Happiness is often held up as the ultimate goal of life. Get as much of it, as often as you can, and you will be living the ideal existence. Minimize discomfort, pain and sadness and maximize joy, and all will be well in your world. However, this is not only a very difficult and even unrealistic task, but also one that may be problematic.
An ideal life is not characterized by non-stop love, flowers and rainbows, with never a tear or moment of despair to disrupt the flow of happiness. Rather, it is a reality that we will have a variety of emotional experiences and moods, including everything from elation, contentment, boredom, grief, anger, and on and on. It turns out that this variety and range of emotion is the healthiest way to function. Imagine that we go to the gym and we only do one exercise, for example the bench press. This may develop one set of muscles, but we will struggle if we are challenged to do physical activity involving our other muscle groups and we may even end up hurting ourselves. Our limbic (emotional) brains are no different. A healthy, flexible, well-rounded limbic brain is one that is involved in a wide range of emotional experiences.
The normal course of events for most people is to have a variety of situations, events and occurrences in their lives that result is in many different emotional responses. Two closely related factors are involved in our emotional reactions and problems with one or both of these can disrupt our limbic function. First, the life experiences themselves may be so extreme or pervasive that we end up with a limited range of powerful emotional responses. Second, we may have some condition or mis-fire in our neurochemical system that causes an emotional imbalance. For example, overwhelming situations like accidents, assaults or disasters may produce trauma that does not resolve on its own and may override or block other emotional states. A number of deaths may lead to a family member becoming “stuck” in their sadness, a condition known as unresolved grief. People with an overly active re-uptake at their serotonin circuit may get depressed, even if there are no really negative or stressful events occurring.
So what is the key to healthy emotional functioning? Embrace the various life experiences, including the emotional reactions that accompany them. The light becomes all the brighter when we have been in the dark. Understand that most emotional states and moods are transient. In other words, they will pass. Look at your emotional state with “detached interest” and ask questions of yourself, such as: Where did that feeling come from? What can I learn from this? What can I do to manage this? Finally, if an emotional state is too intense and/or persists too long, speak to a physician, nurse or mental health professional about it. Almost all emotional problems are treatable.
So our emotional lives will have a gentle rhythm that will take us through joy, sadness and everything else in between. No emotion is to be feared, but nor should we be slaves to them. Our lives are a tapestry with different colours and textures, and together they make a complete picture.