You may wonder why I waited to start this journey on New Years day? Today is a day of new beginnings, a realization of things new, and the the awakening of the purpose, of opposition in all things. With new found Joy there is an awareness brought to life. We will discover there are some things without endings, and some states of being, that are almost ethereal. This new Joyful existence you can discover for yourself, settles on the soul softly, like the velvety wings of a butterfly, drifting from buds to petals. Some believe Joy is hard to come by. If you asked me what I thought about Joy throughout my personal life, I would have little to share on the subject. I believed superstitiously, that if I allowed myself to experience this heavenly state of being, something awful would follow to dismantle my whole world.
There is a name for this, it is an actual phobia." Aversion to happiness also called cherophobia or fear of happiness, is an attitude towards happiness in which individuals may deliberately avoid experiences that invoke positive emotions or happiness.
One of several reasons that aversion to happiness may develop is the belief that when one becomes happy, a negative event will soon occur that will taint their happiness, as if that individual is being punished for satisfaction. This belief is thought to be more prevalent in non-Western cultures. In Western cultures, such as American culture, "it is almost taken for granted that happiness is one of the most important values guiding people’s lives." Western cultures are more driven by an urge to maximize happiness and minimize sadness. Failing to appear happy is often a cause for concern. Its value is echoed through Western positive psychology and research on subjective well-being.
Cultural factors
There are four major reasons why happiness may be avoided by various people and cultures: "believing that being happy will provoke bad things to happen; that happiness will make you a worse person; that expressing happiness is bad for you and others; and that pursuing happiness is bad for you and others". For example, "some people—in Western and Eastern cultures—are wary of happiness because they believe that bad things, such as unhappiness, suffering, and death, tend to happen to happy people."These findings "call into question the notion that happiness is the ultimate goal, a belief echoed in any number of articles and self-help publications about whether certain choices are likely to make you happy". Also, "in cultures that believe worldly happiness to be associated with sin, shallowness, and moral decline will actually feel less satisfied when their lives are (by other standards) going well", so measures of personal happiness cannot simply be considered a yardstick for satisfaction with one's life, and attitudes such as aversion to happiness have important implications for measuring happiness across cultures and ranking nations on happiness scores."
So we see that in order to even start a journey into Joy we must first be willing, even if as an experiment, to let go of our old ideas. To release the "why's" that say we shouldn't experience this state of bliss. The truth is, it is a natural disposition to be in. We have become accustomed to being negative, seeing the cup half empty, and believing we are not worthy of such feelings and existing. This blog will be going into depth about the subject. You are invited to journey with me through this year as I discover how I personally can over come the worst phobia I can imagine... the fear of being Happy. This is it...This is the first day into my Journey into Joy! I hope you will find in this work, some Joyous resurrection in your own life. Happy New Year!
The Joyful Life Designer
Life Coach
Tiffany King
TheEmpoweringGift@gmail.com
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