Shifting your dependency off of others for your happiness

The Way to Happiness (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Happiness is not a given in this lifetime. It is something that has to be sought after, and it is often the ways we seek our happiness that determine how long and how successful our end results will be. People with mood disorders, depression and other personality issues become dependent on many external contributions to elevate their mood and happiness.

When pills aren't getting you where you want to be..

This truth is, we all build up a tolerance to pills in some way or another. So what do we do then? Take stock in all the external factors that have been in your life of late. Have they been stressful, unsure, and negative? These things will come and go in life so pills will only carry you so far.  It is a good idea to talk your family doctor to rule out other contributing problems that may be affecting your mood, including having a thorough blood work up done to rule out low levels of iron, B12 etc. Sometimes there is an underlying medical issue that is thwarting your medicines ability to fully function properly.

English: Robert Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Decreasing your dependency on others..

Sometimes we lean on those around us to lift us up and get us through our sadness. This is ok on occasion, but to constantly rely on others to help regulate our mood depletes the people we keep going to emotionally.  When you find you are hearing the same phrases over and over again, and you're still not making progress, you have to assume you are tapping the well of those who are trying to help you dry. So the new task is not to find these people to hold you up, the task now is to find what you need to hold yourself up. You have heard the saying about guests and fish smelling after three days? No one wants to constantly be your source of happiness. Nor does it really help you to constantly seek them out for this purpose, because you are only shifting your dependency from one drug that is failing to a new drug that is in the human form.
To place that responsibility on anyone's shoulders is unfair, and will eventually sever the relationship.  People in general don't mind helping, but to keep expecting them to uplift you is not fixing your problem. It's putting a temporary bandaid, on a long term problem that will end with a short fuse..theirs.

Jeff Woloson in Thailand. The birds atop Jeff's head and left arm are Brahminy Kites; the larger bird on his right arm is a young White-bellied Sea-eagle. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Now what can you do?

Recall when John F Kennedy said, "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country"..the same goes for you. Ask not what everyone else can do for you, but what are you doing for everyone else? What are you doing to make yourself happy? This is not about finding people to be around that serve a purpose to enrich your life. That's just shifting your dependency. This is about finding things that elevate your own self worth.

The five senses and their role in your well being

Self worth can be found in any number of ways. Actively pursuing good things, that appeal to your senses all five of them will start the process.  These things improve the energy in your environment, and in fact will help reverse negative energy. Start by analyzing the five senses. Sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. Sight, are you regularly looking at things that please you? For instance, this may be favorite photographs, walking down lovely paths, visiting gardens in bloom, etc. Hearing, are you listening to soothing sounds, music, ocean waves, birds singing..Smells, aromatherapy is a real wonderful way to improve how we feel overall using scents that calm us and are pleasing, Taste, a warm cup of cocoa, a warm bowl of chicken soup, or even any one of the well known comforts foods may be a nice treat that may aid in your outlook here and there. Touch, feeling soft fabrics, petting animals, allowing your hands, face and body to feel good through a warm bath, a warm blanket, a soft pillow, all help to generate a sense of well being.

Now, here's the deal..

None of these things by themselves will make a big impact, but when done regularly together, you are learning to nurture yourself and that is taking a step forward in reducing how much you need from others to elevate your mood and happiness. This is a good place to start, and will get you into changing the way you think, and taking charge of your well being. Next, is to tackle your time doing things that make you feel productive. Being productive in any way each day feeds our self esteem because we know that our time amounted to something worthwhile.

Become less about self and more about selfless

This may mean going out of your way to help others, it may mean casting your own problems aside to seek out and help someone else, or it may be taking up creative activities that you not only enjoy but in time become good at. You may even tap into a talent you did not know you had.  Isn't it time you shifted your mind off of your self? A great distraction to thinking about your self all the time is to start thinking of others. Perhaps your motive to get creative may be you wish to give what ever you create away as a gift. Maybe the motive to get you to stop thinking so much of your woes is to help someone with theirs. Maybe the thing to do is to ignore yourself for a while.

Learning acceptance

Fighting your life and the circumstances of your life when you have no control is probably a big waste of time and energy. Accepting change, accepting and making the best of things that are out of your hands is a big part in what will get you to shift from seeing only negative to finally seeing the positives. If you fight your life, your situation, your circumstances and you have no resources, no independence to make a change, then  you will be in a perpetual state of dissatisfaction. Maybe life has thrown you some mighty big curve balls. Maybe you have lost all you held near and dear to you. There may be a lot of things that have happened to you that have pulled the rug out from under you. This isnt about giving in, and giving up, but it is about recognizing what your new circumstances are, and working with what is available to you.

Happiness

Happiness doesn't ride in on a white horse and take you away, rather, it piggy backs on your efforts to create, and seek fulfillment. Happiness also comes back to you in spades when you do good deeds for the sake of others with no expectation of return. Be good to those who you need in your life. Acknowledge and validate your loved ones feelings, and practice the fine art of appreciation. Say thank you, and show appreciation. Heal yourself from the outside in by nurturing your body, find creative and less self engulfing pursuits, and start being the mate, and/or friend you want to have. Soon you will retrain your mind to think of the positives in your life and learn that you can control the negatives, when you balance with positives.
Work slowly, work diligently, commit to the process.