Fearing unhappiness, is unhappiness
In this talk, Bruce Di Marsico touches on a number of subjects.
First, if you fear unhappiness, you will be unhappy. This is being unhappy about being unhappy. Wanting to be happier is not the same as fearing unhappiness, just as wanting to have more money is not the same as fearing having none.
Second, you can’t “make” yourself happy anymore than you can stressfully “make” yourself go to sleep or stressfully “make” yourself relaxed. Happiness is the natural state, and any effort to force yourself to become happy is counterproductive. If you’re allowed to be happy, you’ll be happy
Third, happiness won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. When you discover that you truly are free to do anything, you will also discover that you don’t want to do what you don’t want to do. There is no danger of doing what you don’t want to do just because you can.
Finally, “shoulds” have no value. We don’t need “shoulds” to do what we want to do, and to believe we should do something we don’t want to do simply affirms that we don’t want to do it. For example, if we wanted to lose weight, we wouldn’t need a “should”. The logically equivalent statement is, if we need a “should”, we don’t want to lose weight.
Option Method – Fearing unhappiness is unhappiness