how do you or I know
if we have missed our chance to be happy? Or, do we only know that you are
happy because we are not experiencing other emotions that we associate with experiences
that we associate with familiar, challenging negative experiences in our daily
life? In that case, the subconscious mind would likely associate financial insecurity/unemployment,
physical illness, etc. as a part of your subconscious life script. No matter
how challenging and stressful these experiences may be, the SCM will accept
them because they are familiar, comforting and known; conversely, will likely
reject or avoid any other experience that evokes an opposite emotional reaction
such as happiness, which is unknown and therefore painful.
These questions
let me to consider that more existential question which would likely be
addressed in the film: How did I (or anyone) even know what happiness is, to be able to identify any emotion as such?
Even talk-show radio personality Dennis Prager addresses how hard a person must
work to achieve this state in his self-help book titled Happiness
is a Serious Problem. To be honest, puzzling over this question began to
make me feel agitated, unsure and uncomfortable—the opposite of happy.
Eventually,
my thoughts drifted to Hypnosis Motivation
Institute founder Dr. John Kappas and his Theory of Mind concept. It posits that
human behavior is based on the subconscious mental scripts that we create
during early childhood. Furthermore, since fear of falling and fear of loud
noises is the only emotion (or reaction to emotions) that human beings are born
with, we must learn what happiness is
and create our own and individual associations with it. Put in this context, I
concluded that there must be countless definitions of and explanations for
happiness—which made me feel much better.
Dare
I say it? It made me feel happy.
Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in
Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in
2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy®
and to set up an appointment, please
visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.
© 2015
