The first step towards starting to rejoice in life is to stop poisoning it for yourself. Psychotherapist Christoph Andre offers his own internal “detoxification” program.

Constantly life is a building with three dimensions: material, interpersonal and emotional. In other words, in order to be a happy person, you need to be able to achieve your goals, maintaining a reputation and good relations with people and not sacrificing the internal harmony.

People always knew that finding happiness was far from simple matter. Aristotle taught: “The sage does not strive for pleasure, he strives for the lack of suffering”. And the French writer Jules Renar wrote in his “Diary” that “happiness is when the misfortune is silent”. What should be done so as not to feel unhappy?

Here are some tips or, rather, tips in which a whole program of action is already contained ..

1. Decide that everything goes well for you

Not so simple. As the famous French philosopher Alen wrote: “We must want to be happy and make efforts to this. If you stand in the pose of an impartial observer and keep the doors open, waiting for happiness in them, then sadness will enter them ”.

It is always easier to surrender to the power of misfortune – this requires less costs of psychological energy from us. And to extend well -being, on the contrary, you need efforts. In general, people differ from each other in how they are able to feel happy, but some factors are common to the whole human race: it seems that the evolution is favorable to the development of negative emotions, since they increase the chances of surviving the species.

Fear encourages us to run or accept the battle, anger scares opponents or rivals, sadness causes sympathy.

However

, nature, having worried about our survival, did not take care of the quality of our life at all. Positive emotions are much less diverse, less stable and more “costly” in terms of psychological energy.

2. Do not allow yourself to be sad for too long

Since negative emotions arise only from time to time, do not last long and do not violate our everyday life too much, one could expect that they would pass by themselves. But “flirt” with misfortune, as was customary among the romantics of the 19th century, is unsafe, and today psychology begins to better understand this risk.

Giving free rein to negative emotions, we renew them. Previously, people believed in a kind of catharsis: for example, if you complain to someone, you can alleviate your suffering. In fact, it is often the opposite: constant and unrequited complaints can make a victim of life circumstances from a complaining victim. And misfortune nourishes itself: the more we succumb to him, the longer it will last.

Moreover, if we surrender to the power of misfortune, then a negative emotion limited in time (at the moment we feel unhappy) gradually develops into a stable negative attitude (we have an unlucky life).

And finally, in this way we doom ourselves to the subsequent return of negative emotions: it has long been well known about depression that it very often gives relapses, now we know that an ordinary sad mood also has a tendency to return.

3. Take care of yourself, especially if things are going

In reality, thousands of people refute this idea by their behavior. Most of those suffering from anxiety and depression do the opposite. The worse they are, the more they start themselves (cease to see friends, throw their hobbies), and the more they start themselves, the worse they become. A vicious circle occurs.

To do your favorite thing when you have problems, not the most obvious way out of the situation, because we have a desire to do this. However, many works indicate that this desire must be awakened by making efforts (as in the case of a stalled motor, which must be made again).

Just do not be mistaken about the final goal: when we are bad, the task of pleasant activities is not to make us happy, but to prevent us from unhappiness to grow and take root inside us.

4. Avoid perfectionism and do not strive for happiness “at all costs”

Thinking about happiness, Gustav Flobert wrote: “Have you ever thought how many tears were shed because of this terrible word? Without him, we would sleep calmer and we would be easier to live. “. You should not understand the writer too literally, but nevertheless … The search for happiness should not become an obsessive state for us, and the right of each person to happiness – recorded, by the way, in the US Constitution – should not turn into the obligation to be happy at any or no matterIt became.

We cannot avoid meeting with misfortune, but in our power to stop this meeting to be afraid and benefit from it

Moreover, a feeling of misfortune, an integral part of human existence, may sometimes be useful, forcing us to think about whether we live correctly, or even necessary when it encourages us to look at unpleasant truths in the face.

We cannot avoid meeting with misfortune, but in our power to stop this meeting to be afraid and benefit from it.

5. Reveal the moments of happiness

The best (and also the most pleasant) weapon in the fight against misfortune is to extract as much pleasure as possible from those happy moments that fate gives us. Excellent vaccine against feeling unhappy – to enjoy happiness, trying to make this feeling more powerful, powerful, bright.

Perhaps the disease will not pass you, but it will pass in a mild form! As always, it is easy to say, but not so easy to do. Modern French philosopher Andre Count-Sponville talks about how incredibly “it is difficult to be happy when you are doing well”. Let us not wait until the vicissitudes of fate remind us that life is beautiful, and force us to regret that we did not dispose of it better ..

And here we approach the most ancient and wise advice of philosophers: Carpe Diem (“catch the moment”), rejoice in what you have today.

6. Reflect on worries, but do not focus on them

Studies of the psyche of anxious people show that they constantly scroll through the thoughts of troubles, but, paradoxically, this does not help them find a way out of the situation. The fact is that a feeling of anxiety is necessary in order to give an alarm, to attract our attention to the problem. This is not a way to perceive the world or resolve our problems.

That is why one of the tasks of psychotherapy, especially cognitive, is to teach people to perceive their misfortunes as problems that require solution, and not as a curse. In this case, the so -called “Socratic method” is used, which consists in asking tough questions about our anxieties: what is related to facts and what follows from my interpretation of events or my expectations? Does it help me that I’m constantly worried? What is my scenario of disaster? What is the likelihood that she will happen to me? And so on.

The method is harsh, but effective.

7. Do not cultivate hostile emotions in yourself

Many of our misfortunes occur because we take too much space to the so -called hostile emotions. These emotions are often very strong and aimed at certain people (anger, bitterness, jealousy, etc. P.). Most often they develop because we put in the first place the need to prove our case (“they are wrong, they must be punished”), while sacrificing our desire to feel good (“I am the first to suffer because of this, so I need tothink that I can do useful, and then switch to another. “).

In other cases, negative emotions are explained by the irritation that we experience in relation to human imperfection. These emotions make us look at the world and its inhabitants meticulously or cynically: “Well, if she considers herself a beauty …”

The lack of goodwill often indicates that a person is bad, and is always a source of sense of unhappy.