Joy In The New Year

Well, the holidays are over, and I hope you had good ones. I’d
like to continue in the vein of my previous post and talk about finding more
joy. After all, I did write a book on the subject. (In Pursuit of Joy https://www.amazon.com/Pursuit-Joy-Gary-Green-ebook/dp/B0045Y263G
)

The first thing I want to tell you is that if you are
currently miserable much of the time, it won’t be quick or easy. However, it is
possible and well worth the effort. Going from misery to joy is a growth
process. I call it recovery. You may think you don’t have a condition from which you need to
recover. Maybe you don’t. Good for you—really. But the process is the same.
Along the way you will find that some of the things you believed all your life
are not true and some things you were skeptical of are. Try to keep an open
mind.

So, where do you start? I recommend starting with the
knowledge that humans are social beings and as such, we have social needs. One of
those needs is emotional intimacy.
That means you need at least one person in your life that you can talk about
absolutely anything with and expect to be heard with unconditional acceptance. That means they will listen with out
passing judgement on you.

So, what if you don’t have any such person in your life?
Fortunately, there are people who are paid to listen to people with unconditional
acceptance and help them sort things out. We call those people therapists. I
realize you may have had experiences with therapists in the past that led you
to believe therapy is a bunch of crap. Well, not all therapists are created
equal. You are an individual and just like not all shoes will fit your feet;
not all therapists will be a good fit for you. Try again. While I realize a
therapist is not a permanent replacement for having emotionally intimate friendships;
it is a good place to start if you don’t have any.

A good therapeutic relationship will help you figure out the
causes of your misery and develop a plan to make things better.

Maybe this is a good place to stop for today. In the next
installment I will talk more about therapeutic relationships.







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