Healthy Painful Emotions

Ms. Anonymous sent a comment to my post on Six Unhealthy Emotions. Obviously I don’t know the gender of Ms. Anonymous so I will pretend it is female.

Normally, I would not allow this comment to be published. As I’ve mentioned before, I would like to publish all your comments to any post. However, the requirement is that you sign your name for it to be published. If you would rather not so, your comment will not be published. Instead of not having a response to your anonymous comment, you would be better off sending me a personal email message at terry@sandbek.com.

With that said, I decided to post a response to Ms. Anonymous because the confusion implied by her comment may be common for others of you. Here is what she said: "There are not only six unhealthy emotions. three are left out...anger, jealousy, and lust. and envy. thats four that were forgotten and i think should be included."

There are two kinds of painful emotions: healthy and unhealthy. You can review this concept in the previous article on the subject. If you have a copy of The Worry Free Life, you can review this material in Chapter Three. If you don’t have the book yet, you can also read Chapter Three online by clicking this link.

I would like to address the idea of healthy emotional pain. To do that we need to understand that our emotions exist within the package of thoughts and behavior. All emotions are preceded by some type of thought process (even thought you may not be aware of it) and followed by a behavior (active or inactive).

One of the major differences between your healthy painful emotions and the unhealthy painful ones is the different paths they take. The unhealthy painful emotions will propel you down a path of self-destruction and a life of misery. The healthy painful emotions are the warning bells that remind you that life can be painful but built within that pain is the means to manage and cope with it. Although there many healthy, painful emotions, fortunately there are only six unhealthy ones.

Let’s take a closer look at the comment by Ms. Anonymous. She believes that anger, jealousy, lust and envy are unhealthy emotions. This is a common misunderstanding. They certainly seem unhealthy. Don’t we have anger management classes for people because anger can be so destructive? Isn’t jealousy called the "green-eyed monster?" Aren’t we taught that lust and envy are emotions to be avoided?

The only way to make sense of the fact that these emotions are healthy is look at them in their packaging. Anger is a very common emotion. Few people go through a day without experiencing it. Anger is generated by something that takes place outside of us. Often it is because someone else does something that violates our sense of fairness of right and wrong. We then say to ourselves, "What they did is bad and they shouldn’t have done that." Our automatic reaction is to feel anger. Now, if this anger remains pure anger and doesn’t get polluted — which it often does by one of the unhealthy emotions — then the emotion will move us towards confronting the person about their behavior. When this happens, we may have increased the possibility of helping this person change the way they behavior towards you.

As happens so often, anger gets mixed with its opposite, resentment. Resentment when we respond to the injustice with the thought that other person is bad and worthless. Then we feel resentment, on top of the anger, and want to retaliate and hurt the other person.

This can be confusing because many people don’t make the distinction between anger and resentment. By mixing the two, it is easy to see why Ms. Anonymous thinks that anger is an unhealthy emotion. It is unhealthy because reasonable confrontation is very important in relationships. As social creatures, we improve ourselves by having people give us feedback on our behavior. Think of the times in your life when you have improved yourself because someone cared enough to let you know you were off base.

If you are a faith-based person, you probably believe that Jesus never sinned. If this is so, then you are on dangerous ground by thinking that anger is unhealthy. Do you remember his white rage when he carefully made a whip of nasty knots, walked into the temple and started beating people and destroying their legitimate businesses (John 2:13-16)? If you read this section carefully you realize how genuinely angry Jesus really was. It does no good to justify his behavior by using adjectives, like "righteous," in front of the word anger. Perhaps he was angry but not resentful. Anger, by itself, is normal and healthy. However, we need to be cautious about not letting resentment override our anger.

Jealousy is another difficult emotion to see as normal and healthy. Again, this is because we don’t understand the packaging of the emotion. Jealousy is triggered when we think someone wants to take something or someone from us that we love and admire. If someone feels jealousy, they might say to themself, "I think that person wants to take my boyfriend from me." The jealousy (free of unhealthy emotions) gets the jealous person to behave in healthy way by putting more energy and effort into keeping the relationship with the boyfriend strong and connected.

