Many times in my life I’ve been sad, down in the dumps and in a funky mood for days. But never have I been as profoundly unhappy as I was when I was in college. The pity party began freshman year, when the cute senior I was seeing mysteriously stopped speaking to me. My self-esteem did a nosedive and remained in the dungeon for the next several years. I dreaded my college town’s long, freezing winters, and was angered by the racism that left most Black students isolated from the mainstream of college life. My bitterness only intensified when I was one of the few Black women on campus not invited to be on the Omega Psi Phi Bunny Court. My grudges were endless. By the time I was a senior I was counting the days until I was out of there.
The best thing I gained from that college experience was a determination to work at being happy. I still work hard at it. I’m prone to worry and sometimes forget that happiness is largely my responsibility. But I’ve come a long way since my college years. Consider the lessons I’ve learned:
Make It Your ChoiceHappy people know that to get the party started you have to intend to be happy. That means committing yourself to making happiness your choice. In their book How We Choose to Be Happy, authors Rick Foster and Greg Hicks call intention the force behind all happiness, and the “mind-set that propels us toward living as happily as we can, predisposing us to make each day as joyful as it can be.” Happy intentions can’t ward off those times when the world seems to be conspiring against us. But if we aren’t deliberately choosing to be happy, we’re subconsciously choosing something else. “Without setting our intention,” they say, “even fleeting happiness is haphazard. But once we have our intention firmly in place, happiness is purposeful–something we are creating all day long.”
Quiet Your Mind
“The mind is like a drunk monkey,” says my buddy Jackie Lewis, who runs a holistic spa and retreat in Jamaica. “It’s always flitting around, constantly chattering, spreading lies, stirring up fears, insecurities and mess from the past, and distorting our perceptions of ourselves, other people, our world.”
The mind is a prism that shapes and colors our reality, so choosing to be happy starts with choosing to think in a positive way. Happy people know this. They understand the mind’s immense power to cast our perceptions in ways that contribute to our well-being and happiness or to cast them in ways that are negative and only add to our misery. One of the most profoundly transforming lessons I learned in my personal struggle to become happy is that I can alter my perceptions of my circumstances and of the world around me by simply altering my thoughts. But that means reining them in, getting still and getting right with God. Prayer, meditation, rhythmic breathing, affirmations, yoga, vigorous exercise are all tools that we can readily access to help quiet the rumblings of an undisciplined mind. When we replace a negative outlook with a positive one, more often then not we find something to appreciate, reasons to be hopeful, an excuse to be cheered, even in the face of frustration end disappointment.
Push Past Your Pain
Terrible stuff happens. Some of us have endured unspeakable tragedy. But a mind trained to fan the embers of hope is supple and resilient rather than rigid and inflexible. When external circumstances change—and they always do–a flexible mind bends accordingly and sees past the suffering to the ray of sunshine always at the periphery. “When the mind clamps down on some kind of pain, it is so self-focused it seems that the whole world disappears,” explains my friend Sylvia Boorstein, a Buddhist teacher and author. But happy people cultivate a spirit of optimism. They are able to see that this tragedy, which may indeed be awful and unjust and seems to be the center of life, is not all that’s happening. There is always more going on. Spring will come again, the sun will rise; there is something, however small, to smile about. “Your happiness,” says Boorstein, “depends on your ability to be liberated from your small story.”
Deal With Your Issues“If you want to be happy, you have to confront the self-defeating patterns you’ve created,” says the Reverend Renita Wsems, a Spelman College professor and author. It means asking yourself, Why am I always losing friendships or getting fired? Is everyone else always wrong? What kind of energy do I give off? Facing issues you might want to avoid or flat-out deny is not fun. It takes time and courage to revisit the old childhood hurts, abuse and disappointments that are usually at the root of our grown-up problems. But vow to get a handle on your dramas about men, finances, addictions or whatever crazy-making behavior repeatedly crops up. The areas in your life that keep you in constant emotional turmoil or confusion are those crying out for healing.
Trash Negativity
You know what it is: sarcasm, cynicism, faultfinding, jealousy, bullying, bandying about gossip, the cruel words you use to belittle others and cut them down to size. Somehow, along the way many of us got the idea that being upbeat, positive and eager to see the good in situations leaves us vulnerable and puts us in harm’s way. So we use our various defense mechanisms to protect ourselves. At the heart of our need to erect walls is the fear that something bad will happen and we won’t get what we want in life. But students of happiness know that negativity is one tape in your drunk-monkey mind that you need to trash. “When you find that your immediate response to almost everything is negative,” says Rev. Weems, “hit the stop button.”
Consider It Your Birthright
As African-Americans, many of us have to work overtime to be happy. In our relationships with other women, men, our coworkers, our classmates, our children, our world, many of us are still reacting in dysfunctional ways to the pain of our slave past. “We’ve suffered major loss,” says Kwabena Brown, a relationship counselor in Washington, D.C. “There’s been a disruption of our cultural values and aesthetics.” Our group suffering is so ancient, our wounds are so intense, that there’s still much mourning and grieving to be done. Every day there are injustices that can spiritually and emotionally overwhelm us, keeping us off balance and blocking our happiness.
