Q: How did unhappy feelings come to us?
A: It was because of something that we did or did not do.
You would question - isn’t it too simple?
There are many uncontrollable factors/happenings in life giving us hard time, but because we did or did not do something, unhappy feeling stays with us.
For example, the pandemic makes someone very frustrated and bored, he/she has adopted every measure he/she can, but he/she still has to wear mask everyday, the virus is still around. But he/she has not (or not enough) handled his/her frustration, has not done enjoyable activities to feel good, has not shared much of his/her worries and anxiety with others, has not done stress-relieving exercises, has not monitored his/her own mental well-being and feelings. On the contrary, he/she has been dreaming that one day he/she can travel to feel good, has been busily working therefore has no time for exercising, has told himself/herself that he/she is occupied with too many tasks that’s why he/she doesn’t look after his/her own self, has even lost temper to others because of his/her bad mood, and has let himself/herself dwell in the unhappy feelings.
In the example above, what can he/she do? First, he/she can pay attention to his/her own mental well-being, notice his/her feelings, and put his/her well-being in high priority. If he/she cannot complete this first step, he/she can invite significant others to help monitoring. Then he/she can set goals to complete a few tasks, e.g. arrange time for exercising, connect with others and talk, do some rewarding activities for himself/herself, even helping others to go through difficult pandemic time can make oneself happy, and of course he/she can plan a holiday but keeping in mind holiday can sometimes bring economic stress too.
Sometimes when we are sad, we ask “what else can I do?”, indicating we have already done everything. Actually, if we think further in details, and ask ourselves, what did I do? What didn’t I do? We would realised that we are capable of making our own #happiness.
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