Our culture places a high value on happiness—having the best job, house, the most friends, things in general. We’re constantly in a state of grasping for something—filling ourselves up from the outside. And it’s totally bumming us out.
In this video from BigThink, psychologist and author Susan David says our obsession with happiness hinders our ability to do the hard work of living: being able to recover from setbacks when we inevitably make mistakes, or lose a job—you know, when that picture-perfect veneer we were working away at starts to erode.
Appreciating All Your EmotionsWhile keeping a positive outlook is good in theory, it’s also important to acknowledge that sometimes, negative things will happen to us. The point isn’t to avoid those emotions, but to handle them in a healthy way.
“It is really important that as human beings we develop our capacity to deal with our thoughts and emotions in a way that isn’t a struggle, in a way that embraces them and is with them and is able to learn from them,” says David.
Here are three tips she shares to embrace all of your emotions:
Discover what drives you. Ask yourself what motivates you…