It’s no wonder that as Black women we’re so often angry, crabby, irritable, cynical, scowling, sarcastic and mean-spirited toward one another and ourselves. We see optimism, cheerfulness and a sunny attitude as wimpy Pollyanna behavior. It’s an erroneous belief system also rooted in our past. When it comes to working out, making money and advancing in our careers, for many of us the sky’s the limit. Yet when it comes to happiness, too many of us keep our expectations low. Don’t expect much and you won’t be disappointed, is the family motto passed from one generation to the next. “Many of us believe we don’t have a right to be happy,” says Rev. Weems. “We don’t want to get over our rage or unforgiveness. We put our pain and suffering on a pedestal and let it define us. Our pessimism and prickly attitude become the favorite garment we reach for every day.”
Given the trauma of our past, many of us may not find our way to happiness on our own. We have to have the courage to seek help from a spiritual teacher or a therapist or through some sort of positive intervention that can help us along the path. And don’t be discouraged by setbacks. Happiness can take a lifetime of living and growing and learning.
Know Your WorthAmerican culture dupes us into believing that to be happy, we must be richer, prettier, thinner, live in a bigger house, own a bigger SUV, increase our bust size, have more orgasms. We’re not good enough where we are right now, and no matter what we accomplish, we’ll never really arrive. “A consumer society is always teaching you lack,” says the Reverend Phyllis Crichlow, a minister at the Montclair Unity Church in New Jersey. “There is always the pull to get more stuff and then to use this stuff to define your being.” The good news: It’s all lies. Material goods, your dream job, your dream man, a second helping of chocolate ice cream–all of it may bring you a temporary high, momentary pleasure and feelings of joy and even ecstasy. But lasting happiness–the sense of inner peace, serenity and the hopefulness that helps you walk tall in the face of obstacles–isn’t something you can order from a Neiman Marcus catalog or pick up at a club. In fact you don’t have to find anyone or acquire or achieve anything. All you really have to do is show up and follow your heart. This makes happiness deeply personal. “For me, happiness is being in balance in body, mind, emotion and spirit,” says Brenda Wade, Ph.D., a family therapist in San Francisco. “I am happiest when I am not overloaded in any way.” To realize, once and for all, that you determine your own happiness is at least half the battle. It puts you–not your boss, your boyfriend, your parents, the weather–at the control panel. Now the real work can begin.
Nurture Your Spirit
At age 30, Phyllis Crichlow was ready to die. She was being evicted from her house. She couldn’t take care of her kids. Her boyfriend had moved on to someone else. “I felt I had failed at everything,” she recalls. She remembers being in the bathroom crying uncontrollably. “If you exist, you need to come into my life and you need to come into it now,” she entreated God. A few days later, she says she was in the process of deciding how to kill herself when she walked into a Unity Church for the first time. Her personal transformation began that day. “It was time to die and I did,” says Crichlow, who has since become a pastor. “It wasn’t until the old me died that the me of future possibilities opened up.”
Happy people value a rich spiritual life and are willing to try out different faiths and spiritual teachings to find a practice that positively supports their growth. This is more than simply finding the right church. Sisters are avid churchgoers. But even church doesn’t necessarily make us happier. “I encounter women who are always quoting the Scriptures, but they are as sarcastic and at pessimistic as women without a God,” observes Rev. Weems. “Many church women don’t believe they can have a happy future.” But Rev. Crichlow chose a different perspective. In finding a faith that works for her, she has become so involved in the business of living that she’s rarely angry or unhappy. “Now that I am aligned with the rhythm of the universe,” she says, “life unfolds without effort.”
Do It Now
As hard as it may seem, you always have a choice. You can either enshrine your disappointment, anger and frustration and do nothing. Or you can let it inspire you to take action. You don’t have to settle for unhappiness. Write a book, organize a protest, run for office, shift your energies into positive change. Get busy. Become so engaged in living that you won’t find time to feel bad. You will be happy.
Give Thanks“Life is a gift, and happy people look for what can be appeared now,” say Rick Foster and Greg Hicks. In their book How We Choose to Be Happy Foster and Hicks suggest this simple three-part exercise to help you practice the art of appreciation:1. Set a timer on five minutes and speed-write a list of everything you appreciate–from the mundane to silly things to big items such as life, loved ones special pleasures. Try to record as much you can. Who the five minutes are up, become aware of any feelings or emotions you have.
2. Next review your list and make a note beside each them. Write the name of someone you need to appreciate, people who have influenced your life, God or some higher power. Don’t forget to include your own name.
3. Finally, try to deepen your awareness of the present and write down what there is to appreciate in this moment. Retreat the entire exercise every couple of weeks.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Essence Communications, Inc.
by Diane Weathers is editor-in-chief of Essence Magazine