Ms. Anonymous mentioned lust. Actually, this is a physical sensation, not an emotion. It may be accompanied by emotions such as envy, excitement, or wanting. Since this post is about emotions we can leave lust for another time. Envy is often the flip side of jealousy. Instead of someone wanting something of ours, envy is the healthy emotion that occurs when we want something that someone else has. You can see why it is healthy because it motivates us to behave in ways that help us get what we want on our own. If we begin telling ourself that the person who has what we want is a bad person who doesn’t deserve it, then we might introduce the emotion of resentment and try to take what is not ours. Even though we might not actually do this, we may fantasize about doing it which is equally bad for our own well-being.

There are many more unhealthy painful emotions: boredom, loneliness, sadness, remorse, to name a few. In the near future I will be putting up a long list of healthy painful emotions that you can use a guide for knowing what emotions are healthy if though they hurt.

I hope this has brought some clarity to the notion that healthy emotions are also painful. Painful doesn’t mean they are they are bad for us. Just because they can get polluted by unhealthy emotions doesn’t mean they are bad for us. It only means we need to eliminate the pollution. Of course, this is done by changing our thought life — defeating the Voice.

Q & A #1

Q: Why did you decide to write The Worry Free Life?
A: As we described in the beginning of the book, we had used the material for several years in a large church in Placerville, California. The number of people interested in the classes overwhelmed all expectations from the very first class. We saw lives turned around: people with depression able to return to a normal life; mothers and daughters reconciling and reestablishing a loving connection; estranged couples who were able to communicate in a more healthy style and recommit their love for each other. By the second year of classes, we realized that this material was too valuable to be kept in California. As word has spread about the power of the skills we teach, more people now have access to fulfilling their need for the abundant life. You can read some comments from others here.

Q: Dr. Sandbek, have you written any other self-help books?
A. Yes, The Deadly Diet was my first book and was published about two decades ago. It has gone through a second edition and I am working on updating it to a third edition (although the second edition is still available on Amazon). It is a self-help manual for people who have eating disorders. This would include anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating.

Q: When I read about the "Voice" in your book, it made me uneasy. Why is that?
A. This is a comment I have heard from some of my clients. They have told me that if they admitted they heard a voice talking to them, someone might lock them up in a mental hospital. The use of the Voice in our book is a metaphor for negative thinking. It has nothing to do with hallucinations or "hearing voices." This concept of the Voice is a way to externalize your negative thoughts so as not to have to take responsibility for them. By giving all your negativity to the imaginary Voice, you are left with owning only your own healthy thoughts. As I tell my therapy clients, "you are not responsible for having the Voice, you are only responsible for learning how to get rid of it."

Q: How can you say that shame is a healthy emotion when everyone else says it is so destructive?
A. There is a lot of confusion about what shame is. Many people think it is just another version of guilt. The dictionary defines shame as the emotion felt when one has violated community standards. Remorse is the emotion one feels after violating one’s own internal standards. Both of these emotions are normal and natural merely because we are imperfect creatures in an imperfect world. As The Worry Free Life explains, these healthy (but painful) emotions can drive us to take action to repair the damage. Shame naturally leads us to ask for forgiveness from others and maybe doing something to correct any damage. On the other hand, remorse can push us to forgive ourselves for being human. Guilt is totally different in that it gets us to punish ourselves. This can become a vicious cycle because when we punish ourselves we make another mistake which makes us feel even more guilty followed by more self punishment. Some people have been trapped in this cycle for years. By learning to deal effectively with the Voice, you can banish guilt from your life and let shame and remorse be effective, painful emotions leading to corrective action.

Q: The Worry Free Life seems so different from other self help books but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Can you explain this for me?
A. The Worry Free Life is different from most self books because it teaches the reader how to improve his or her life instead of telling what to do. My professional experience with others has taught me that most people know what they ought to be doing with their life but don’t have the necessary skills to reach their goals. Teaching skills and personal tools is unusual for self help books — although this has been improving in recent years. Most self help books are designed to make us feel better and this is something we all want. Unfortunately, this affect can wear off quickly. My goal in writing this book is not to feed you but to show you how to feed yourself. I tell my therapy clients during our first visit that my job is to work myself out of a job. My experience has been that after a person has read some of the more helpful self help books and felt committed to a life change The Worry Free Life can take them to the next level of life.

