I'm happy but I don't feel happy

"I'm happy, but I don't feel happy." Did you hear this phrase? Did you hear yourself saying it? **"What do I need to be happy?" "What else do I need?" **

We live in a time where dissatisfaction is a matter of the market. Let's think... it is necessary that we are dissatisfied and not so happy so that we go looking for what we are missing. This is well known to all advertisers, marketing graduates, etc. It is their job, and this text is not intended to be a criticism of anyone, but to help us think and establish ourselves as decision-makers. We are the ones who must receive the information and decide if that is what we need at that moment or not. (or should it be us).

• Related article: "On happiness: what is it that we all seek?"

The complexities of happiness

I share a case taken from my practice.

Consultant of 37 years, she received 3 years ago from a career that she feels that she likes a lot and in which she is successful. She has been in a relationship for 2 years, and they both have a common project of moving in together.

Recently, she received a promotion for which she worked hard, and which represents not only an economic improvement, but also a professional one. AND he asks himself "I know I'm happy, but I don't feel happy".

When we begin to investigate the root of her discomfort we can see a list of intrusive thoughts who tell him: "you got promoted, but you are not prepared enough to face it", "you need to study this", "Pedro (fictitious name of a colleague) it seems to me that she is better for that position", "out there you achieved it only because they wanted to put a woman to be in keeping with the new times, but they did not give it to you you deserved".

The root of the problem of life dissatisfaction

I wonder... How can one feel happy? Could anyone if I had those thoughts? The first thing to investigate is their origin. Are they your own thoughts, or do they come from someone else? At what moments in his life did he feel that he was not enough? What do you do when those thoughts come to you? How does it act? Do you start looking for courses and sign up for 1000 activities until you are exhausted? Does she get exhausted from the 1000 activities, and so she begins to fail to finally confirm that she was not good for the position? autoboycott constant. Acting in a loop, others tell him.

At this point we see that the logic of the market feeds on our constant dissatisfaction. There are always more courses to take, there is always something unknown, something more to know.

Several approach strategies: it is important to investigate the root of the problem, evaluate the childhood and adolescence of the person who consults to see if there are open wounds that still have an effect on the present. But it is also important to be able to give very practical strategies for day to day.

As an example, we can make lists with our negative thoughts and seek an explanation for each of them or a way to refute them with elements of reality. A list that you can always carry with you in your cell phone notes, for example, so that it works somehow as our safe object (understanding this as the object that helps us in our well-being, an object that must be momentary). The thought stopping technique (widely used in CBT) can also help us to begin to have more pleasant thoughts, and thus kinder emotions with oneself.

Yes, I am a psychoanalyst, and for the most orthodox psychoanalysts the previous paragraph is sacrilegious, but I consider that seeing a consultant suffering and having tools so that he does not do it, not giving them is as violent as playing someone who does not ask for it (psychoanalysts alert!). All the techniques and therapies that we have at hand and can help reduce daily suffering are valid as long as they are exercised by a qualified professional with knowledge of the same.