The question has to be changed to something that is specific to your life, your life events, and the identification of what/who is challenging your happiness. What’s wrong with me? takes you down a dark alley with a dead end! The challenge then is to identify specific things you are struggling with that appear to defeat your level of happiness/satisfaction in life.
That means change the question to something like this: What is not working in my life right now? What needs to be changed? The difference is significant…..because the typical answer that pops into your head with “what’s wrong with me?” is “I’m either sick, crazy, or stupid and I never do anything right!” An answer guaranteed to defeat happiness! It defeats happiness because it’s not true. What’s true is there are some things that aren’t going right in life. Write them down. Write about experiences, people, places that you are struggling with. Take out all the negative words. State reality vs exaggerations. This is a hard shift to make, but it will make a difference.
Next write about things you know DO make you happy. Make a list of people you enjoy being with — who make you smile. List places you like to go, things you love to do. Now you have two lists…the challenging stuff and the positive stuff.
Next be realistic about your unhappy state of mind. On a scale of 1 to 10 measure your unhappiness. 1 means you are splendid and 10 means you feel pretty sad. Be honest with yourself.
Next reflect on how long you’ve been feeling so unhappy. Is it a bad weekend or weeks and weeks of feeling far lower than you usually feel? See if you can locate a time when the sad and unhappy feelings started to intensify.
IF you are up in the “9 or 10 zone” and if you’ve been feeling bad for weeks, you are possibly suffering from some mild depression. Go talk to someone. A family member, a close friend, a psychologist, minister, physician can help you get a sense of direction.
IF the level of seriousness of the “unhappy” is of shorter duration and less intense, then try these things to jump start your world. You truly can do it…
–go for a long walk…a vigorous one!
–meditate for at least 5 minutes. And if you can keep going for longer, do it.
–think of someone who always makes you smile/laugh and call them or schedule time with them
–make sure you are getting plenty of rest and decent nutrition — and if you want a SERIOUS hit on the nutrition side, try eliminating all grains from your diet for 2 weeks and see how you feel. (THIS one is harder!)
–journal about your feelings– expand on the lists you made
–remember the things you loved as a kid and see if you could re-introduce any of the activities into your life
–this will sound silly but try it….put a pencil in your mouth. It makes your mouth turn into a smile. And research shows your brain does NOT know the difference. You WILL feel better at least for a few minutes. AND it helps you see that you can, indeed, influence your state of happiness quite quickly and easily!
I’ll write more about happiness in coming blogs. Meanwhile watch the negative questions and if you need help with them, see my book: WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME? MAYBE NOT THAT MUCH!