Q: I’m in a church that is always looking for new material for small groups. I loved your book but am wondering how to go about getting this book into our program. Any ideas?
A. There are several things you can do. First, talk with everyone you know in your church about how the book has helped you change your life. Tell your story to the pastoral staff and explain that you want to share this good news with the rest of your church. If your church has a life skills or small group staff person, set up an appointment to talk to this person about a Worry Free Life small group. There is a Study Guide that was designed to be used for small groups so if you don’t have it you may want to look at a copy and share it with the people you talk to. It is okay if you start small with as few as 4-5 people. Some people are more comfortable starting a small group as an all men’s group or an all women’s group. If you must, you can also start the group yourself. If this in an option, please contact me personally and I can offer you suggestions and advice to get you going.

Q: Your book has had a tremendous impact on my life and I would like to share it with a friend who is not interested in religion. What should I do?
A. This is a common question. The book was originally written to target the church market because we saw an absence of books on the order of The Worry Free Life. Many people who have no need for religion in their life have read and used The Worry Free Life by merely ignoring the context (religion) of the skills training. One of my goals in the near future is to make a secular version of this book available to the general public.

Q: I have such a hard time thinking that my thoughts belong to the Voice. These are really my thoughts and to pretend they are not seems phony. Do I have to use the Voice concept to use the skills in the book?
A. A few of the people I have worked with have had the very same thoughts you have just expressed. The reason I developed the Voice technique years ago was as a result of a comment from a client I was working with. We had been using the standard cognitive therapy procedures and it was going slowly. When we talked about what was impeding her progress, she told me, "Dr. Sandbek, you are expecting me to use my mind that is full of worry to actually get rid of the worry in my mind." She felt like she had been set up to run in circles. What she said made sense. As I was pondering during the following week about what she said, another therapy client of mine was having a tough week. In describing to me the trouble she was having she blurted out, "Dr. Sandbek, there is a voice in my head." I had an epiphany. The two concepts made the proverbial light bulb go off in my head. As I explored the idea of externalizing negative thoughts with my other clients, I found they liked the idea and therapy became much easier for many of them. Of course, not everyone resonates with the concept of the Voice. If you are in this group, you can just ignore the Voice strategy and substitute "worry" for the Voice. By changing the language a bit, you might be able to still use these skills and techniques successfully.

Q: Sometimes when I’m feeling really self destructive, it is hard not to believe what I’m telling myself, namely that I deserve not to live any more. How can I not believe what I really believe?
A. I remember years ago working in a mental hospital and having a patient tell me that she "really wanted" to kill herself. Fortunately, she had be taking the daily cognitive therapy classes in the hospital. I reminded her that she didn’t really want to die, rather her Voice wanted her to believe she wanted to die. As we talked she realized this was true and she had been believing a lie. As she calmed down, she knew deep down that she wanted to live but the Voice had spent so much time convincing her otherwise that she had come to believe it. She spent the next hour in her room doing written Voice Fighting. The rest of the staff were surprised, but happy, that she was able to turn herself around so quickly. Your Voice wants to do the same thing for you. Sometimes the hardest part of changing your thinking is to separate yourself from the Voice. Once this step becomes easier for you, the rest of the skills will fall into place. Keep up with your writing and put all your "negative" thoughts on paper making sure you ascribe them to the Voice. As the book tells you, "don’t forget to watch your pronouns."

Q: Why are there only six destructive emotions and not five or seven?
A. That’s a good question. I don’t think there is any good reason why there are only six. I don’t even know of any research that says there should only be six. The best I can tell you is that after thirty years of working as a psychologist, these are the only ones I have found. I suppose there could be more, but these six destructive emotions seem to be at the heart of our difficulties as human beings. Psychologists tend to call these six destructive emotions "core emotions" and the Voice language behind them "mental schemas."

Men and Grief

Do men grieve differently than women? Are they "emotionally unavailable" as some women charge?

In a book by Dr. William Worden, he believes that when we experience extreme loss, we tend to go through three stages in the healing process. In phase 1, people often retreat from the world that is familiar to them. This may include friends, family, and work. Phase 2 occurs when the person begins to grapple with the realities of the loss and begin dealing with the pain of the loss. Phase 3 is the process of putting one's life back together as the pain gradually begins to subside.

