The Real Reason We Avoid Problems Even Though It’s The Path to Happiness

Your inner demons are your best friends

Everyone is in an endless search for happiness.

Very few have found it because we don’t know exactly what it is. I can tell you what happiness is not: Pleasure

Would anyone honestly wish to live in eternal pleasure?

It would become boring, and we would all be seeking a new high just like we are now. Chasing happiness has repercussions.

The consequences of avoiding your inner demons

We avoid our emotions like we do with our bank statements.

“I can’t be broke if I don’t check my account.”

When I was in the Navy, I didn’t have access to my typical coping strategies. I couldn’t avoid my emotional “bank account”.

That’s when I felt the most depressed. That was the real me — sad, angry, embarrassed, guilty. I hated myself. This is why our society is hooked on chasing happiness.

It’s an escape from our self-hatred.

We glorify self-medication in America. Here’s a list of things we misuse as coping strategies:

• Work
• Hobbies
• Relationships

These escape mechanisms only lead us to more problems further down the road.

At some point, it will catch up to you.

We’ll waste so much time doing things to cope with our problems instead of simply addressing them head-on.

Part of the problem is that we judge people for how they feel. If you don’t pretend to be happy someone will criticize or invalidate your experience.

We live in a narcissistic society in which everything today is about “me”. If I tell someone what’s going on they very well might get triggered because they can’t even conceptualize the idea of acknowledging their feelings. Me, — Paul Trood

Chasing external pleasures will never work out in the end.

Most people aren’t living their lives, they’re just trying to escape them

It doesn’t matter how many things you accomplish: success, money, relationships, possessions.

It’s really easy to lie to yourself and pretend you’re okay with an unattractive, emotionally distant partner who ignores you. Every day you have the choice to either let resentment continue to build or address the truth.

We might work ourselves to death to avoid dealing with our troubles.

Anyone can justify 12-hour days in the pursuit of their career or providing for a family, but is that really what we want to do?

Many people think that they need to acquire new hobbies to feel happy. The common advice when dealing with a breakup or a loss is to “go do what makes you happy” or “find new hobbies”.

The classic thing people turn to is drugs and alcohol to numb themselves.

Substance abuse will never heal anything. We all know it. It’s like a deal with the devil. There’s always a greater price to pay than what it’s worth.

When that doesn’t work people drink more or abuse stronger drugs to numb themselves.

Self-help has become a drug these days.

Just meditate more, practice gratitude and radical acceptance. This doesn’t work until you address the underlying issues in your life.

You can read so many articles online about “5 ways to instantly be happy” or some such nonsense. You’ll get a momentary high from new information and think you’ll implement the information but forget about it tomorrow.

Anyone who ever tells you that achieving happiness is easy is lying to you.

It took me nearly a decade of disenchantment for me to realize the truth

I’ve been lied to for so long.

Years ago my depression was explained by the neurotransmitters not working properly. While I’m not entirely disregarding this diagnosis, I believe I know the real reason.

Knowing what I know now, most of my sadness is unresolved trauma.

The Navy “doctors” prescribed me a pill and suggested I exercise as that would solve everything or at least mitigate it.

Recently I’ve been told in therapy that I shouldn’t give so much attention to my anxious or sad thoughts — as if I wished for them.

What led me to the realization that happiness can’t be bought

In 2019, I earned a promotion at work and I had a girlfriend who loved me. I even came across a “business opportunity” (pyramid scheme called Amway) that would make me rich.

I believed that I would be happy when I was making millions in Amway.

I’ll even catch myself these days believing everything will be okay when I have a successful writing career and a job that pays well.

Even with all of these things going for me, I still felt terrible.

When I was with my ex I spent so much time trying to distract myself with junk food, porn, video games, and online shopping. Life wasn’t good enough, and I took my girlfriend for granted.

Eventually, she left me.

After that, I tried everything to numb myself from the loss. Sex, women, entertainment, alcohol, but no matter what I did the pain would come back.

After all of this, I realized that the only thing left to do was sink into how I genuinely felt. If all of the coping isn’t working, then what harm is it going to be to accept the way you feel?

In my weekly newsletter, I discuss changes you can make in your daily life to feel more at home in yourself.

You must face the inner demons if you wish to feel happier.

This includes:

• All of the things you’ve been avoiding
• Pain, guilt, regret, anger, sadness, embarrassment.
• Your current life situation

We don’t try to face our problems, because it seems like we might manifest more of them by facing the darkness.

The truth is that running from them hasn’t been working so well, am I right? Dealing with this shit is far from easy. Some days you’ll have hesitation or reluctance to sink into your emotions.

It’ll probably anger you to realize you have spent so much time trying to fix it with fleeting experiences.

There might be a lot of resistance to your feelings. This is okay as it means you’re on track to letting go.

You must fully accept your physical sensations and let them pass. I don’t know what else to tell you other than you have to do that, even if it means you haven’t cried in a decade.

There is no way you can logically work through trauma.

You can’t convince yourself you’re okay with the past. You have to feel it on an emotional level so that you can let the sensations be released.

You can try to convince yourself to forgive someone who hurt you. You can read and learn about all of the reasons they may have done the things they did, but if you haven’t processed it, it won’t matter.

You’ll still feel the same way about that person underneath everything.

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