Why Am I Afraid to Be Happy?

Hey there, everybody, and welcome to today's live Q and A. Today we will be discussing why am I afraid to be happy? I'm your host, Dr. Donnellice Snipes. In this presentation, I'm going to help you identify why people may be afraid to be happy and explore 10 tips for change. The fear of being happy is called cherophobia. Did you know that there was actually a phobia about being afraid to be happy? Well, now you know there are a lot of different reasons that people are afraid to be happy. Now, that's different than not being able to be happy because of being in the middle of a major depressive episode, et cetera. What we're talking about is a actual fear of being happy. Some of the things that can cause a fear of being happy, a depressive worldview that leads to what we call the confirmation bias. That means you look at the world and you see the world is very depressing. So you look for things that confirm that depressive outlook, and that can contribute to unhappiness and fear of something bad happening. If you start to feel happy, you may also fear not being able to control what's going on. So if you start to feel happy, that's great, but you can't keep feeling happy or you're afraid you won't be able to keep feeling happy and control that, and you're afraid of the free fall. You may fear of having something to lose and not being able to get it back. And we'll talk about this a little bit more in depth. We'll talk about all of these more in depth. You may fear being negatively judged by others or even yourself for being happy. And I call that happiness guilt. When you think that, oh, people are going to think I'm a bad person, or I think I'm a bad person because I look out at this depressing world and how could I dare be happy? You may think that trying to be happy is a waste of effort. You may fear that if you're happy, you'll become complacent and won't achieve your goals. If you feel happy, you'll become content, and then you'll rest on your laurels and you won't do all the things that you're meant to do. And I want you to think about that. When we're happy, we're energized. Yes. When we're happy, we're drinking in the moment. We. We are mindful of what's going on. But that doesn't mean that we're not going to pursue our goals. Because when we're happy, that's great, but if we don't continue doing what needs to be done to stay happy, then we're going to start feeling unhappy, which will trigger us to get off our butt and do the right thing. So I would argue with that assertion. And finally, my depression, anxiety or chronic post traumatic stress disorder just won't allow me to be happy or. Well, that's true at times during depressive episodes. However, even people who are experiencing major depression or CPTSD may have moments. I'm not saying they all do, but they may have moments where they're happy. And seizing on those moments can be so powerful. The impact of happiness. You know, I said earlier that some people think that, well, trying to be happy just it ain't worth the effort. That's too much effort. Physically we know that stress related illnesses include cancer, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune issues. Happiness is the opposite. If you're feeling happy, your cortisol levels are going to be lower, your stress hormones are going to be lower. Physically, being happy not only promotes physical health, but actually cognitive health. Affectively affect related mental training, which means when people are encouraged to open their awareness, not only just focusing on the negative, not only just focusing on the threats, but focusing on the bigger picture. Affect related mental training is linked to functional and structural changes in the brain areas associated with positive emotions and emotion regulation. So what does that mean? That means when people are taught to be aware of everything, not just to notice the bad thing, but to notice the bad thing and the other good things, it helps balance things out and it actually changes the structural the structure of the brain and it helps with emotion regulation because the default mode network starts being pushed program to understand. Yeah, there is crappy stuff that happens, but there's also good stuff. So the brain starts becoming more aware that there are positives and negatives. So I thought that was an interesting study. We know that cognitively when we are depressed, angry or anxious, we have difficulty focusing, concentration, difficulty making decisions, all become impaired when we are dysphoric, when we are happy. They found that it actually improves cognition and they found that there is a similar neural mechanism between depression and dementia that when people experience depression, they are also experiencing a reduction in the creation of neurons in their brain. So the replenishing of neurons is kind of going down and that is associated with both depression and dementia. So the thought is that if we can help people figure out ways to increase their happiness, that that can improve. Now we also know that when people are Feeling anxious and angry. Their HPA axis is all out of whack. They are experiencing chronic stress. There's high levels of glutamate, high levels of norepinephrine. And we know that the high levels of those neurochemicals leads to destruction of neurons. So it is compounding the problem. Not only is the brain not producing neutrophic factors or not replenishing the neurons, but we're actually killing neurons, just to simplify it. So happiness really can help because it's reducing those toxic neurochemicals that are causing cell destruction. Good thing. Environmentally, they