Is it possible that men and women experience these phases of grief differently? Some professionals seem to think so. It seems that both men and women are similar during the first phase. Both genders experience a numbness that blocks out everyday activities. This is often accompanied by anxiety, shock, denial or confusion.

Psychologists think this reaction is the brain's attempt to struggle with the reality of what has happened. We are social creatures and often define ourselves by those who are in our lives. When these connections are broken, we feel a vacuum and an emptiness in our lives that is disorienting.
The last phase tends to favor men because it is the time for "getting on with life." Men are born to reorganize and restructure things. This is what they tend to do best. This is usually the end point of intensive grieving where personal adjustments are made to a new life. A person in this phase may set new goals, explore new areas of life and maybe even take on a new identify.

The middle phase is where men and women differ the most. It deals with the expression of grief: talking, crying, confronting. It is that lonely place where the person must feel the pain while beginning to detach from the lost love. Culturally and physically, women are more suited to do this phase more effectively.

In another book, Carol Staudacher suggests that men have developed four separate ways of dealing with phase two grief. These coping styles are seen by peers as helpful and natural. They make the way through phase two more tolerable.

One coping style is to remain silent. Men tend to keep their pain to themselves and seem, on the surface, to not have a need for talking about their emotional pain. The advantage of this technique is that it keeps men from being more vulnerable than they already are in phase two. This form of self-protection allows men to find a place to heal without further wounding.

Another copying style for phase two is called "Engaging in Secret Grief." The pain stays inside and seldom is shared with others. Men may engage in insignificant behaviors such as pulling weeds or driving aimlessly for long periods of time. This time of solitude buys time to feel pain without outside interference.

Unsurprisingly, men also in some type of activity for making sense out of their lives. They may get more involved in sports or other physical exertions as an attempt to bring some semblance of control to a life that feels out of control. Men are generally reinforced for using this phase two technique because others see them as confident and brave in a difficult time.

Finally, a fourth option many men choose is to become obsessed with filling their time. From waking to sleep, each minute is filled with as few gaps as possible. This burst of energy is often troubling to women because it appears men are denying their feelings and trying to avoid dealing with the grief.

What is important is that each gender must deal with their own grief by using their individual strengths. This means that neither gender has a monopoly on what is right or wrong about how to grieve. One type is not necessarily more effective than another. We need to respect these differences in how each of us handles the pain and suffering that accompanies loss.

We also know that another difference between men and women is that women often take longer to resolve their grief. Generally, they take about two years while men take about six months to finalize the grief process.

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Emotional Intelligence

The concept of Emotional Intelligence (EI) was originally proposed by psychologists Peter Salovey and John Mayer in 1990. Over the years the original definition has moved through so many changes that it has lost almost all its meaning. It currently means different things to different people.

What did it originally mean? EI was created to describe someone’s ability to be aware of their own (and others) emotions accurately and then use this information to control their individual actions and thoughts. What this means is that someone with high EI can fully understand emotions by paying attention to them, understanding them and effectively managing them. This ability can then make the person more effective in many areas of life.

Since so much of this deals with a person’s mental ability, the originators of EI believed it was definitely another form of intelligence.

EI consists of four different but related parts that vary from the simple to the complex. The first level includes a person’s ability to accurately perceive emotions in others as well as in him or herself. The next level adds the ability to use this new information to pave the way for more effective thought processes.

The third level would include the ability to understand emotional states in other people. This is often done by being able to deduce how others feel, by listening to clues through their language, and noticing specific body language. Additionally, the person would also understand how they were conveying emotions to others through the signals of speech and body language.

Finally, the highest level of EI occurs when someone can manage their emotions in ways to help them achieve personal goals. People with the highest level of EI are sharply in tune to their own inner states. For example, they tend to be more accurate in detecting variations in their own heartbeat. They can also understand the reasons for what may happen because of their specific emotions. They can often accurately estimate how they feel about any future event that might trigger and emotional response in them.

