Loading
Girafe Coaching
  • HOME
  • ABOUT ME
  • WORK WITH ME
  • EVENTS
  • BLOG
  • PODCAST
  • Menu Menu

Change your expat life…

3 MYTHS OF HAPPINESS

Happiness is something most of us want more of in life. And of course we do! Happiness is a wonderful emotion when we experience it. For example, I feel happiness when one of my sons tells me he wants to snuggle or holds my hand out of the blue — when it happens, I feel like I could just experience the feeling forever and never let it go. But there are some things we should get straight about happiness…

Happiness is a feeling — an emotion — and like all emotions, it come from our thoughts. That’s good news! It means that to feel happy, all we have to do is think happy thoughts.

Simple, right? Ha! If only.

But while it might now seem as easy as that, we do have a tendency to get in our own way. Why? Because there are several common myths that can derail our ability to experience — and cultivate — happiness.

Today, let’s break down the 3 most common myths about chasing happiness.

1. Myth: Happiness Is the Same As Immediate Gratification

We often confuse happiness with a substitute for happiness:

  • Eating
  • Drinking
  • Watching Netflix
  • Being on social media

These are actions of immediate gratification, and they give us a spike of dopamine that feels close to happiness. So, how do we know the difference? We know by the result of our actions. Most of the time, actions of immediate gratification create a negative consequence for us when they are used as a substitute for real (emotional) happiness.

For instance, when we overeat because we are used food as an emotional crutch, we probably won’t feel well. We might gain weight or feel too tired to do the things that matter to us. We might feel remorse or guilt afterwards.

Truth: Real happiness is an emotion. It is nourished by a thought, not an
action.

2. Myth: Happiness Is Something That Happens to Us

We often think our circumstances create happiness — the things that happen in our lives, the situations we find ourselves in, the things that people say and do around us…

The problem is, we cannot control most of these things. We certainly can’t control other people. And this gives all our power away. So, we let life happen to us and, in waiting for happiness to just show up, we’re often filled with disappointment instead.

We cannot control our circumstances. What we can do is either use all our energy fighting our circumstance or be in acceptance of what is. Once we accept the reality of our circumstances, we can use our energy to create the thoughts that help us experience life as best we can in any situation.

Truth: Only our thoughts about our circumstances can create happiness.

3. Myth: Life Would Be so Much Better if We Felt Happiness All the Time

When we do not feel happy, we often feel bad about feeling unhappy! We add extra pain to our unhappiness because we assume that we should walk through life feeling happy all the time. But this is a myth.

As humans, we are fully equipped to feel the whole spectrum of emotions. In fact, happiness does not exist without unhappiness. And this makes sense. When something terrible happens in the world or to us, when someone we love is hurt, when we do not achieve what we wanted to achieve — most of us understandably do not want to feel happy. This is part of the full expression of our humanity.

Furthermore, happiness is not the emotion of growth. When we feel happy, we want to relax, chill, and enjoy. Happiness is not the emotion that will make you create anything. Happiness is pleasant, for sure. But if you want to achieve big things in life, what you need is not happiness. For me, for example, I reach for other things when I go after my big goals:

  • Courage
  • Determination
  • Motivation
  • Boldness
  • Audacity

Truth: It’s time to let go of the idea that we should be happy all the time.

Embrace Conflicting Emotions

Increasing our level of happiness is actually very easy: think happy thoughts. All we have to do is think happy thoughts about everything. It’s not complicated. But the reason that it often doesn’t feel easy is because we are not meant to feel happy about everything.

Think about it: is happiness something you really what you want in life all the time? In truth, we would stagnate.

When we are ready to feel the full spectrum of emotions, we can truly create a life we love. In order to help you distinguish which emotions you might be feeling, I have prepared a list of feelings you receive by subscribing to Girafe Coaching Newsletter .

For more on this topic, I invite you to listen to Episode 4 of the Podcast: Chasing Happiness as well as Episode 5 : Life is 50/50

If you like this post, share it with your friends or on social media with Instagram or Facebook! Girafe Coaching is all about helping people like you love their expat life.

SEE MORE

The Journey to Change

January 4, 2022/by Caroline Giffon

Boundaries, Boundaries, Boundaries …

December 14, 2021/by Caroline Giffon

Do You Know What’s in Your Relationship Manual?

December 7, 2021/by Caroline Giffon

Why Success Doesn’t Always Make Us Happy

November 30, 2021/by Caroline Giffon

How to Keep a Journal

November 23, 2021/by Caroline Giffon

The Four Types of Procrastination

November 16, 2021/by Caroline Giffon
Load more

 

HOME I PRIVACY POLICY I TERMS OF USE I BLOG I CONTACT ME

 

Copyright 2022 Girafe Coaching LLC

The power of our thoughts Episode 2 Episode 3 The Roller Coaster of Emotions
Scroll to top

We use cookies on this site to gather data and improve your experience. For more information see our privacy policy.

Accept Cookies

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Privacy Policy

You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.

Privacy Policy
Accept settingsHide notification only

Join the Girafe Coaching Community!

Be the first to receive the Girafe Coaching Newsletter with monthly tips, strategies and updates.