found that positive affect increases success. People who are happy, who feel positive tend to feel more optimistic, tend to feel more empowered, and tend to take more chances. So they are more likely to apply for that promotion. They're more likely to be able to tap into that creativity and maybe take a risk of experimenting with something. So I thought that was kind of cool. And they also found another study that happiness reduces people's willingness to take health and safety risks. Well, that makes sense. When they're happy, they want to live, they want to survive, they want to keep going. So they're not going to be as likely to engage in behaviors that are potentially destructive, self destructive, and relationally. Interestingly, there was very little actual clinical research on the relational impacts of happiness. But good common sense will tell you that when you're happy, you have more energy. You have more energy that you can devote to nurturing relationships. You tend to have a desire to engage with those around you a little bit more because you have more energy. Now, if you're an introvert, you may not be, you know, wanting to go out on the party scene, but you'll have more energy to interact with those few people that are super important to you. And most of the time, when people are happier, they have improved patience and, and reduced anger. It's hard to be angry and happy at the exact same time. A lot of times when people are happier, they find it easier to say, you know what, I'm going to let it go. When people are already distressed, when their HPA axis is already activated, think about it as their system is already primed to respond with increased anger and increased conflict. So it's interesting. We tend to respond differently to situations when our starting mood is different. So what can we do about it? Define happiness. Let's start out there. What is happiness? This is kind of this elusive, amorphous concept. Happiness is a byproduct of your expectations, perceptions and reality that triggers a neurochemical Surge of dopamine, endorphins, norepinephrine, and oftentimes oxytocin, which is our bonding chemical. Now, you're familiar with dopamine and endorphins. Those are your natural opioids, your feel good chemicals. Norepinephrine gives you energy, helps you focus. Those are a lot of our feel good chemicals and we want those. So what do I mean by. It's a byproduct of expectations, perceptions and reality. Expectations. If you perceive the world as a dark, dangerous, scary, awful place, your expectations are going to be that what you see is going to be dark, depressing, scary, all that stuff. Our brain looks for things that, as I talked about earlier, confirm our current mood. If we are in a threat state, whether we're angry or anxious or even depressed sometimes, excuse me, our brain is more likely to notice the threats in the environment. And I've talked about this before, it is more important for us to notice the snake than it is for us to notice the bunny rabbit. So our expectations are, and our perceptions are shaped by our current. So reality is perceived differently. If I'm in a good mood and it's storming outside, this happened the other day. I came out of the locker room at the gym and I was getting ready to go to work and, you know, I was having a good hair day that day and I was excited to get to work. I walked out and it was pouring cats and dogs and you know, I was like, really? Really? God, this is really not what I wanted today. But I kind of had to laugh and I thought, you know what? The ground is getting wet. I just planted a bunch of potatoes. So, you know, and as I was getting ready to walk out, somebody else walked out behind me and also grumbled about the rain. And the young woman at the desk said, you want a trash bag to put over your head? And I just had to giggle. I knew what she meant because the other lady did not have an umbrella or anything and was similarly worried about her work outfit. But it just kind of made me giggle and I'm like, you know what? It's rain, it'll pass. It just goes. However, if I would have been in a bad mood, I probably wouldn't have been quite so light hearted about the torrential downpour. A note about happiness and trauma. Now, this is one of those little side notes here for people who've experienced trauma. Happiness may be a trigger for trauma related memories. If you were doing something that was making you extremely happy when that trauma occurred. If you were celebrating Christmas you got bad news or a traumatic event happened, then happiness and trauma kind of co occurred. And those signals can get confused in your brain. So it's going to be important to process that trauma when you feel happy. If you've concurrently experienced trauma like that, it may increase your anxiety because your expectations, your brain's already programmed to expect that when I feel this way, there's a chance that something really freaking bad is gonna happen, which is why you need to process those trauma memories. So I'm just gonna leave trauma at that. Some people are afraid to be happy because they are afraid of the fall. And I usually use the analogy of rock climbing. And if you've ever been to, you know, a rock climbing wall, indoor rock climbing wall or whatever, I'm too scared to go outdoors to rock climb. But indoors, not so bad. You know that if you've got a good belay, you've got somebody to catch you. When people rock climb in the real world, on real mountains, they set anchors along the way to prevent them from falling all the way back to where they started. So I'm getting a little ahead of myself. If I allow