Research in EI has shown that high levels of EI are often found in people who are more socially competent. They also have better quality relationships. Other people see them as being more sensitive than those with lower EI. People with lower EI scores experience more interpersonal conflicts and often have more behavior problems such as drug and alcohol abuse.
Emotional Intelligence can also affect one’s work relationships. As you can probably guess, managers get more work from employees if they, themselves, possess high EI. They were also rated as better performers by their own supervisors.

Drs. Salovey and Mayer give an example of what we might see and hear from a person with high Emotional Intelligence who uses all four levels of EI. They pretend someone is visiting a friend in the hospital who was brought in because of a car accident.

The first level is the awareness of emotions of self and others. Upon visiting his friend, this imaginary person "surveys the hospital room, the visiting relatives, and his unconscious friend. As he does so, he may wonder, ‘What is each family member feeling?’ Perhaps he perceives the worry and anxiety in their faces." Then he might wonder about his own emotions, Is he feeling guilty because he could have kept his friend from driving away from the party. He might also feel relief because he was not in the car with his friend.

The second level of EI would prompt him to use this information to think clearly and take appropriate action with others in the room. He might inquire about the health of his friend from the hospital staff and talk with family members to see how they are doing. This would be an example of how he would use emotional understanding to expedite his own thoughts.

As he begins to relate to the other people he might begin to engage the third level of EI by trying to understand their unspoken emotions and those he also felt. He might ask himself questions such as, "What sorts of feelings are common in such a situation?" and "How can these feelings be expected to change over time?" He would understand the shock the family is experiencing because he is aware that this is typical for something so severe and unexpected. He can expect that the family might have to begin dealing with more negative emotions in the near future.

Finally, he can use all this new information to help himself manage his own emotional state — as we teach in The Worry Free Life. If he has one or more of the unhealthy emotions, he can use his five-step procedure for minimizing them. If his painful emotions are healthy, he can use mindfulness to accept them and become stronger. When he has taken care of his own emotional state, he can then comfort the family and act as a compassionate and empathic listener.

You can see that if you are currently at a lower level of Emotional Intelligence, you can learn to gain greater skills for increasing your EI. We have an entire chapter on learning the skills of levels one and two. Other chapters will help you develop your Emotional Intelligence over time so that you can be more capable in your personal and interpersonal life.

This blog was adapted from an article in the journal, American Psychologist (September 2008, Vol. 63, No. 6, 503–517)

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Anger Management

Everyone has heard of anger management. You may have seen all the wacky interaction between Jack Nicholson and Adam Sandler in the movie by the same name. Hollywood tends to make movies that people can identify with and the subject of anger is a common one. Anger problems are widespread. Check these examples:

• 45% of us regularly lose our temper at work.


• 64% of people working in an office have had office rage.


• 27% of nurses have been attacked at work.


• 33% of people are not on speaking terms with their neighbors.


• 1 in 20 of us has had a fight with the person living next door.


• Airlines reported 1,486 significant or serious acts of air rage in a year, a 59% increase over the previous year.


• More than 80% of drivers say they have been involved in road rage incidents; 25% have committed an act of road rage themselves.


• 71% of Internet users admit to having suffered net rage.


• 50% of us have reacted to computer problems by hitting our PC, hurling parts of it around, screaming or abusing our colleagues.

The phrase, "anger management" is so common that it is generally accepted as an effective form of therapy for teaching people how to deal with their anger. Unfortunately, this assumption has never been tested scientifically. Anger management classes have been around since the 1980s and are instructional in nature. Some of the techniques use handouts, slogans, advice and sometimes role-playing. The big question here is whether anger management classes really help people.

Part of the problem in gauging effectiveness is that many people who attend anger management classes are ordered by courts to do so. Obviously, the motivation for change is externally imposed which does not bode well for lasting change.

Besides being forced to attend anger management classes, what are some of the other objections to current approaches to anger management? Some instructors tend to downplay the significance of inappropriate displays of anger rather than insisting that anger outbursts are seldom justified. Some of the skills taught don’t have any scientific validation that they are effective over the long run. An example of one such skill is redirecting anger to an inanimate object.

Perhaps one of the major shortcomings in anger management is not dealing with the issue of "behavior generalization." In other words, a person may do very well with his or her anger management skills during the classes. Unfortunately, this does not mean these skills will be effective in the real world as opposed to the virtual world of the classroom.