myself to be happy and it goes away, I won't be able to stand it. And there's that old adage, better to have loved than lost. And some people think, you know what, being in love feels so good, but breaking up feels so bad. Is it really worth it? Being in love would make me feel happy, but is the happiness really worth it? And I want you to consider the contrast between happiness and suffering helps us appreciate happiness. We notice it more if you've always been happy and you've never experienced adversity, which I don't think is even humanly possible, but just hypothetically, you'd probably take happiness for granted and you wouldn't cherish it quite as much. It wouldn't feel feel as awesome as it does. How do you feel when the sun comes out after several days of rain? I know when it happens around here, I'll walk out and I'm just like, oh my gosh, what is that orange stuff? Outside it's sunlight. And yes, I'm a little weird, but it's okay. But it's important to think about how much more you notice things when they're in stark contrast to what's going on. Ask yourself what is terrifying about suffering? And people are going to have different answers. Suffering is unpleasant, no doubt. None of us likes pain. None of us likes to suffer. But a lot of people who are afraid to be happy are similarly afraid Afraid of suffering. And I find that in many cases those people are afraid that they will not be able to tolerate the distress, which is where it's important to develop distress tolerance skills. What can I do? So when I do experience suffering, I can survive it. I can even emerge from it stronger. I won't say thrive within it, because I don't think any of us thrives in suffering. But. But it's important to feel capable to handle life's hurricanes. Why is it not in our best interest to medicate every emotional downturn? And again, I think it's important. If we medicate every emotional downturn or if we prevent ourselves from experiencing suffering or pain or tragedy or disappointment or whatever word you want to use, then we don't develop the skills to deal with it. Then when something happens, we're like, I don't know what to do. So, not that I advocate for experiencing suffering all the time, but occasional distress, disappointment helps us build our distress tolerance skills. So what can you do? Create anchors. What can you do to feel safer and more empowered to handle life's hurricanes when they happen? When something bad happens, it feels really oppressive. It feels overwhelming. What can you do? Do you have friends you can call? Do you have distress tolerance skills you can use? Can you go on a run? Do you have one of those stand up heavy bags in your house? Or what is it that you can do during that moment when that distress feels oppressive? Once you feel competent and empowered and to handle distress, once you feel safe and that you can get through it, then it's going to be less threatening to feel happy because you're like, okay, well, if the bottom falls out, it'll suck, but I can pick myself back up and start on again. Too often people see happiness as a light at the end of the tunnel. I will be happy when I graduate. I will be happy when I get this promotion. I will be happy when I find the love of my life instead. Just say, I will be happy. Period. End of story. There's no when I will be happy. Are you going to be elated? Maybe, maybe not. But at any point in time, most people can find something that they can be at the very least grateful for. Think about a moment in which you were happy. Now you notice I say a moment. Some people don't have long periods of happiness to reflect on. So I'm saying think about a moment in which you are happy. What does it look like? What does it feel like? What triggers happiness for you? I was getting ready to go to the office this morning and I was loading Brewster up in the car and it was still dark out. But in the darkness of our yard, I saw this little white cottontail, the only part of the bunny I could see, just hopping across the yard. And it made me smile. I was happy for a moment. You know, it's not something I'm going to carry with me and it's not going to make my day, but I was happy for that moment. It was like, oh, how cute. What currently exists in your life that can trigger happiness? Linehan talks about how every moment is an opportunity for change and we want to reflect on life one moment at a time. In recovery, we talk about one moment at a time, one day at a time. Or if you want to get all Latin, carpe tempus. Seize the moment, even if it's just a fleeting moment. You see a sunrise or a rainbow or a bunny rabbit or whatever it is that makes you happy, seize on that. Hold it. Be mindful of what's going on in your universe. Explore why you're afraid to be happy. Some people think, if I'm happy, I will think I'm a horrible person or other people will think I'm a horrible person. There is so much evaluation of one another and of ourselves and comparing ourselves to one another so much. I think so much more even than when I was younger. But it's important to think to yourself, if my friend or my child were happy right now, would I think they're a horrible person? And that gives you a little bit of perspective. If I am happy right now, would I think that I'm a horrible person? If the answer is yes, then follow it up with why? Why is it horrible to feel happy? If things are going well in my life, that kind of goes back to that guilt thing. If I'm happy, it'll make other people feel worse. It could, or they might. Your happiness might be contagious. And I've told you in many other classes about my friend Stephanie from college, whose