Some people in the legal system also have difficulty with anger management as a treatment. The National Institute of Justice has serious doubts about the effectiveness of anger management classes for men who batter their spouses. Their report claims that, in the case of spousal battering, anger management rarely addresses all the issues that underly the violent behavior. The legal system often sees how ineffective anger management can be.

One of the major problems facing the traditional anger management approach is the inability of the instructors to distinguish between anger and resentment. Both of these emotions are triggered from something outside of us that violates our sense of right and wrong. However, these emotions are very different from each other. Anger is healthy, resentment is not.

Problems occur when anger gets converted to or overtaken by resentment. Anger is healthy because it propels us to reasonably confront the source of any personal violation. On the other hand, resentment gets us to retaliate towards others. We think that revenge will correct or balance out what someone has done to us.

Anger and confrontation will allow the anger to eventually dissipate. Resentment and retaliation will most likely engage the other person’s resentment and retaliation so that the situation becomes an ongoing, never-ending feud. What most anger management programs don’t recognize is they are often not dealing with anger but rather with resentment. The most effective approach to managing resentment is to use the powerful tools of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT).

As we point in chapter three of The Worry Free Life, this distinction between anger and resentment is crucial for dealing with painful emotions. Knowing which emotion we are feeling can help us chose the correct tool for dealing with it.

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Are You Worried Yet?

"Worry is like a rocking chair--it gives you something to do but it doesn't get you anywhere."

Worry is big news. The most pressing worry is the current state of the economy. People are cutting back on things they normally do that costs money. My hometown newspaper and TV news channels are constantly bombarding us with dire information on the worst economic downturn in eighty years. Talking heads are all over the media.

People are mulling over financial questions. How are we going to pay for our health insurance? Will I lose my job? And if so, will I be able to find another one? How can I afford to send my kids to college? Will the banks lose my savings? Why am I making less money and the oil companies are making more money? What's going to happen with my mortgage?

These questions are not from the few but the many. Try reading the front page of the newspaper or watch the evening news and not find something to worry about. Worry seems to have become a way of life. Google the word "worry" and be prepared to look at 177 million articles. Here are just a few of the things people worry about:

• Tourists are worried about traveling to dangerous parts of the world.
• Families are worried about the safety of their loved ones serving in the military.
• A few Christians are worried about stem cell research and gay marriage.
• Some people worry the Switzerland particle accelerator will produce microscopic black holes that will destroy the earth.
• Nearly everyone is worried about politics.
• Parents in Chattanooga are worried about a Christian commune set up near the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga.
• Baby boomers are worried about getting older.
• Scientists are worried about global warming.
• Parents are worried about school violence.

The problem with worrying is that it generates highly destructive and unhealthy emotions. As you may know, modern psychology has taught us that our thoughts lead to specific emotions. What we think determines what we feel. Worry can make us go through such gut-wrenching emotions as anxiety, guilt and depression, to name a few.

We know that women worry more than men. There are several reasons for this. The culture encourages women to worry and tells them that worry is an indication that women are kind and caring. Science has recently discovered that another reason women worry more is that, more than men, they believe that past experiences accurately forecast the future.

Yet, we have been told that worry is bad for us and that we should not worry so much. The problem is to find an alternative. What does "not worry" look like? The human race uses many ways to cope with worry. Some people use worry beads. Inspirational books and magazines are designed to help people with their worries. Guatemalan children tell their worries to dolls and place them under their pillows. Advice such as, "Don't worry, be happy" is everywhere. Religious people pray. Distracting ourselves by finding something to "cheer us up" is also a common method for combating worry.

The best way to cope with worry is to replace it with concern. You may want to browse through the archives on this blog to see how destructive worry can be in your life and what you can do about it. Especially check out our previous article on Worry. If you are interested in what to do about worry and how to change it to a more healthy concern, you can check out The Worry Free Life book and The Worry Free Life website.

You may want to learn how to change from worry to concern. There is nothing to worry about; there is plenty to be concerned about.

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The Domino Effect

As we mentioned in our previous article on happiness, everybody wants to be happy. The pursuit of happiness is a right guaranteed in the constitution. But most people don't realize that there are two kinds of happiness: Happiness (with a capital H) and happiness (with a small h).

Happiness (big H) is something that runs very deep and is quite profound and long lasting; much more than its cousin, happiness (little h). Real Happiness goes by many names: tranquility, inner peace, serenity. Many other words also come to mind: calm, placidity, quiet, stillness, composure, poise, equanimity, repose, harmony, and peacefulness.

Unfortunately, people keep fooling themselves into thinking that happiness is merely feeling good. Not that feeling good is wrong or bad. It just don't happen to be the same thing as the big H. Little h happiness occurs when we can get rid of pain and suffering. Big H happiness is not the absence of conflict or pain, but rather the ability to cope with both.

B-E-S-T
Happiness is not a goal in life but is rather a by-product of something else. That something else is self control. Perhaps a good way to understand self control is in the sense of self management. Rather than let your life run you, you need to learn the skills to manage (control) your life so that you can experience it the way you want it. By controlling four specific components of your life, you can find your pathway to Happiness. These four parts are what comprise human nature. The more you can control each of these elements, the closer you are to the big H.

This is different from New Age beliefs that promise you the ability to "feel good" no matter what is happening to you. Happiness (with the big "H") doesn't rule out suffering, pain and emotional distress. What it does give you is the ability to cope during such times. It gives you the self confidence that no matter what happens, you will eventually make it through and be a stronger person for it.

These four keys to Happiness are not independent of one another. They constantly interact with and affect each other. The chain reaction that is seen with dominoes is a good way to understand your life. Imagine a set of 5 dominoes where each one represents an important aspect of control. The diagram to the left shows what this might look like.

The first domino represents everything outside of you that triggers off the second domino. This could include weather, people, health, work and any other event that you encounter in your life.

The second domino stands for your thought life. Feelings (emotions and sensations) are the third domino and the fourth is your behavior domino.

The last domino stands for any consequences that happen in the outside world as the result of your behavior. You need to know that these dominoes never change position.

The Big H type happiness occurs when all the dominoes are standing. This is difficult because the first domino, life, has a tendency to keep falling on you (did you notice the round bottom?). So many things can go wrong in life. Yet, we try to keep the dominoes standing by attempting to control the first domino. This is not possible because you have no control over life events.

No matter how hard you try to keep the life domino from falling, it will eventually fall. Every time you set the first domino up it falls again. Then all the other dominoes fall. The trick is to spend less time trying to straighten out life.

You can have the Big H when you have learned to make the second domino immovable. You want to learn how to mentally superglue the second domino to the tabletop. When you can do this by changing your thought life, then you will have Happiness because the rest of the dominoes will remain standing.

In addition to managing your thought life, you also want to learn how to manage your emotions, sensations and behavior. In The Worry Free Life, we show you, step by step how to learn these new skills and apply them to your life.

Cognitive therapy has been one of the most exciting developments in mental health in this century. By discovering that emotions are produced by thinking, psychologists have given the human race a means of finally doing something about such crippling infirmities as depression and guilt.

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Six Unhealthy Emotions

How do you deal with painful emotions? Most people just want the emotional pain to go away. This is common sense. However, did you know that some type of painful emotions can be healthy while the others are unhealthy? Unhealthy emotional pain needs to be dealt with by learning specific strategies for minimizing the impact.

Fortunately, only six human emotions are unhealthy and destructive. They might be familiar to you: depression, clinical anxiety, guilt, irrational fear, helplessness, and resentment. Learning specicfic techniques is a must for anyone who wants to live a more joy-filled life. In future blogs we will talk some more about each of these six unhealthy emotions, why they are so destructive and where they come from.

Since we all have the capacity to experience dozens (hundreds?) of emotions, most painful emotions are healthy for us. Once you eliminate the nasty six, you will find that all other emotional pain can serve a purpose in your life. You have probably known someone who has stated they have become more mature because of past emotional difficulty. They were able to experience this because healthy emotional pain does not last as long as the unhealthy variety. We are able to learn because of the healthy type, while each of the six unhealthy ones just keep us running in circles -- for years or even decades.

Learning to accept healthy emotions is the technique for managing these types of emotions. This is not easy nor automatic. When our brains are screaming at us to shut the discomfort down, we often find ourselves resorting to self-defeating behaviors to deal with an emotion that we would be better off to accept.

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