presence she just lit up a room when she would walk into it. Her presence was absolutely contagious. And even when I was in a grumpy old mood, she would walk in and it's like, okay, you know, maybe I can get my head out of the sand to use a YouTube appropriate phrase, or if I'm happy, it means that something bad is going to happen. So for all of these, I encourage you to use fact based reasoning. Who says that if you're happy right now, you're a horrible person? How do you know? Not assume, not mind, Read. How do you know that if you're happy, other people that will think that you're an awful person. And if they do, do you really care? And if so, why? Who says it will make other people feel worse? You may just be assuming that it would make other people feel worse. Now, of course you don't want to go in and be all giddy, whatever. At a funeral, for example, that wouldn't be appropriate. But in general situations, if you are in a good mood when you walk in, I know I'm a morning person and when I used to work in community behavioral health, you know, I'd walk in and there were like 600 people worked in the clinic that I worked at and a lot of them were not morning people. Did I squelch my happiness? No. Did it kind of irritate some of them? Well, yeah, probably. But I was happy and I was maintaining my boundaries, saying, you know, I'm happy, you don't have to be. If you want to have some of this happiness, I'm giving it away. But you don't have to be happy, happy, but I'm not going to take on your unhappiness just to make you feel more comfortable. So it all goes back to boundaries there and it means something bad is going to happen. Let's really look at the facts about that. And in recovery, one of the mnemonics we use is fear. False evidence appearing real. Fear is often based on emotional reasoning or the salience bias. Things that are threatening, things that are bad have more emotional salience. So we remember those things. You remember the time you got into a traffic crash, but not the 15,000 other times that you drove the car that you didn't get into a traffic crash. You know, I'm exaggerating here, but you get my point. You remember things that are more stressful or threatening in some way. So it's important to step back and go, how often, you know, has it actually happened that as soon as something good happened, something bad happened? Could it be that I'm remembering those two or three times when the other shoe dropped, so to speak. But how many other times has something good happened and it wasn't followed by a catastrophe? Objective journaling is another technique that you can use right now. I feel, and a lot of journaling we say today I feel, but happiness is not necessarily a day long thing. So I want to get a moment in time snapshot. Right Now I feel 1. Depressed, angry or anxious. Okay, well, that sucks. 2. Unsettled, not quite depressed, angry or anxious, but not Good either. Three is, blah. I'm not feeling good or bad. I'm just kind of in limbo land. Four, you're feeling content or cautiously optimistic. You wouldn't go as far as saying happy, but you know, things are okay. And then five is obviously happy. And this helps people really anchor how they're feeling so they can go back and look over the course of days and see how they were feeling on particular days and examine that after you rate how you're feeling in that moment. What good and bad happened that day? Remember I said we tend to focus on the bad. Well, I don't want to ignore the bad. So you write down the bad thing that happened or the bad things that happened, but also look for what good things happen. Train your brain to look at the big picture, to acknowledge, yeah, this part sucked, but this part was okay. Another alternative or additional thing you can do is to notice the happiness happy moments and log them. It doesn't have to be an hour. Doesn't even have to be 15 minutes. It can be one of those little cottontail moments. That's what we'll call it now, cottontail moments. A minute or two where you notice something that makes you happy. Note that and start trying to increase those happiness, happy, happy moments throughout the day so you can recognize that. And then you can step back and say, okay, I had a few happy moments in here. Did the bottom fall out? No. All right, well, let me explore this a little further. When you start feeling vulnerable or anxious, evaluate the facts. When people who are afraid of feeling happy start feeling happy, there are going to be times where that anxiety ramps up. It's, oh, crap, I'm getting too comfortable or things are going too well. What's gonna happen? All right, well, let's answer that question. Let's look at the facts. Is there anything objectively right now that could potentially go really, really bad? Remember? And you know, I hate to say it, but at any point in time, something bad can happen. We can't predict the future. I can't predict 30 minutes from now, but I can look at right now and I can say, you know what? Things are still going okay? And I'm gonna. I'm gonna sit with it. I'm gonna ride with it. I'm not going to anticipate, hypothesize, try to predict the future, because I can't. I am going to be mindful of the moment and what's going on. Am I safe? Am I empowered? Am I, dare I say it, Happy? Embrace the dialectics and we've talked about this before. Having dogs or kids can be a beautiful thing, and I've got both of them. But it also also can be frustrating at times recognizing the good that comes with it. And I said, or actually eating Oreos, because I often say having pets in the house is like brushing your teeth and eating Oreos at the same time. You know you love the Oreos, but you just can't get your teeth clean. Dialectics means embracing the good with the bad and trying to see the yin and the yang in everything. If you look at the yin and the Yang symbol, there's a little bit of yin in the Yang and there's a little bit of yang in the yin. You can't have complete and perfect happiness, complete and perfect anything. There's always a little bit of the other side. Being stuck at home, whether it's because there was a blizzard or because of lockdowns or whatever. Yeah, that's frustrating for some people. However, is there any good that can come out of it? Is there any positive? I'm an extrovert. I really like to be around people. I draw my energy from being around people. Being home consistently for days and days and days on end can start to feel a little bit oppressive. However, when I was at home, I was able to watch my birds more and the. The outside birds, and I was really able to nurture and. And build up the different types of birds that were coming to our feeders and everything, which, you know, that's my thing. What positives can you find in it? You want to try to look and say, all right, acknowledge the negatives, but also try to open up and look at the entire thing and find the positives. That helps you recognize, okay, when I start feeling happy, there may be a hiccup. However, it doesn't necessarily mean that the things that were making me happy have to go away. Take it slow. Trying to be. Wake up tomorrow morning and be happy, that's not realistic. And it's also really scary for somebody who's afraid of being happy. They're afraid of that other shoe falling. Start slow. Spend 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the evening noticing the positive. Not reflecting on the day, but noticing right now, being mindful in the moment. What's positive? I have my health. I had a good dinner. You know, just notice some of those things that you usually take for granted and how does it make you feel? You know, on that scale of one to five, hopefully we're like, at a four. When you notice a negative, acknowledge it and Search for two or three positives. Why two or three? Because our brains give more weight, more emotional salience to negative events. So we need to balance it out with more positives, unfortunately. Laugh. They say laughter is the best medicine. There's lots of research that shows that laughter can promote health benefits. So that can also actually help improve your current mood. Half smile. The trigeminal nerve transmits sensory input from the face. And I don't know if you can see where the trigeminal nerve goes out in that picture, but basically it's from your eye down to your temple, your cheekbone to your temple, your lips to your temple, and your jaw up to your temple. And then that nerve connects with, guess what, the vagus nerve. And the vagus nerve controls our rest and digest, which is one of the reasons that the half smile actually helps us feel less anxious and may help us feel more relaxed. Maybe not happier, but more relaxed. Because when we use our smile muscles, it transmits through those nerves that, hey, this is good, we can rest and digest, we can relax. When we frown and we use all those muscles, it still transmits through the trigeminal nerve to the vagus nerve. Ooh, there's something bad going on out here. So there are things that we can do to enhance our happiness, even if we're feeling just kind of blah for the moment and trying that, seeing how it feels and going, okay, you know, I'm feeling, we'll say content, which is, you know, a four that's not quite to happy. I'm feeling content now. Let me see, you know, if I keep feeling this way, is something bad gonna happen? And just do some experiments, test it out, do that AB testing. And a lot of times you'll find that, hey, when I feel happy, most of the time that other shoe doesn't drop. Fear of happiness is a learned behavior. Happiness may have been overtly punished or shamed in your family or by your peer group. Happiness may be associated with a prior trauma. If so, it's important to process that trauma. Grief and loss from something that made you happy may be so overpowering that feeling happy again and the threat of feeling that bad again may be too overpowering. That is also if your grief and loss is that palpable, that intense as a trauma that needs be processed because there's some guilt in there, there's some anger in there, all of those things are going to make it scary to feel happy again. Fear of pain and punishment has more emotional salience than happiness. So if something bad happened right after we felt happy then, or if we got punished for feeling happy, then we may be afraid to feel happy in the future. Fact based reasoning can alter expectations and perceptions. Once we start getting a Rolodex or a bunch of data that says hey 85% of the time, and I'm just pulling that out of the air when things go well, when I feel happy, the other shoe doesn't drop. There may be 15% of the time that it does and that sucks, but 85% of the time it doesn't. That helps you start shaping your expectations for what's going to happen. So when you start feeling happy, you don't start having the expectation of disaster. Slowly develop a relationship with happiness in order to enhance trust and reduce fear. So you may think of happiness like another person and say, hey, okay, we're gonna happiness. You and I gonna hang out for a little while today it and I'm going to see if I can trust you. And as you develop trust, as you develop the ability to spend more time with happiness and not experience catastrophe, then that anxiety will also dissipate.